RMBS

Latin America's two largest markets - Brazil and Mexico - will present ABS players with different sets of risks and opportunities next year.

Russia, Turkey and neighboring emerging markets saw only scattered ABS issuance last year, and that largely depended on support from government-linked institutions, development banks or regular bank funding. Bond investors were mostly absent.

While 2010 was an all-out scramble by Democratic leaders to harness outrage over the financial crisis to push regulatory reform over the finish line, the legislative outlook for this year is quite different.

Federal regulators reminded banks Thursday to include new data on noninterest-bearing deposits and reverse mortgages among other additions to their fourth-quarter call reports.

With the administration's blueprint for overhauling the GSEs due in January, Barclays Capital has offered its own vision.

If Ally Financial can make peace with Fannie Mae, maybe other lenders can too.

The National Association of Realtors' (NAR) gauge of future home sales rose 3.5% in November after a 9.2% jump in October.

After decreasing last week, fixed related mortgage rates moved higher for the week ending Dec. 30. According to Freddie Mac's survey, 30-year fixed mortgage rates jumped five basis points to 4.86% with an average 0.8 point.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has expelled APS Financial Corp., Austin, Texas, and barred its former president and its former broker from the industry in connection with an alleged scheme involving an elderly investor and markups on CMOs as well as other types of securities.

Heading into 2010, the mortgage market was looking at the Federal Reserve winding down its purchases of agency MBS with spreads projected to widen and yields/interest rates to rise as a result. Meanwhile, technicals were expected to deteriorate to some extent with the removal of such a large buyer.