Servicing

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a publicly traded vulture fund formed by former Countrywide president Stan Kurland, earned $8.2 million in the second quarter, almost six-times its profit in the prior period.

The increase in delinquencies on commercial mortgage-backed securities has slowed over the past two months with some analysts hoping the worst might be over for the sector.

Efforts are being made to proactively protect homes in default and foreclosure by sharing valuable information regarding appraisal fraud in short sale transactions.

More than 200 mortgage professionals turned out at the SourceMedia Second Annual Best Practices in Loss Mitigation Conference in Dallas where "innovation" was described as the answer to dealing with today's turbulent environment.

Individual companies are facing the overall housing market crisis in their own way, yet most are constantly looking for and in need of new business ideas.A recent study from The Conference Board shows U.S. employers rank creativity and innovation as the top two challenges for today's CEOs, especially if they cannot afford in-house research and development analytics.

Radian Group Inc. lost $475 million during the second quarter as it took a pre-tax loss of $525 million on the fair value of derivatives. The loss resulted from an improved market perception of Radian's credit risk that resulted in a tightening of Radian's credit spread and the widening of general corporate credit spreads.

Residential Capital Corp. and its mortgage related affiliates earned $230 million in the second quarter, compared to a year ago loss of $1.3 billion.

PHH Corp., which controls the nation's seventh largest residential lender, earned $28 million in the second quarter, almost double what it earned in the same period a year ago.

Most independent registered financial investment advisors are looking ahead to future growth and profitability.As "the independent advisor model continues to prove its staying power and appeal" to customers, these firms emerge from a difficult past few years for the financial markets and the economy with lower revenue and compressed profit margins, but profitable and in growth mode, says senior vice president and head of Charles Schwab Advisor Services, Bernie Clark.

There has been a lot of talk about government protecting mortgage investors in the wake of the downturn, but Tal Franklin, an attorney whose law firm represents a clearinghouse of private-label residential mortgage-backed securities investors, says it depends.