Securitization

Kazkommertsbank has bought back all the bonds in its DPR program, the bank said today on its Web site.

The Barclays Capital index team said that Federal Reserve agency MBS purchases would remain part of the aggregate index, which has various implications, according to the team.

The Fresno County Employees' Retirement Association (FCERA) has become the latest pension fund to make an allocation to Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) strategies.

Many Federal Reserve district banks are seeing an increase in home sales, according to the Fed's Beige Book.

May foreclosures marked the third straight month where the total number of foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000, according to the May 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report from RealtyTrac. Default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were reported on 321,480 U.S. properties, a decrease of 6% from April but an increase of nearly 18% from April 2008.

Jefferies & Co., the principal operating subsidiary of Jefferies Group, hired three senior professionals in the firm’s MBS/ABS sales and trading group. All will be based in Jefferies’ Chicago office and focused on serving the firm’s Midwest MBS/ABS clients.

NewOak Capital hired Shad Quraishi as vice chairman and head of business development and strategy for its integrated advisory, asset management and capital markets businesses.

Assured Guaranty expects to close its acquisition of Financial Security Assurance Holdings (FSA) on July 1, Assured and FSA parent Dexia announced yesterday.

Mortgage rates surged in the week ending June 4, reported Freddie Mac in its weekly survey. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 5.59% (with an average 0.7 point), up 30 basis points from last week.

Problems in the commercial real estate market overshadowed other signs of a recovery in financial markets, according to a Federal Reserve Board report released Wednesday.

Ronald Borod and Jonathan Black, who were recently hired as structured finance partners in DLA Piper's corporate and finance practice, are proposing a program that could supplement the government’s Public Private Investment Program (PPIP).

BTIG, an institutional broker dealer specializing in trading and related brokerage services, further expanded its global fixed income group with four new hires.

Westwood Capital and Westwood Capital Advisors hired John Ogle and Jasjit Singh to join their New York-based office as managing directors. The hires effectively expand the firm’s operations in fixed-income securities advisory, trading and management.

Barclays is offering to buy pieces of a CLO it arranged, which is managed by Lambda Finance, at a price as low as 20% of face value, according to Bloomberg.

Several top-rated CLOs managed by Invesco and Highland Capital Management saw their Aaa tranches downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service Tuesday.

National home prices tracked monthly by Integrated Asset Services LLC's IAS360 House Price Index have ceased falling and stabilized for the first time in 10 months.

After almost a year of overweighting MBS beginning in late 2008, JPMorgan Securities analysts are now recommending moving to a neutral stance on the mortgage basis. There are a number of factors to this recommendation worth considering.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday that the Obama administration will not propose empowering the Federal Reserve Board to take sole responsibility for handling systemic risk, saying that the job is too complex for just one agency.

A streak of bad news has left many observers wondering just how many hits the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle can take — and whether its business can recover.

Refinancing activity fell last week in response to higher mortgage rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association said the average contract rate for 30-year fixed rate mortgages jumped 32 basis points to 5.57%. In response, the Refinance Index declined 11.8% to 2605.7, while the refinancing share dropped to 59.4% of total applications from 62.4%. This is the lowest level for both since the latter part of November.