Moody's Downgrades Scratch/Dent MBS Deals

Twenty-three tranches from 10 mortgage-backed securities deals collateralized primarily by first-lien, fixed- and adjustable-rate scratch-and-dent mortgage loans have been downgraded by Moody's Investors Service.The affected transactions were issued by Morgan Stanley ABS Capital I Inc. Trust, Truman Capital Mortgage Loan Trust, Countrywide Home Loan Trust, RFSC Series 2004-RP1 Trust, Structured Asset Securities Corp. Trust, and CSFB. Most of the deals have experienced a growing proportion of severely delinquent loans, and in all of them the amount of available credit enhancement has been reduced from losses or both losses and stepdown, according to Moody's. For most, the timing of the losses, coupled with the passing of performance triggers, has caused the protection available to the subordinate bonds to be diminished. Moody's can be found online at http://www.moodys.com.