NMI IPO Well Received by Investors

Investors that fled Radian Group on Thursday following S.A. Ibrahim’s comments about the state of the mortgage insurance industry are flocking to the initial public offering by NMI Holdings Inc. In its first few hours of trading, NMI’s common stock has gained over 10% from the initial public offering’s pricing as of 11:40 a.m. on Friday.

The 2.1 million share offering was priced at $13 per share. It opened at $14.08, dropped to a low $13.72 before peaking at $14.50. The stock was back to $14.30 per share late on Friday morning.

As for the other publicly traded private mortgage insurers, Radian was down 1.45%, while Essent, the other MI company to do an IPO recently, was down 0.52%. On the other hand, MGIC Investment Corp. was up 2.5%, and Genworth was up 2.92%. American International Group, the parent company of United Guaranty, was up 2.45%.

MGIC’s new insurance written volume for October was $2.4 billion, compared with $2.5 billion for September. In its 3Q13 earnings release, Radian said its NIW was $3.5 billion for October, down from $3.8 billion in September.

MGIC’s inventory of delinquent loans was reduced by 2,000 loans during October. There were 8,787 new notices of delinquency nearly offset by 7,995 cures. MGIC also paid claims on another 2,585 loans and rescinded coverage on 165.

The inventory now stands at 109,629 loans.