ABS

In his first major public appearance since becoming the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's president and chief executive, William Dudley threw his support Friday behind a dramatic idea: letting the central bank issue its own debt.

NIR Credit Partners, an alternative asset manager and advisor in structured finance and a division of NIR Group, announced the expansion of its portfolio valuation services for residential mortgage loans and MBS.

IFMR Capital and Equitas Micro Finance India have completed the first rated microfinance loan backed securitization in the country. The deal's principal amount of passthrough certificates totaled to Rs. 157 million.

The BBVA research department said that the unprecedented recession in the global economy has caused a more severe downturn in the Spanish economy than what was forecast four months ago.

Moody's Investors Service said that the U.K. nonconforming RMBS market is severely affected by the U.K. recession.

Deutsche Bank said on Friday it hired two professionals from Bank of America Merrill Lynch for its global credit trading group.

The mortgage insurance division of Genworth Financial lost $368 million in 2008 compared to a $167 million profit the year before as default claims swamped the unit.

Wells Fargo & Co., San Francisco, said it originated more mortgage loans in the first two months of this year than it did for all of the fourth quarter last year.

Fitch Ratings blamed deteriorating credit quality in SunTrust's prime mortgage portfolio for downgrading the Atlanta bank's long-term issuer default ratings.

Finacorp Securities, Irvine, Calif., has expanded its Minneapolis office and named three vice presidents to its mortgage team in an effort to bolster fixed-income securities coverage for its institutional clients: Mike Weir, Tom Sullivan and Mike Lingvall.

NewOak Capital appointed Janet Christensen as managing director of marketing, covering institutional clients such as private equities and financial institutions in New York and London.

A growing number of companies are looking to amend their covenants to give them the flexibility to avoid a default.

February conventional prepayments were much faster than expected. Prepayment speeds were projected to increase about 20%, or 4 CPR, but instead were double that: FNMA speeds were 44% higher from January and FHLMC Golds were +52%.

The House approved legislation 234 to 191 on Thursday that would let bankruptcy judges modify mortgages, but the bill's fate in the Senate remains unclear.

A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggests that the number of subprime mortgage loans terminated between 2001 and 2006 outweighed the number of estimated first-time homebuyers who sought subprime mortgages.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its 4Q08 National Delinquency Survey (NDS) yesterday and reported that the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on 1-4 unit residential properties rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.88% of all loans outstanding. This increased 89 basis points from 3Q08 and 206 basis points compared with year ago.

The ABS market welcomed the additional details disclosed on the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department announced on Tuesday.

Freddie Mac launched two new mortgage initiatives under President Obama's making home affordable plan.

A General Motors bankruptcy would have a "materially adverse impact" on GMAC Financial Services (GMACFS), according to the latter company's 10-K filing.

Home values have sunk further below mortgage balances in boom-bust states like California, Florida and Nevada, but the bigger worry now is places where prices have not yet fallen steeply, First American CoreLogic said.