Just a quick note to let everyone know that HW will be reporting on news and events from ASF 2008 next week — an important event for anyone in the secondary mortgage market. If you’ll be there, let me know: pjackson@housingwire.com. I’d be happy to take some time to meet. Also, as of today, HW is [...]

On the heels of rival Standard and Poor’s move to adjust its ratings assumptions, which lead to a massive downgrading of RMBS and related securities late yesterday, Fitch Ratings said Thursday that it had enhanced its U.S. RMBS default and loss model, known as ResiLogic. The new model will incorporate 25 new multipliers for specific [...]

Bank of America and Countrywide Financial said Thursday that Countrywide president and COO David Sambol will lead the combined consumer mortgage business once BofA’s planned purchase of Countrywide is complete. Sambol will continue in his current role, reporting to Countrywide chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo until completion of the transaction, which is targeted for the third [...]

In testimony delivered Thursday to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Robert Steel provided some additonal insight into how adminstration officials are looking to handle a rising number of foreclosures. Perhaps the most telling was an admission that foreclosures are likely to be a problem for at [...]

In passing its own version late Wednesday of the economic stimulus package now being considered by Congressional leaders, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-7 to include changes that would allow states to issue municipal bonds to refinance subprime mortgage loans. Under current law, state and local governments may issue bonds to finance new mortgage loans [...]

Standard & Poor’s said Wednesday that it had downgraded or placed on negative watch 6,389 classes from subprime RMBS transactions rated between the start of 2006 and June 2007. The rating agency also placed 1,953 ratings from 572 CDOs of ABS and CDOs-squared transactions on negative watch. HW broke the story on revised rating criteria for [...]

Freddie Mac said Thursday morning that 57 percent of the nation’s late-paying borrowers still don’t know their lenders may offer alternatives to help them avoid foreclosure. The results, reported in a joint survey from Roper Public Affairs and Media and Freddie Mac, show that despite a historic surge borrower defaults and a resulting crush of [...]

Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg is getting more mileage out of a formerly obscure accounting rule than any financial columnist in recent memory; his latest coup d’état revisits a SEC clarification of the so-called “Q election” used by most securitization trusts. It’s only slightly less overstated than his earlier diatribe on FAS 140 that likened its [...]

It’s enough to make you wonder when we’ll be running out of shoes: the latest shoe to drop in terms of a burgeoning mortgage-backed credit crisis was MBIA’s midnight release of fourth quarter earnings Thursday, which found the world’s largest monoline reporting a quarterly loss of $2.3 billion, or $18.63 per share — its biggest-ever [...]

Making it the third AAA-rated bond insurer to lose its top credit rating, Fitch Ratings said Wednesday that it had downgraded Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, the fourth largest monoline, to a AA rating. The two-notch downgrade comes as the guarantor failed to meet a deadline for strengthening capital, Fitch said. From the press statement: As Fitch announced [...]