Finance

The government controlled Freddie Mac posted a net loss of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, blaming the performance on higher credit costs and declining interest rates, which impacted the fair value of its investment in derivatives.

Ally Financial Corp. this week announced what it calls "modest" layoffs in its correspondent lending division, but declined to specify how many workers were cut.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Wednesday afternoon said the central bank might scale up its purchases of agency MBS if conditions warrant, but not right now.

The European Union FTQ bid led to a decline in mortgage rates for the week ending Nov. 3.

Citigroup has sold a $1 billion CLO for Guggenheim Investment Management, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Banque PSA Finance will issue a €500 million ($687 million)securitization of auto loan receivables.

CIT Group launched its CIT Real Estate Finance, which will originate and underwrite senior secured real estate transactions in the Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C. areas.

The U.S. homeownership rate rose unexpectedly in the third quarter from 2Q11 as rental vacancies climbed – with new evidence suggesting that tenants are tiring of rising rents.

The CMBS delinquency rate considerably rose in October, according to Trepp. October showed delinquency rates for U.S. commercial real estate (CRE) loans in CMBS increasing 21 basis points to 9.77%.

Esoteric deals are gaining traction with drug and container ABS currently in the market.

The $2.2 billion term loan backing Kinetic Concepts' buyout was probably not the best test case for using shorter dated loans to appeal to maturing close, a banker involved with the transaction said today.

CoreLogic is now offering financial and government institutions a tool that provides them information in order to combat mortgage fraud.

Dutch mortgage originator Obvion issued price talk on it €744.3 million ($1.3 billion) Dutch RMBS dubbed STORM 2011-IV B.V.

The government owned Ally Financial posted a $210 million loss in the third quarter, dragged down by a $471 million pre-tax charge tied to its mortgage servicing rights.

Two U.K. RMBS have been announced from Paragon Group of Companies and Barclays Bank.

The list of banks suing MBIA just got smaller. Wells Fargo Bank, formerly Wachovia Bank, pulled out of three lawsuits against the insurer that challenged the New York State Insurance Department’s approval of the restructuring of MBIA Insurance Corp. into two entities.

The new-issue private label CMBS market has been taking a breather, and how long it will last depends on what happens as far as international financial concerns and other events that have roiled U.S. and world markets.

Mortgage application activity was essentially flat at +0.2% in the week ending Oct. 28, said the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Europe might be feeling great uncertainty over how to resolve its sovereign debt crisis, but its securitization market has still managed to restart.

Because of still challenging market-making conditions, Credit Suisse Group is set to either downsize or cut altogether some securitization businesses and fixed-income units.