Finance

KGS-Alpha Capital Markets has expanded has boosted its CMBS trading team with the addition of Jeff Lewis, Kyla Wichser and Andrew Noonan. It has also brought on board a new chief strategist, Kamal Abdullah.

Auto-backed securitizations continue to drive issuance volumes in the consumer ABS space. Several deals were announced on Monday to kick off the week's activity.

First Marblehead experienced a net loss increase of $23.0 million from the previous year's comparable quarter.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has the expertise to set servicing, underwriting, and mortgage securitization standards that could lead to the development of a private-label MBS market, according to the GSE regulator.

Given the initial coverage, you might think that the sad story of MF Global’s demise is all about John Corzine.

Although the issue has generally divided Democrats and Republicans, Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J. received bipartisan support — as well as a nod from a key regulator — Thursday for his latest proposal to reform the housing finance market.

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Thursday dismissed a civil claim filed against Lender Processing Services (LPS) by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which accused the mortgage vendor of gross negligence in appraisals conducted for the now defunct Washington Mutual, Seattle.

Selene Finance, a specialty servicer/loan modification company controlled by Lewis Ranieri, has hired Larry Litton Jr. and a handful of top managers from Litton Loan Servicing, Houston, according to servicing executives that have done business with the firm.

Electronic trading platform for U.S. and European fixed-income bonds MarketAxess Holdings just added non-agency RMBS and CMBS to its e-trading platform.

Redwood Trust, the only firm to publicly issue Jumbo MBS the past two years, earned just $1 million in the third quarter, but its acquisition of nonconforming product in the secondary market jumped by 166%.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has priced a $405 million CLO for Sankaty Advisors, according to Bloomberg.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch filed a form S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue a CMBS under its Banc of America Merrill Lynch Commercial Mortgage Trust.

Two Harbors Investment Corp., a hybrid single-family residential mortgage REIT, recorded net GAAP earnings of $54.6 million during the third quarter when it completed a secondary stock offering and repositioned its portfolio to anticipate the HARP program change.

American Securitization Forum (ASF) Executive Director Tom Deutsch testified today before the capital markets subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee.

SLM Corp., better known as Sallie Mae, is in the market with a SLABS 144A deal from its SLM Private Education Loan Trust 2011-C.

Efforts to reinstate the $729,750 maximum loan limit for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration loans have garnered the support of 137 House members, including 25 Republicans.

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.