Tag Archives: MBS

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke underscored benefits of the Fed's quantitative easing policy while also pointing to associated costs and risks in his written testimony to Senators Tuesday. According to Bernanke, the benefits of the purchase and policy accommodation are clear. ""Monetary policy is providing important support to the recovery while keeping inflation close to the FOMC's 2 percent objective. Notably, keeping longer-term interest rates low has helped spark recovery in the housing market and led to increased sales and production of automobiles and other durable goods,"" he said.

The Justice Department (DoJ) and Standard Poor's are at odds with others over civil fraud charges stemming from an alleged scheme to defraud investors in the lead-up to 2008's financial meltdown. The DoJ filed a civil lawsuit against S&P and its parent company, McGraw-Hill, Monday, alleging that S&P ""knowingly [issued] inflated credit ratings"" for collateralized debt obligations in the years before the crash, misrepresenting their creditworthiness and understating their risks.

The act of securitizing mortgage loans can lead to riskier lending, and ultimately more defaults, according to a study posted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. About 60 percent of outstanding mortgage debt in the United States is traded in the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market, ""making the U.S. secondary mortgage market the largest fixed-income market in the world,"" according to Fed researchers. While admitting the MBS market ""is an important innovation and has several merits,"" the study finds a darker side to the market.

A former managing director and senior trader at Jefferies & Co. was charged for allegedly defrauding investors when selling residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced in a release.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and General Electric (GE) have reached a settlement to resolve claims of misrepresented mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sold to Freddie Mac. The settlement brings to a close one of 18 legal actions filed by FHFA against various financial institutions in its capacity as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. FHFA's suit, filed in 2011, alleged GE misrepresented the quality of loans contained in $549 million of MBS sold to Freddie Mac.

The Federal Reserve announced it paid a record $88.9 billion to Treasury in 2012. In 2011, the Fed distributed $75.4 billion to Treasury. The previous record amount was for $79.3 billion in 2010, according to the Fed. The earnings are from Fed programs that were introduced to stimulate the economy and involve the purchase of billions in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) each month to keep interest rates down. Currently, the Fed buys $40 billion in MBS each month and $45 billion in Treasury purchases.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) announced Monday it has filed suit against JPMorgan Securities and Bear Stearns over allegations of falsely representing the quality of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sold to corporate credit unions. At $3.6 billion, the legal action is the largest suit ever filed by the NCUA. According to the agency, Bear Stearns (purchased in 2008 by JP Morgan) misrepresented the underwriting standards of loans in securities sold to U.S. Central, Western Corporate, Southwest Corporate, and Members United Corporate. The four credit unions became insolvent and were placed into NCUA conservatorship and liquidated.

Despite recent improvements in the unemployment rate and housing, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Wednesday voted to continue its program of purchasing $40 million a month of mortgage backed securities and to maintain the target Fed Funds rate at 0 to 0.25 percent. The FOMC vote was 11-1 with only Richmond Fed President Jeffery M. Lacker dissenting.

In prepared remarks delivered before SIFMA members Thursday, Federal Finance Housing Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward DeMarco addressed the current state of the secondary mortgage market and the agency’s steps toward building a better market for the future. Part of the process of improving the market is by bringing the ""conservatorships to a conclusion,"" while strengthening the private sector's role in housing finance, DeMarco contended. As it now stands, DeMarco said, ""The secondary mortgage market infrastructure that served this country for many years is broken.""

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate fell to 3.31 percent (0.7 point) over the week ending November 21. The previous week, the rate was 3.34 percent, and last year, the rate stood at an even higher 3.98 percent, according to Freddie Mac. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also experienced a decline this week, falling from 2.65 percent to 2.63 percent (0.7 point), according to Freddie Mac's data. This week last year, the rate was 3.3 percent.