CDOs/CLOs

aircraft ABS 1% auto ABS 11% credit card ABS 12% equipment ABS 1% real estate ABS 67% student loan ABS 8% trade receivables 0% utilities ABS 0%

A lot of talk centered around the securitization market this week, from former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's gloomy remarks about the sector, to a midweek summit that attracted more than 900 industry delegates. What spoke volumes, however, was the uptick in securitization activity from various asset classes, including a small mortgage transaction from Yale.

The Hyundai Auto Receivables Trust finally came to market last week, with key changes that boosted its ratings and lowered initial and target credit enhancement for its class A notes.

With an MBS market painfully parched from a lack of liquidity, and expected to stay that way well into next year, several large, well-known asset management firms and smaller alternative investment shops are planning to launch distressed-debt funds.

Leveraged loan market players made the optimistic prediction last week that CLOs would return to the loan market stage by January or February of 2008. The topic was one of many discussed by market participants at the 13th annual Reuters Loan Pricing Corporation Gold Sheets conference.

Market participants welcomed the ninth series of the North American Investment Grade CDX index (CDX.IG.NA series 9) last Thursday with high expectations, specifically with the addition of better quality and retail-heavy names.

With a growing number of both mortgage originators and MBS issuers crumbling amid subprime market distress, loan servicers are seeing very little new volume come their way.

Home value inflation by appraisers as a result of employment pressures from mortgage originators has long been a problematic issue for the mortgage market.

Even as the global financial markets try to stem the bleeding and lick their wounds, some in the securitization industry are predicting not only that the subprime mortgage industry will recover, but also that it will actually grow.

If one thought that a conference addressing the prospects of the subprime mortgage market would be mostly doom and gloom, one would be right.