Secondary markets

In competitive sports, being first is always the goal. But the distance between the U.S. - at the head of the pack - and the rest of the world in crafting financial reforms is becoming a major hurdle for implementing the Dodd-Frank Act.

Stonegate Mortgage, a fast-growing nonbank lender based in Indianapolis, has received a $25 million investment form private equity fund, Long Ridge Equity Partners, and plans to use the money to grow both its servicing portfolio and third-party lending channels.

Wells Fargo & Co. - the nation's largest buyer of closed loans outside of the GSEs - has thrown down the gauntlet on the correspondent market, creating an "exclusionary list" of 88 firms that it will no longer buy loans from. How are lenders reacting so far? With a mixture of fear of being on the list and an indifferent "so what?"

Sequoia Mortgage Trust has in the works another private label securitization backed by recently originated jumbo loans, a type of transaction that continues to be rare in the post-downturn market.

In my opinion there is a significant disconnect in the jumbo mortgage between the primary market and the secondary market. What is fascinating is very little discussion or attention is being focused on this issue, at least from the perspective of what consumers want.

Mortgage bankers issued $28 billion of Government National Mortgage Association MBS in February, down 7% from the prior month, according to new figures released Thursday.

While the multifamily market might be the hot commercial real estate sector right now, Fitch Ratings, New York, sees a number of clouds on the horizon, including a loosening of lender underwriting standards and the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The nation's megabanks -- Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America -- are cleaning up on the HARP 2.0 program, earning massive profits on the origination of these high LTV refinancings, according to a new report from Amherst Securities Group.

The National Credit Union Administration said it will receive roughly $5.25 million from HSBC for settling claims against the banking giant related to mortgage-backed securities it sold to five now defunct corporate credit unions.

The Federal Housing Administration has revamped a little used program for refinancing underwater conventional loans, and extended its "short refinance" program until the end of 2014.

A federal judge declined Tuesday to dismiss charges that Barclays Capital packed a collateralized debt obligation it sold to Eastern Financial Florida CU with junk, hastening the demise of the one-time $2.4 billion credit union, the biggest natural person credit union failure ever.

We still haven't heard from Wells Fargo & Co./Wells Fargo Funding about its exclusionary list of mortgage banking firms - lenders that it will not buy loans from in the secondary market. As you might imagine the story we published Tuesday about the topic caused quite a stir in the industry plus a ton of traffic to the National Mortgage News website.

The former chief financial officer of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker on Tuesday pleaded guilty to covering up one of the largest mortgage frauds in U.S. history.

Federal Reserve limited liability companies created to respond to strains in financial markets have reduced by hundreds of billions of dollars the amount of agency securities the Fed acquired through open market operations.

In this week's National Mortgage News we published a story about an interesting warehouse lender called eWarehouseOne. EWO is interesting for several reasons, including the fact that it claims to have $3 billion in warehouse commitments, but many of the top warehouse managers that we've known for years have never heard of them.

The correspondent lending arm of Wells Fargo Bank this week began publishing a list of third-party originators that it will no longer buy loans from in the secondary market -- as a way to address what it calls "risks" in loan origination.

Mortgage bondholders are threatening legal action over the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, which will give the five largest servicers credits for principal writedowns that the bondholders may take.

Fannie Mae has priced its third multifamily DUS REMIC of the year, a $767 million deal that is notable in that it is the first ever to have separate tranches backed by both seven-year and 10-year collateral.

Freddie Mac's first offering of structured pass-through "K" certificates backed exclusively by multifamily mortgages with a five-year term is in the works this week, and is expected to settle on or about April 11.

In the old days every major Wall Street house and mega-lender had a whole loan trading desk. Some survived and some folded. Some continue to concentrate on CRA eligible loans, while others are actively trading nonperforming mortgages.