Finance

The Federal Reserve could see 20% of its $1.11 trillion portfolio of agency MBS run off due to refinancings and other prepayments by July 2011, according to mortgage strategists at Credit Suisse.

While the call for the creation of a catastrophic insurance fund for MBS has been gaining ground in recent weeks, two leading Federal Reserve Board economists are poised to push the concept one step further, suggesting a backstop for all ABS.

European CMBS loan defaults have continued to increase with 10 loans that defaulted in Q210, bringing the total at the end of the quarter to 8.7%.

As part of its disposal of U.S. consumer banking businesses, HSBC Holdings is shopping HSBC Mortgage Corp. around. As with many yard sale offerings, the property's attractiveness is up for debate.

Starwood Vacation Ownership (SVO) has just priced a $280,000 deal backed by vacation ownership loans related to 17 SVO properties that are located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Orlando, FL., and Scottsdale, Arizona, among others.

Barclays Capital analysts turned to overweight from underweight on the agency MBS basis.

A bankruptcy court approved General Growth Properties’ (GGP) disclosure statement, bringing the shopping mall owner closer to emerging from bankruptcy.

State Street Corp. made enhancements to its risk analytics and servicing tools for institutional buyers.

In 2Q10, CLO obligor concentration risk decreased slightly in outstanding Standard & Poor's-rated U.S. cash flow deals, the agency said in a recent report.

All homeowners current on their mortgages need to be refinanced into a mortgage with a 4.5% interest rate to help the economy, said Ted Jones, the chief economist at Stewart Title.

The Federal Reserve Board, the sole bank holding company regulator for decades, is about to experience a pretty new concept: a teammate.

Mayer Brown appointed Dominic Griffiths as the new head of the banking and finance group in London.

CMBS has been seeing some activity lately. For instance, Starwood Property Trust announced yesterday that it came to market with a CMBS deal that generated non-recourse match funded financing for the firm with an effective cost of funds of around 3.5%.

New industry research confirms what servicers and loss mitigation specialists have been saying in recent months: demand for short sales is going through the roof.

Today the Federal Reserve Bank of New York bought $3.609 billion in Treasury debt maturing from 2016 to 2020, published reports said.

The average 30-year fixed rate during the week ending Aug. 19 once again dropped to another low as it has continued to fall at a pace that could theoretically benefit even borrowers who got loans relatively recently.

Structured settlement ABS have certain inherent risks setting them apart from other structured finance assets, according to a report from Standard & Poor's updating its criteria for the sector.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland have weighed in on the long-running debate over whether to let bankruptcy judges modify home mortgages, saying evidence suggests the strategy helped stem farm foreclosures in the 1980s.

After the mortgage securitization market shut down and the Treasury Department put the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship in 2008, the Treasury issued a white paper suggesting covered bonds as an alternative. The administration and Congress are currently working on enabling legislation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is conducting an insider trading investigation of General Growth Partners (GGP). The bankrupt shopping mall owner also disclosed that it is receiving equity investment from The Blackstone Group.