ABS

There are two different recommendations regarding the common stock of PMI Group, Walnut Creek, Calif., after the company announced both a fourth quarter loss and its search for new capital.

Thornburg Mortgage, once a top ranked originator of "super jumbo" loans, said Tuesday it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has hired the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis to advise it on restructuring options.

Fitch Solutions extended the launch of its liquidity scores and percentile rankings for widely traded CDS assets to investors.

CDO shop Aladdin Capital Holdings started a film financing unit and a broker-dealer as part of an expansion effort outside of CDOs, according to a Bloomberg report.

The Bank of England (BoE) released its quarterly bulletin and said that primary sterling RMBS markets remain effectively closed, at least for publicly issued securities. In general, the bank said that it did not expect a sustained improvement in market conditions during 2009.

Just days after Congress echoed the industry's criticisms, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) moved Monday to ease rules that have resulted in massive writedowns.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced that it would significantly increase liquidity via additional repo operations, purchases of Swiss franc bonds of private borrowers, and currency interventions.It cut its interest rate in half to 0.05%..

Investors planning to tap the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) will have two extra days to apply for funds, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Friday.

Senate Democratic leaders want to pass a bankruptcy cram-down bill in the next three weeks, but it could get bottled up in the Senate Banking Committee, which has no jurisdiction over the bankruptcy code.

Morgan Stampfl is looking for two mortgage finance associates with an investment banking background. Applicants with an MBA are preferred.

Sallie Mae was in the market with a 144A student loan ABS. The deal is called SLM Student Loan Trust 2009-A, according to the ASR Scorecard database.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has made plans to temporarily tighten its rules on FHA cash-out refinancings due to falling house prices and rising defaults on refis.

Bond insurer Financial Security Assurance (FSA) last week reported a fourth-quarter 2008 net loss of $476 million, compared to a net loss of $89.3 million for the same quarter in 2007.

The payment option ARM market — once a $300 billion a year business — appears to be nearly dead.

The American Securitization Forum has extended the deadline for responses to a recent request for comment relative to certain portions of its Project on Residential Securitization Transparency and Reporting (Project RESTART) .

Fitch Ratings expects that in the near to medium term, retail will represent a growing proportion of overall defaults in the CMBS sector.

U.K. pub operator Globe Pub Co., controlled by property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz, announced it would breach its securitization covenants.

Barclays Capital analysts said that the European ABS market faces a number of serious challenges from technical, fundamental as well as structural factors.

The French securities regulator Autorite Des Marches Financiers' (AMF) proposed guidelines on the definition of a French money market fund (MMF) to promote transparency and consistency within the €510 billion ($664 billion) French MMF industry, and also placing a greater emphasis on asset credit risk.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank ramped up its purchase of GSE MBS the past two weeks due to an increase in refinancings and agency issuance of MBS.