Moody's Investors Service has pointed out in a report released late yesterday that the overall level of credit risk in the structured market is inching up. The rating agency predicted that the easing of credit that happened in 2011 will continue into 2012 and beyond.

Mortgage bankers funded roughly $41 billion of Jumbo loans in 4Q11, a 28% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by ASR sister publication National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

The week revolved primarily around Tuesday's one-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting. For one that was expected to be relatively uneventful, it turned out to have anything but in terms of the markets' response.

The $25 billion national mortgage settlement essentially allows the five largest servicers to police themselves — which has made many consumer advocates surprisingly happy.

A federal judge indicated yesterday he plans to reject Goldman Sachs' motion to dismiss National Credit Union Administration 's (NCUA) suit and continue the case challenging the Wall Street bank over $1.1 billion of faulty RMBS it sold to U.S. Central Federal Credit Union and WesCorp Federal Credit Union, the two biggest credit union failures ever.

Bond-insurer Assured Guaranty Corp. has sued JPMorgan over MBS that Assured says JPMorgan misrepresented.

Reuters news service is reporting that bond insurer MBIA has reached settlements in its lawsuit against the London branch of UBS.

Management at Ally Financial Corp. is considering throwing part of its mortgage division into bankruptcy and then executing a sale of most of its “good” assets, investment banking sources said late Thursday.

Jones Day hired Ilene Froom as a partner in the banking and finance practice based in New York. She previously worked at JPMorgan Chase Bank where she was executive director and assistant general counsel.

Opportunities in the structured finance practice were among the motivators for Hogan Lovells to open an office in Rio de Janeiro, according to Emil Arca, a partner at the firm.

Citigroup has sold a $360.8 million CLO for Babson Capital Management, according to people with knowledge of the deal.