Securitization

For the week ending Sept. 10, 30-year fixed mortgage rates averaged 5.07% with an average 0.7 point, down one basis point from last week's average, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey.

Michael Nierenberg, head of global mortgages & securitized products at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, announced that Michael J. Mazzei will join the company as managing director and head of commercial real estate debt capital markets. Based in New York, Mazzei will report to Nierenberg.

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal hired Dennis M. Cariello, formerly deputy general counsel for postsecondary education and regulatory services at the U.S. Department of Education.

The Treasury Department plans to announce financial incentives for servicers to pursue short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure for troubled homeowners who do not qualify for the Obama administration's loan-modification program.

The use of knowledge qualifiers in representations and warranties by originators, sponsors and issuers of mortgage-backeds may be one of the reasons RMBS investors remain wary of the market, according to Digital Risk, Maitland, Fla.

RMBS performance is expected to continue to deteriorate into 2010 while commercial MBS woes could persist into 2010 or 2011, according to Moody's Investors Service.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Market Composite Index (MCI) increased 17% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ended Sept. 4, driven by a notable increase in refinance applications as rates fell.

The 45 Home Affordable Modification Program servicers are now on track to meet the Obama administration's initial goal of starting 500,000 trial modifications by Nov. 1, according to Treasury assistant secretary Michael Barr.

The CLO rally is not just explained by increased risk appetite but also by what has become a less threatening outlook for the sector than originally anticipated, Citigroup Global Markets analysts said in a report this week.

UBS has named Giacomo Petrobelli and Boris Okuliar as co-heads of the Europe, Middle East and Africa leverage capital markets group.

Markit announced plans to launch its commercial mortgage total return swap index, Markit TRX.NA, on Sept. 10.

Real Estate Econometrics today released its third quarter trends update and projections for the performance of commercial real estate mortgages held by depository institutions.

Along with the recent expansion of its platform to include trading in all MBS and ABS, Beacon Capital Markets appointed David Weisberger as co-CEO to work with senior management to further expand the platform's business.

First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corp. family of companies, enhanced its TrueStandings Securities. This is the firm's Web-based business intelligence platform that offers loan-level access to the industry-leading LoanPerformance securities database. LoanPerformance represents 96% of active non-agency securitized mortgages dating back to 1993.

Performance on U.S. option ARM RMBS is probably going to continue its drop as $134 billion of these loans will recast over the next two years, Fitch Ratings said in a report released today.

Default rates on CMBS could hit 6% by yearend as the recession finally takes its toll on the performance of commercial and multifamily properties, the president of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) said Tuesday.

Some agency MBS speeds seen slowing in the most recent prepayment reports may be bottoming out and could inch up slightly next time around.

H. David Sherman, a Northeastern University accounting professor who wrote a book on fair-value accounting published earlier this year, is already at work on an expanded edition. He has much to expand on, given all the pronouncements, proposals and debates on the fair-value issue that have cropped up in recent months.

FNMA prepayment speeds slowed a more than expected 16% in August versus an expected decline of 10%.

Lawmakers return from summer recess today with grand plans to overhaul the structure of financial services regulation, but they are up against a rapidly dwindling legislative calendar without a clear consensus on how to proceed.