Secondary markets

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust has priced a private offering by its PennyMac Corp. subsidiary, a $200 million aggregate principal amount of its exchangeable senior notes due 2020.

It was a good first quarter at the nation’s second, third and fourth largest title insurance underwriters as all three reported improved earnings over the same period in 2012.

Remodeling activity is expected to gain steam over the next 12 months as more and more owners regain some of the equity they lost in their homes during the recession.

Freddie Mac purchased nearly $52 billion in mortgage loans and securities in March, up 21% from the prior month.

Loans in commercial mortgage-backed securities conduits in the first quarter had stable leverage and their debt service coverage ratios rose.

Redwood Trust has issued five private-label jumbo mortgage securitizations during the first four months of this year totaling $2.7 billion.

Pacific Investment Management Co. expects the Fed to start slowing its debt buying by September, before ending the expansion of its balance sheet early next year.

Standard & Poor’s and Ambac Financial Group lost a bid to dismiss a negligence claim in a lawsuit alleging they conspired to force California local governments to buy bond insurance they didn’t need.

Standard & Poor's called the civil allegations in the Justice Department’s suit a “stretch” that were based on loosely connected charges with little specificity.

Increasing home values will have only a limited benefit for residential mortgage-backed securities loss severities.

Discover Financial Services originated nearly $1 billion in direct mortgages during the first quarter of 2013.

Synovus Financial reported lower first-quarter earnings because of pressure on its net interest margin.

Among the ways the American Securitization Forum would like to see private capital return to the housing market is by way of more increases in guarantee and premium fees for agency and government loans.

Five Ten Capital closed a $100 million financing facility with Deutsche Bank that is backed by mortgages on rental homes.

Moody’s and Fitch were dropped from an antitrust lawsuit claiming Ambac Financial Group and credit rating companies conspired to force local governments in California to purchase insurance they didn’t need.

John Paulson, the billionaire hedge fund manager who built his fortune betting on a decline in the U.S. housing market in 2007, said he expects a surge in the stock of mortgage insurers led by Radian Group.

The proposed move could result in downgrades for about 1,200 residential mortgage-backed securities.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is renewing its efforts to get Congress to pass legislation that will give the Federal Housing Administration additional enforcement powers.

Fitch is registering some concern about what it describes as a “very rapid rise” in the number of U.S. large-loan commercial mortgage-backed securities deals in recent months.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ recently proposed additional changes to its residential/commercial mortgage-backed securities valuation method could have a particularly notable impact on alternative-A credit fixed-rate and subprime securities.