Securitization

Yesterday House Representatives John Adler (D-NJ), John Campbell (R-CA), Dennis Moore (D-KS) and Gary Miller (R-CA) worked on an amendment offered by Representatives Walt Minnick (D-ID) and Melissa Bean (D-IL) to the House Financial Services Committee financial regulatory reform bill that passed the Committee unanimously.

Mortgage rates declined for the third straight week and are within five basis points of the spring record low of 4.78% on 30-year fixed rates. Meanwhile, 15-year fixed rates set a new record low this week.

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Republican leaders on the House Financial Services Committee are calling for hearings on the financial health of the ailing Federal Housing Administration (FHA) reserve fund, which recently reported a sharp drop in its capital ratio to 0.57%. Citing FHA's deteriorating financial position, Reps.

Christopher Flanagan, head of ABS research at JPMorgan Securities, is said to be joining Bank of America Corp., according to a report from Bloomberg that cited an unidentified source.

The auto ABS market has been seeing activity outside of the Term ABS Loan Facility (TALF), a departure from recent activity in the sector that was mostly focused on TALF deals.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) offered an covered bonds amendment that goes a long way to creating a more comprehensive legislative framework for covered bonds in the U.S.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said regulators worldwide should prohibit lenders from making payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages and other negative amortizing products.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has selected PIMCO as a third-party modeler to help state regulators determine the risk-based capital requirements for RMBS.

Moody's Analytics launched its Structured Finance Workstation Online, a new Web-based cash flow and valuation platform for structured finance portfolios.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced yesterday the results of November's Term ABS Loan Facility (TALF) operations supporting new and legacy CMBS.

Knight Libertas, an institutional fixed-income broker subsidiary of Knight Capital Group, has tapped Brian Yelvington to head its new bond research division.

This year mortgages have done very well courtesy of the substantial buying from the Federal Reserve.

Ambac Financial Group reported approximately $856 million in statutory capital at the end of the third quarter in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this morning.

Residential originations will decline by almost 30% next year to $1.38 trillion as rising interest rates put a crimp on new originations, according to a new forecast from Fannie Mae.

The Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Justice Department established a financial fraud task force on Tuesday.

Michael A. Carpenter, GMAC's newly installed chief executive, says his top priority is to stop its troubled mortgage unit from dragging down the rest of the $178 billion-asset company.

Following up on its extensive rating review of recent vintage CMBS, Fitch Ratings published the first in a series of U.S. CMBS performance reports aimed at delivering to investors the highest level of transparency and opinion on the transactions it rates.

Non-Term ABS Loan Facility (TALF) deals have surfaced in the ABS market, serving as evidence that there is demand for the product away from the Federal Reserve program.

Deutsche Bank hired Patrick Kaufer as a managing director in its debt capital markets (DCM) group.