Finance

It was business as usual for the financial markets after Hurricane Irene lashed out less destruction than was originally anticipated this past weekend.

In a rare public rebuke of a rogue attorney general by his colleagues has highlighted the dysfunction among the state AGs and raised doubts about their ability to strike a settlement deal with the largest mortgage servicers.

CIT Group closed a new $2 billion revolving credit facility with a bank syndicate.

A U.S. Appeals Court upheld a lower court ruling rejecting claims by FICO that a new credit score developed by credit bureaus Experian, Equifax and TransUnion infringed on its trademark and ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel a FICO trademark.

Although residential origination volumes swooned in the second quarter, commercial mortgage production picked up nicely at many firms.

A U.S. District Court judge in Oregon issued a pair of rulings in favor of Merscorp subsidiary Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), but it remains unclear how those rulings will impact MERS' appeal of a third case where a second federal judge vacated an Oregon borrower's nonjudicial foreclosure.

Italian bank UniCredit SpA yesterday priced its €1 billion, 10-year covered bond at 215 basis points over midswaps, according to Dow Jones report.

ABS investors have concluded, according to a report released by Barclays Capital analysts today, that regardless of a rating action or lack thereof by Standard & Poor's, the FFELP student loan asset class is still fundamentally strong.

Investors looking to block the $8.5 billion settlement of claims related to losses on Bank of America MBS have moved the case to federal court, a Reuters report indicated.

The August remittance reports showed default rates at 9.4, 9.7, 10.5, and 11.0% CDR for the 06-1 through 07-2 indices. These, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts, represent changes of -0.5, -1.5, -0.7, and +0.3 points, respectively.

There is an increased likelihood of a government action to spur refinancings, JPMorgan Securities analysts noted in a report released yesterday.

3Point Asset Management, Irvine, Calif., has hired Ron Millar as AVP in charge of sales and trading.

The outlook for U.S. CMBS is set to look a lot less hefty in the next year as the number of loans coming due will drop by 40%, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Warren Buffett's $5 billion public vote of confidence in Bank of America, happily for him, does not require actual confidence. The terms of the legendary investor's deal, which grants Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway $5 billion in perpetual preferred stock and warrants to buy BofA stock at just over $7 a share, include no lockup period.

Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is pressing the GSE regulator to adopt several changes to the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP), allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance more underwater borrowers.

Echoing views from a previous article published by ASR, Moody's Investor Service said today that performance has stayed strong across all U.S. auto loan ABS types since mid-2009.

Freddie Mac purchased $21.7 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in July, its worst acquisition month of the year and only about half of what it bought in January.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is being inundated by member complaints about the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) policy decision to extend the forbearance period for unemployed homeowners to 12 months.

A roughly seven basis point increase in 30-year weekly rates and gains in bond yields from recent record lows could dampen refinancing applications a bit unless they motivate a significant group of fence-sitting borrowers to act.

JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have reportedly made final bids to purchase $4.52 billion of performing loans from Anglo Irish Bank Corp.’s $9.65 billion portfolio of U.S. commercial real estate, according to a Bloomberg report.