Securitization

Freddie Mac reported a slight easing in fixed-related mortgage rates in the week ending April 5. The 30-year rates averaged 3.98%, down one basis point from last week; 15-year rates slipped to 3.21% from 3.23%, while 5/1 hybrid ARMs were at 2.86% from 2.90%.

Bank of America has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue an auto transaction under its Bank of America Auto Trust 2012-1. The deal is worth almost $1.8 billion.

If the new RMBS deals issued in the past week give an indication of what the non-agency market space will look like, then it is clear that only the best will do.

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) hearing panel has ruled that David Lerner Associates (DLA) charged excessive markups on CMO and municipal bond deals during a two-year period.

Non-agency MBS investors should look for bonds with smaller loan sizes in a structure that is levered to severity, said Amherst Securities Group analysts in a report today.

Since the housing crisis began in 2007, mortgage rates have currently dropped to all-time lows and home prices continue to bottom out in most markets. The big question still lingers on the mind of everyone in the industry: Are we on the road to a recovery or are there still gloomy days ahead?

Prices of homes sold by owner/occupants are rising for the first time in years and there has been modest price appreciation in January and February, according to a new CoreLogic report.

Surveys show that what Americans want most is a good job, no surprise there. Over the last few decades, the best jobs have been in the public sector and those requiring a college degree. But the productivity of a growing public sector already suffers from rising costs and diminishing returns that impede economic growth, as in Greece where public sector employment doubled in the last decade or in Spain, where youth unemployment is 50%.Even many college degrees have already passed the point of diminishing returns, as presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently inarticulately expressed. About 30% of high school grads attained a college degree during the past decade and enrollments continue to rise. But according to the Labor Department BLS forecast fewer than a quarter of all new jobs created this decade will require one. The flip side of the surplus of college educated job-seekers is the shortage of skilled workers requiring only a high school diploma, as one third of the students in public high schools don't graduate.

Oak Hill Advisors named its current Chief Operating Officer as its President.

Mortgage applications rose 4.8% in the week ending March 30 with both refinancing and purchase activity higher.

Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay civil money penalties and conduct a review of 60,300 foreclosures conducted by its former servicing subsidiary, Saxon Mortgage Services, as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Reserve Board.

Ocwen Financial Corp., which relies heavily on its overseas workforce, has decided to shutter a pair of North Texas servicing offices, laying off almost 680 mortgage workers in the process, according to a recent filing with the Texas Workforce Commission.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has priced a $526.8 million CLO to be managed by GoldenTree Asset Management, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Fitch Ratings made headlines after it published a widely reported unsolicited commentary on Credit Suisse's prime RMBS deal called CSMC Trust 2012-CIM.

Bankrupt bond insurer Ambac Assurance Corp. has filed a second suit against JPMorgan related to MBS originated by Bear Stearns, which JPMorgan absorbed during the financial crisis in 2008.

Bank of America this month will try to unload roughly $42 billion of mortgage servicing rights through two different offerings, one involving private label product, according to investors and investment bankers familiar with the bank's auction plans.The first offering, which has been labeled 'Ganesha,' involves the sale of $22 billion of Freddie Mac related MSRs. The package has roughly 18.5% of delinquencies.The second offering – which was in the market and then pulled – involves $20 billion of private label MSRs, said one source who viewed the package. This auction has been dubbed 'Puma.' It's expected the Puma package will be rebid, and possibly reduced.

Hudson Valley Holding Corp. has completed the sale of $474 million in loans after it was required to reduce its concentrations in commercial real estate and classified loans.

As a regulatory deadline rapidly approaches, big banks are becoming increasingly anxious about how they should comply with a ban on proprietary trading.

Only a single borrower is currently delinquent among the roughly 1,800 newly originated prime loans securitized in the handful of Redwood Trust private-label RMBS seen since the start of 2010, according to a Fitch report Monday.

The Treasury Department is fighting back against critics of principal reduction who claim second lien holders will unfairly benefit from a reduction in the loan balances of underwater Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac loans.