Securitization

Ford’s Motor Co.’s return to investment grade status is a milestone for the auto industry, even if it has emerged from the credit crisis and recession in much better shape than its peers.

Moody’s Investors Service Thursday issued a negative report on the bond insurance industry.

It appears that higher premiums are starting to have a profound effect on the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) “streamline” refinancing program.

MetLife Thursday afternoon said it will exit the reverse lending business — where it ranks among the top five producers — selling the division to Nationstar Mortgage of Texas.

Corporate fleet-lease ABS year-to-date issuance this year is at $1.3 billion, according to Standard & Poor's analysts in an emailed note released this morning.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just announced that it has sold the entirety of the MAX CDO holdings from its Maiden Lane III LLC (ML III) portfolio to Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank Securities following a competitive bid process.

Residential Capital Corp./GMAC earned $217 million in the first quarter, but its residential originations plummeted by 53%, as the near-closing of its correspondent division weighed heavily.

The 30- and 15-year fixed mortgage rates eased back to within one basis point of their record lows to 3.88% and 3.12%, respectively, in the week ending April 26 said Freddie Mac.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said Wednesday that the central bank will maintain its reinvestments of principal payments from agency MBS and debt holdings into new agency MBS.

A deal under a new catastrophe bond program called Mythen Ltd. is in the market. Moody's Investors Service has assigned preliminary ratings to three classes of the Series 2012-1 notes.

Fannie Mae is directing servicers to expedite short sale deals and improve transparency on these reviews.

Price guidance was issued this week for the three-year notes in Leofric 1, which is the debut RMBS from Coventry Building Society.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is supporting a Senate bill to streamline the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP) relieving lenders of repurchase risk when they refinance underwater GSE borrowers.

Morgan Stanley priced a $622 million CLO for Oak Hill Advisors, according to a person familiar with the transaction.

The potential interest rate increase affecting new student loans originated via the government direct lending program will not affect existing FFELP SLABS deals, according to an emailed note from Standard & Poor's this morning.

When most major banks reach the end of the road in their efforts to collect on defaulted credit card accounts, they often sell rights to the soured loans to debt collectors for pennies on the dollar. Those pennies can add up to tens of millions in dollars in revenue for a large card issuer, but American Express (Amex) and USAA have long left that money on the table.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late Tuesday reached a settlement with H&R Block subsidiary Option One Mortgage Corp. (OOMC), over charges that the now-defunct subprime lender misled investors that bought some of the firm’s MBS.

The CMBS new-issue pipeline is still growing. This week adds a new $1.4 billion single-loan deal backed by the Ala Moana Center mall in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The national delinquency rate continued its downward slide in 2012, falling to just over 7% at March 31, down 6% from the month prior, according to new figures compiled by Lender Processing Services (LPS) for its First Look Mortgage Monitor report.

After coming to grips with the dimensions of two critically important and related mortgage rules, federal regulators have decided that one should be finalized before the other: the qualified mortgage (QM) test.As result, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will go first and finalize the QM rule, ultimately determining which loans are safe enough for consumers while shielding lenders from litigation provided they adhere to predetermined underwriting standards.