Securitization

DBRS has created the position of chief credit officer, Canadian structured finance and appointed Jerry Marriott to this role as of Dec. 1.

Confidence surveys suggest consumer borrowing might be stabilizing as the economy shows signs of recovery, but it remains unlikely to increase in the short run, according to a Moody's Analytics conference call on the outlook for consumer finance.

The Bank of Ireland announced the results of its tender offers targeting all outstanding tranches of the RMBS issued by Kildare Securities Ltd. and Brunel Residential Mortgage Securitization No.1 PLC.

As derivatives regulators hurry to implement key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, they face continuing questions over a firm that failed well after last year's passage of the law.

Toronto-Dominion Bank made an extra payout of $70 million to the previous owners of Chrysler Financial last quarter under an agreement to raise the price of the deal if the auto lender's assets perform better than expected.

Analysts anticipate little fallout from Standard & Poor's downgrade of Assured Guaranty.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is considering raising insurance premiums on loans above $625,500, according to HUD secretary Shaun Donovan.

For several months Fannie Mae has insisted that it's not in the servicing business, but a recent 10-Q filing by the government-owned GSE reveals that it agreed to buy $74 billion of MSRs from Bank of America in the third quarter. No purchase price was disclosed.

New York Mortgage Trust (NYMT) said it plans to use the net proceeds from its recently priced common stock public offering to acquire certain of the company's target assets, including multifamily CMBS.

Further restrictions on new bank funding mean that the majority of European CMBS loans are still failing to repay at maturity, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Massachusetts on Thursday sued the nation's five largest residential servicers, alleging their foreclosure practices were unlawful and deceptive.

Standard & Poor's has assigned preliminary credit ratings to the series 2011-1 class A and B notes and the series 2011-2 class A notes issued under the principal-at-risk variable-rate note program Atlas VI Capital Ltd.

JG Wentworth is in the market with a $198 million structured settlement securitization.

CMBS data provider Trepp just released its November 2011 U.S. CMBS Delinquency Report today.

For the week ending Dec. 1, mortgage rates were little changed as reported by Freddie Mac's weekly survey.

Freddie Mac announced it has ordered all evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family and 2 to 4 unit properties that had Freddie Mac mortgages to be suspended from December 19, 2011 to January 2, 2012.

Early outlooks for 2012 suggested net organic supply at around $10 billion with an added volume of more than $78 billion coming from paydowns/sales from the GSE and U.S. Treasury portfolios.

The auto ABS market survived the financial crisis relatively unscathed.

Bloomberg recently reported that a number of dealers expect the Fed to initiate a new round of MBS purchases, with the goal of pushing mortgage rates lower and giving a boost to the still-sickly housing market. The idea of more MBS purchases raises a host of critical issues, particularly with respect to an exit strategy. (An investor who holds more than $1 trillion of an asset class effectively becomes the market.) Nonetheless, I believe that a well-conceived program can positively impact mortgage rates and housing.

With the macroeconomic uncertainty and headline risk still driving the securitization markets as 2012 comes to an end, it is no wonder that investors are looking for assurance before they sail through the uncharted waters of structured investments.