Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, the first major bank to shutter its subprime wholesale arm in July of last year, is tip-toeing back into nonprime wholesale via FHA-insured loans, American Banker reported Friday. Like many other major lenders, Wells now sees loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration as a viable alternative to the private-party subprime [...]

Here’s some food for thought as we head into the weekend: at least one fund manager is telling the press that he’s going long on subprime mortgage-backed securities. This month. Yes, really. UK-based Thames River fund manager Ken Kinsey-Quick told Reuters this week that his firm went long on subprime MBS — Kinsey-Quick manages roughly $2.3 [...]

(Update 1: Corrected total write-down number to account for off-balance sheet write-downs) The hits keep on coming for Merrill Lynch and Co., Inc. (MER: 48.45, +1.06%), who reported Thursday morning that it had generated a net loss for the third straight quarter. The first quarter net loss amounted to $1.96 billion — that’s $2.19/share — and [...]

Traditional U.S. asset backed commercial paper programs significantly reduced exposures to collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage collateral throughout 2007 and into the first quarter of 2008, Fitch Ratings said Monday. An analysis by the rating agency found overall exposures to CDOs and residential mortgage collateral contracting at a much faster pace than the overall ABCP [...]

Insured U.S. commercial banks lost $9.97 billion trading cash and derivative instruments in the fourth quarter, down $12.3 billion from third quarter revenues of $2.3 billion, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. For the full year, the OCC reported that banks recorded $5.5 billion in trading [...]

Approximately 1,035,000 homeowners have received some form of loan workout since July 2007, according to the most recent data released by HOPE NOW Monday morning. Workouts included 758,000 repayment plans initiated and 278,000 loan modifications, the group said. Related links: HOPE NOW data through January 31 Eighteen HOPE NOW servicers, covering almost two-thirds of the mortgage industry for [...]

For all of the bashing the subprime ARM rate-freeze program has taken recently, a new report suggests that the plan may have more merit to it than many in the consumer and popular press might think. The report, published late last month by risk management and due diligence provider Clayton Holdings, Inc., challenges common perceptions and [...]