RMBS

A ruling issued yesterday by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied class certification in an MBS law suit.

Quality-wise originations after the downturn are generally said to be relatively good credits, but beyond that let’s take a closer look at what could shape the 2011 vintage this year.

Standard & Poor's put 1,981 structured finance tranches in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on creditwatch negative yesterday as a result of the revision of its counterparty criteria.

Refinancing activity rose for the third straight week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

South Korean cross-border issuance of ABS will be spurred along by two developments in 2011, according to a report on structured finance in ex-Japan Asia by Moody’s Investors Service. One is the maturity of several credit-card and auto loan deals this year. The other is the arrival of potential new originators among credit card businesses freshly spun off by banks.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair warned Wednesday that regulators must add new servicing standards to a pending risk retention rule to ensure there is not a double dip in the U.S. housing market.

Section 946 Dodd-Frank Act requires the Financial Stability Oversight Council's (FSOC) chairman, who is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to issue a study on the act’s risk retention requirements within 180 days of its enactment.

U.S. banks exported billions of dollars of MBS losses to their peers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe before the housing collapse. Now those overseas institutions may join the effort to put back some of the losses.

The overall economy has moved from a fragile recovery to firmer, less volatile growth, but the housing market is not expected to grow accordingly until 2012, according to the latest Fannie Mae economic outlook.

Citigroup reported single-family mortgage originations of $21.8 billion in the fourth quarter, up 17% from the prior period.