Finance

The 30-year fixed mortgage rates declined five basis points to an average of 4.32% with an average 0.8 point in the week ending Sept. 30, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey.

Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has issued an order partly denying WaMu's motions to dismiss Boilermakers National Annuity Trust Fund's securities act claims.

More U.S. servicers are likely to take JPMorgan Chase's and GMAC's lead to halt foreclosure proceeding in the face of increased scrutiny over their foreclosure process.

JPMorgan Chase said Wednesday that it is halting 56,000 foreclosures in process, pending a review of whether employees properly signed and verified information in foreclosure documents.

An early draft of a stop-gap funding resolution shows that Congress is headed toward passing a nine-month extension of the maximum $729,750 loan limit for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans in high-cost areas.

BTIG, a broker-dealer partly owned by Goldman Sachs, is pushing into new markets by helping fixed-income investors buy and sell securities in developing countries, which some observers say have matured and now more closely resemble their trading partners in the Group of 7.

While Federal Reserve officials are not ruling out future MBS purchases, there are some good reasons why they decided in August to reinvest principal payments into Treasurys instead, and that may play into any quantitative easing plans going forward.

Mortgage bankers are making money hand-over-fist on their new originations these days, and profit margins continue to be fat thanks to a low cost of funds and the ability to heap on all sorts of fees.

The foreclosure process implemented by U.S. mortgage servicers might stall foreclosures in some states and lead to increased RMBS loss severities, according to Fitch Ratings.

Despite mortgage rates setting new record lows, refinancing activity declined in the week ending Sept. 24 by 1.6% to ~4287 — its fourth dip in as many weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Commercial lender CIT Group named Vincent Faino as senior vice president of business development for its vendor finance division.

Approximately $39 billion of CMBS conduit loans out of a projected $66 billion of CMBS are set to mature in 2011, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said in a research note today.

The Treasury Department singled out the three largest banks — Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. — for failing to properly solicit and consider homeowners for the government's loan modification program.

Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D., Calif.) plans to introduce a blanket modification effort for GSE loans that could see as many as 30 million U.S. mortgage borrowers refinance their mortgages at record low interest rates.

Yesterday Moody's Investors Service placed the ratings of 319 RMBS tranches of 114 deals serviced by GMAC on review for possible downgrade as a result of specific servicing concerns.

Home prices have risen for four straight months, but the rate of growth has slowed, according to new figures tracked through the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller house price index.

Besides imposing a 5% risk retention requirement on securitizations by banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) also spelled out new standards that are particularly tough and aimed solely at issuers of RMBS.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) unexpectedly delayed the release of an interim rule to create a resolution system for the largest, most-connected banks and nonbanks, saying it needed to consult with other regulators first.

Moody’s Investors Service has assigned provisional ratings to Ford Credit Floorplan Master Owner Trust A, Series 2010-5.

A new Italian law that requires stricter controls on brokers as well as more transparency in loan origination will benefit Italian ABS backed by consumer loans, said analysts at Moody's Investors Service.