Consumer ABS

Raymond James Financial announced Wednesday that it has reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and state regulators under which it will buy back about $300 million of illiquid auction-rate securities from retail customers.

Although the consumer ABS market is 3.7% ahead of its 2010 pace at the midyear point with $55.6 billion of new consumer ABS issued in 1 H11, several macroeconomic factors continue to plague the sector, according to a Wells Fargo Securities report released yesterday.

UCM Partners has launched the UCM MIDAS Fund, with $10 million in assets under management.

Angel Oak Capital Advisors has launched its Angel Oak Multi Strategy Income Fund to invest in ABS.

The June ABX remittance report showed that while loss severities and delinquency rates are improving, CDRs and modification rates saw a slight increase, as reported by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts.

Last month’s record-breaking U.S. used auto prices will help improve existing auto lease ABS, but will hurt future auto lease securitizations, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service.

Fraudsters that previously focused on breaking into new accounts are now putting more attention on cracking the security barriers of older card accounts, causing the incidence of such crimes to rise, according to Experian PLC.

A recent Barclays Capital report highlighted the slowdown of the private credit student loan ABS market where issuance has dropped 60% from the same time last year. The only two ABS deals to price since mid-July were from this year totaling $1.4 billion.

Ford Credit is currently marketing Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2011-A (FCALT 2011-A). Joint lead managers on the transaction are Deustche Bank Securities, JPMorgan Securities, and Morgan Stanley.

Moody’s Investor Service announced on Monday that it intends to review 34 classes of Capital One Bank credit card ABS for potential downgrade. The securities were issued out of the Capital One Multi-Asset Execution Trust (COMET).