The loan buyback plague continued on unabated in the first quarter. Leading the pack in repurchases was the nation's second largest originator, Bank of America with $4.4 billion. It's almost guaranteed that 75% of those repurchases (or more) are "legacy" loans inherited by the bank when it bought Countrywide Financial Corp. almost two years ago. (I would venture that quite a few are payment option ARMs.) JPMorgan Chase was a somewhat distant second with $2.4 billion. The chief question on the industry's collective mind is this: have buybacks crested or is the worst yet to come? Meanwhile, we understand that concern over buybacks derailed a mortgage M&A deal. For details see the
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