Securitization

Auto sector is heating up once again with two deals from AmeriCredit Financial Services and American Honda Finance Corp.

Investors have proven slow to return to the European securitization market. The limited appetite has been matched by a lackluster amount of securitization supply that market analysts said has created an imbalance in secondary and primary securitization pricing.

Formulating the rules to implement the Dodd-Frank Act has proven to be challenging. Regulators both missed and moved deadlines to accomplish this monumental task.

Two years ago, Shariah-compliant bonds, or sukuk, began facing the first major test of their structures. The global crisis, paired with overinvestment in the Gulf Region, conspired to trigger a number of defaults that some observers believed would prompt investors to drill deeper into deals, and possibly favor those that were true securitizations.

As 2011 MBS outlooks were being formulated, mortgage rate levels were much lower. This lead to expectations of increased paydowns from the Federal Reserve, theU.S Treasury and the GSEs as a result of the elevated prepayment speeds.

New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland don't get much attention for their middle-of-the-pack foreclosure rates. But CoreLogic said these three states have the highest levels of distressed homes that are not yet listed for sale but make up the shadow inventory.

The outcome of the negotiations between servicers, the group of state Attorneys General and the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is extremely important to the future of housing and mortgage lending. The initial documents and press reports, unfortunately, are not encouraging. The proposed Settlement Terms released by the AGs in early March, combined with press reports of enormous fines being sought as part of any settlement, lead to the conclusion that the state and federal governments are together using the scandals arising from the servicing mess as a pretext to redistribute money from banks and investors to homeowners. Aside from issues of fairness, due process and execution, these discussions have enormous ramifications for the future of the mortgage industry and the housing market, particularly in light of the uncertain future of the GSEs.

The FDIC held a meeting March 29 to discuss its risk retention rules and the much debated QRM qualification.

Two and a half years after the global financial markets imploded, the dust has begun to settle, providing a clearer view on which sectors of the securitization market will thrive-and which won't.

Despite recent reports of people changes at some of Wall Street's biggest players in the securitization market, finding work, even for experienced hands, is still no easy task.

After the Japanese crisis, CMBS secondary market activity was the most impacted versus all other securitization sectors, experts said.

For 1Q11, U.S. public ABS issuance reached $13.62 billion, according to preliminary figures from the ASR Scorecards database. This is an increase from a year ago when industry volumes reached only $9.4 billion

As the structured finance market struggles to make sense of myriad new rules stemming from the Dodd-Frank Act, it's become clear that rating agency reform initiatives from the regulators have largely been put on hold.

Ally Financial has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering to sell common stock held by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Fitch Ratings said today that enhancements it continues to make to its rating criteria for structured finance and covered bonds will have less of an effect on ratings for existing and new transactions.

Mortgage rates crept higher for the second week in a row and, while still historically attractive, will likely have some adverse impact on mortgage application activity.

Certain effects of the economic downturn have begun to ease, but one recession-hatched trend persists: Cash-strapped consumers continue to show a preference for paying their credit card bills over their mortgages, TransUnion said.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia issued a new AUD1 billion ($1.03 billion) prime RMBS from its Medallion trust series.

Top Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee clashed with Elizabeth Warren, who is leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) creation, over her role in the mortgage servicer settlement.

The New York City Comptroller's office, representing pension funds that own shares in Bank of America Corp., wants the bank's board to review the company's controls for loan modifications, foreclosures and securitizations.