ABS

Investors requested $2.28 billion in loans under the latest subscription deadline for the Federal Reserve’s legacy CMBS Term ABS Loan Facility (TALF), expanding from the muted $668.9 million in bids during the first round of financing on July 16.

The new Federal Housing Administration (FHA) commissioner said the suspension of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker should send a clear message to the mortgage industry that FHA will not do business with lenders that don't play by the rules.

Morgan Stanley will hire up to 400 sales and trading executives after cutting too much during the credit bust, according to the Wall Street Journal. The New York-based investment bank is in a quest to build out its fixed income group, in addition to others.

CLO managers are starting to see the positive side affects of the recent rally in the leveraged loan market, as various CLO fundamentals improve. A somewhat surprising phenomenon, considering the market continues to face rising defaults and a still sluggish economy.

Existing home sales increased 7.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted 5.24 million-unit rate, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced this morning. This was the first time in five years that sales rose four straight months.

Ambac Financial Services faces an uphill battle in convincing a court that the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) shorted it by $50 million on swap termination payments, securities lawyers and swap advisers said this week.

Fitch Ratings has published its criteria for rating resecuritizations of U.S. RMBS. The rating agency uses this criteria for analyzing new issue securities backed by individual or

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analysts said that, as expected the Advanta Business Card Master Trust experienced a considerable dip in its net default rate (from 60.81% in June to 23.68% in July).

Although delinquencies for residential properties continued to climb in the second quarter of 2009, the rate of new foreclosures started was essentially unchanged from last quarter's record high, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) national delinquency survey.

Jefferies has hired a former Merrill Lynch managing director to run its European credit sales and trading business, the firm said today.

Standard & Poor's is requesting feedback on a potential new product that provides market participants with a tool to analyze projected recoveries on structured finance securities.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) took an $8.6 million loss for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008 as the mortgage crisis took its toll on MBA members and the trade group's revenues fell by 31% to $39.4 million.

In a statement, Moody’s Investor Service's said that the proposed legislation for a U.S. covered bond law does not address the liquidation risk that exists in the current U.S. covered bond programs or contain any alternatives.

Last month, the volume of private-label securitized mortgages that were liquidated through foreclosure was nearly as high as the amount that defaulted for the first time, according to Amherst Securities Group.

The Department of Education’s Straight-A Funding added another Funding Note Issuer (FNI), increasing its authorized amount by $719 million of commercial paper.

BB&T has acquired all of the mortgage warehouse assets from the failed Colonial Bank, except for those associated with Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, a spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

Interest rate volatility has had a large effect on the refinance component of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Market Composite Index (MCI) in recent weeks.

The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have extended the Term ABS Loan Facility (TALF) for newly issued ABS and legacy CMBS until March 31, 2010 and, if needed, might consider further extensions.

Maguire Properties’, a major office REIT focused in Southern California, plan to walk away from seven properties with mortgage debt, including six in CMBS deals, highlights a growing trend in the sector, Barclays Capital analysts said.

James Lockhart, the outgoing director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), will join WL Ross & Co. next month as its vice chairman, the private-equity giant said Wednesday.