ABS

JPMorgan’s head of credit trading for North America is leaving his position, according to several reports. Eric Rosen will step down from his role but may take another with the bank.

Moody's Investors Service assigned definitive ratings to the notes to be issued by Navistar Financial Dealer Note Master Owner Trust Series 2009-1 or NAVMT 2009-1, which is the first series of dealer floorplan notes to be issued by Navistar Financial Corp. since 2005.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that the central bank will continue to support the mortgage market while bank lending remains constrained.

With nobody looking over its shoulder, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has been "very vigilant" in not resetting area median home prices to their current levels, a National Association of Realtors' (NAR) lobbyist said at the group's convention in San Diego.Noting that the agency is using 2006-level prices to set loan limits for individual markets, Megan Booth, an NAR senior policy representative, told a convention session that the "dramatic drop in house prices" over the last three years would result in lower loan limits in numerous places. With the conforming loan limit remaining at $417,000 for another year — and $729,750 in high-cost areas — the ceilings on loans that can be insured by the FHA also will not change in 2010 unless the agency recalculates the median prices for the nation's 3,300-plus counties.But Booth indicated the government fears any decline in the limits would rock local housing markets. NAR, meanwhile, will use the next 12 months to push to make the 2010 limits permanent. "No. 1 on our agenda is liquidity," said the group's new president, Vicki Cox Golder, a Tucson land broker. "Without funding, we can't get people into homes."

Brazos Student Finance Corp. wants to be the first student loan lender to ask institutional investors to voluntarily tender, at a discount, illiquid auction-rate securities (ARS) in exchange for new floating-rate notes, about a year after a much larger and more complex offer failed.

SJ Berwin promoted associate Vanessa Therrode to partner and head of its structured finance practice.

Credit Logement, the largest French provider of mutual guarantees on residential loans, said it would not exercise the calls on the first callable dates of two of its outstanding series — FRES 2004-2 and FRES 2005-1 series — that will happen on Dec. 21 and 27, respectively.

Advisory service firm AgFe, set up by former Morgan Stanley employees, is looking to place a €820 million ($1.38 million) bid list on behalf of either the European Central Bank (ECB) or the Bundesbank, according to market reports.

Standard & Poor's European CLO performance index report for September shows that all of the CLO cohorts except 2006 experienced an increase in the percentage of assets rated in the 'CCC' category — 'CCC+', 'CCC', or 'CCC-'.

Nomura Securities International joined as a liquidity provider for Tradeweb's leading online dealer-to-client TBA-MBS marketplace.

Financial industry representatives are scrambling to find a strategy for responding to the massive regulatory reform bill the Senate Banking Committee aims to pass by early December.

Effective immediately, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will no longer require two appraisals on higher-balance loans for properties located in declining markets.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded bond insurer Assured Guaranty Corp. (AGC) one notch to 'Aa3' from 'Aa2' late Thursday, but Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. (AG Municipal) formerly Financial Security Assurance, retained its 'Aa3' rating.

After much turmoil since the onset of the financial meltdown, Moody's Investors Service believes there may finally be a light at the end of the tunnel for the beleaguered American International Group (AIG).

Fannie Mae completed 56,816 loan modifications during the first nine months of the year with 46% involving mortgages with current loan-to-value ratios greater than 100%.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded 119 bonds in 85 RMBS transactions to 'D,' saying the securities have suffered writedowns on the underlying principal.

Mortgage banking firms are now servicing a record $843 billion in GNMA securities, a 46% spike from a year ago, reflecting the increasing popularity of both the Federal Housing Administration and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs loan programs.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) yesterday morning issued an interim rule to extend to March 31, 2010 the safe harbor rule related to its treatment as conservator or receiver of financial assets transferred by an insured depository institution in connection with a securitization.

Freddie Mac said the conforming loan limits on the mortgages its purchases from lenders will not change in 2010.

Faced with dwindling reserves at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)Secretary Shaun Donovan said he is "actively looking" at increasing the government mortgage insurance program's premiums and down-payment requirements.