President Obama's State of the Union address included a section on refinancing initiatives that will strike a chord with mortgage investors, a Barclays Capital report said.

Realogy Corp. plans to issue roughly $593 million of senior secured first lien notes due 2020 and around $325 million of senior secured notes due 2020 in a private placement.

With both refinancing and purchase activity lower, mortgage application activity declined 5.0% in the week ending Jan. 20.

Dutch mortgage originator Obvion yesterday announced the first Dutch RMBS of the year, Storm 2012-I.

It would cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost $100 billion to write down the principal on the underwater loans they control to current market values, according to a new estimate released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The state attorney general leading settlement talks with the country's top mortgage servicers batted down speculation Monday that a deal had been reached.

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. plans on doubling its ABS and covered bond trading and sales European unit this year, according to a Bloomberg report.

RIFCO National Auto Finance Corp. has received a new, $20 million securitization facility through Aviator Trust.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh in remarks prepared for delivery at ASF 2012 said it was hard to imagine full recovery of the financial system without the liquidity and funding avenues provided by a well functioning securitization market.

Panelists on the credit card panel at ASF 2012 said that on a relative value basis the asset class has performed well, although it has seen some recent technical dislocation.

With the whole market still unsure of when home prices will hit rock bottom, investors remain wary of the private-label RMBS market.

Although there are channels of liquidity in the securitization market such as autos and CLOs, areas of dislocation remain because of regulatory uncertainty, according to panelists at ASF 2012 being held in Las Vegas this week.