ABS

Henderson Global Investors hired Ganesh Rajendra as head of advisory and research in the firm's structured products team. He will focus on global structured debt markets, including mortgages and ABS.

Broadpoint Capital added Brian Zucker as a managing director in its debt capital markets division, the company announced today. The move is part of the New York-based firm’s larger expansion of its debt capital markets group.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said there is a risk that the financial integration process in Europe will slow down as a result of the financial and economic crisis.

Despite some divergence between figures reported by Nationwide's index and Halifax's index for March, the two indices showed that U.K. home prices are stabilizing.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) plans to introduce a new fund sector to help consumers find the right money market fund for them to invest in.

As the Obama administration continued to hammer out details of its foreclosure prevention program with major banks, the Treasury Department on Monday unveiled a coordinated plan to thwart loan modification fraud schemes that are cropping up around the country.

Last week in the mortgage market, supply continued to ramp up — averaging $4.4 billion per day on average compared with $3.4 billion the previous week.

Federal bank and thrift regulators are warning servicers the redefault rate on loan modifications where the homeowner's monthly payment is unchanged or increased is "unacceptably high." They said servicers should strive to reduce and make the payments more affordable.

Consumers that are trying to modify their mortgages are carrying, on average, about $19,000 in additional unsecured debt, and this poses a major obstacle to rewriting such loans, according to the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS).

The First Marblehead Corp. sold its ownership interest in NC Residuals Owners Trust. The Trust is the owner of the residual interests in all fifteen of the student loan lender's National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts ("NCSLT").

The Treasury Department just released added guidance for potential investors in the securities portion of the Public Private Investment Program (PPIP).

Fitch Ratings said today that workouts of defaulted commercial mortgage loans are likely to be protracted as servicers contend with balloon risk.

Guggenheim Capital Markets (GCM), a subsidiary of Guggenheim Partners, hired James

Bankers lobbied hard for relief they won from fair-value accounting rules, but few may capitalize on changes that let them mark up the value of distressed loans and securities.

SecondMarket launched markets for MBS, whole loans, and CDOs yesterday.

Fannie Mae has warned its servicers that they face a new wave of mortgage buyback requests — this time for defects on unsecured loans that were extended to delinquent mortgage borrowers.

The more exotic the securities, the better?

The CLO market has had dark clouds overhead since the credit storm began, and occasionally there have been downpours of liquidations and forced selling. As the storm lingers, market participants differ on their view of the forecast — some believe there will be another wave of liquidations, others believe the market will remain calm.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board approved major changes to its mark-to-market rules that could allow banks to reverse some of the writedowns they have taken on MBS and report an increase in earnings and capital for the first quarter.

CarMax is in the market with an auto ABS, CarMax Auto Owner Trust 2009-1.