Complete news archive

  • ILS head hired

    Michael Popkin has been appointed co-head of insurance-linked securities (ILS) for Towers Watson Capital Markets (TWCM). Based in New York, he will report to Ed Hochberg, head of TWCM.

    In his new role, Popkin will assist clients in a wide range of strategic risk management activities surrounding ILS and industry loss warranties. He will also aid in the development and .......

    Job Swaps 19 October 2011

  • EMIR pros and cons examined

    The increase in reporting requirements and the use of trade repositories under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) is expected to boost transparency and allow regulators to keep tabs on systemic risk, according to a new Celent report. Given that a high proportion (68%) of interest rate swaps is already cleared via a CCP, the regulation is anticipated to have .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2011

  • SSgA beefs up in credit

    State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has appointed Catherine Powers as md and head of fixed income alpha strategies for North America. Powers joins the firm from Standish Investment Management, where she most recently led the insurance client strategies group with a focus on customised fixed income solutions. In her 23 years at Standish, she held numerous roles, including head of .......

    Job Swaps 19 October 2011

  • Naked CDS ban moves to Council vote

    MEPs have voted to ban naked CDS trading, with the sole exception of an option for a national authority to lift the ban temporarily in cases where its sovereign debt market is no longer functioning properly. This possibility would be closely circumscribed, however, because the text specifies a limited number of indicators that could justify the regulator's action.

    Reporting requirements .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2011

  • Spanish ABS ratings reviewed

    Moody's says it is considering the implications for Spanish structured finance transactions of its two-notch downgrade of the rating of the government of the Republic of Spain to A1, with a negative outlook. The agency believes that a triple-A rating remains achievable for Spanish structured finance transactions that benefit from sufficient credit enhancement and have highly rated transaction parties or .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2011

  • Non-agency RMBS group formed

    Clayton Holdings has formed a new securitisation group that is says is dedicated to helping the private market prepare for the return of non-agency RMBS.

    The securitisation group will have two primary roles. First, it will provide a wide range of high-level consultative services to help issuers, investors and aggregators align their programmes and procedures with new rules that govern .......

    Job Swaps 19 October 2011

  • DQT rises 35bp

    The delinquency rate on loans in US CMBS conduit/fusion transactions rose by 35bp in September to 9.36%, according to Moody's Delinquency Tracker (DQT). Delinquencies in the US have been above 9% for nine months now.

    Moody's Specially Serviced Loan Tracker (SSLT) fell by 10bp to 12.13%, with the gap between the SSLT and the DQT narrowing by 45bp to 277 .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2011

  • Technically driven

    PrimeX, ABX comparisons overdone

    PrimeX prices have experienced a sharp decline - of between 6%-10%, depending on the index - since the beginning of October. However, parallels drawn between this sell-off and the collapse of the ABX/subprime market in 2007 appear overdone.

    A number of technical negatives are currently plaguing the PrimeX market, according to ABS analysts at Barclays Capital. On one hand, traditional .......

    News Analysis 18 October 2011

  • IDC, FINRA join forces on data

    Interactive Data and FINRA have developed a set of reports designed to provide transparency into US structured securities market activity on a daily basis. The reports consist of the US Structured Trading Activity Report and the US Structured Trading Pricing Tables.

    The reports incorporate FINRA's TRACE data, offering an aggregate summary of daily transactions in the US structured securities market .......

    Job Swaps 18 October 2011

  • Through-the-Cycle EDFs launched

    Moody's Analytics has introduced a 'Through-the-Cycle EDF' (expected default frequency) measure. A quantitatively derived credit risk estimate, the new measure is designed to dampen the short-term volatility arising from the aggregate credit cycle, providing more stable default probabilities than traditional point-in-time (PIT) credit risk estimates.

    Through-the-Cycle EDF measures have been developed for applications in which a stable default probability input .......

    News Round-up 18 October 2011

  • Agency prepayment tool minted

    CoreLogic and Amherst Holdings have jointly launched 'Agency Prepayment Analyzer'. The two firms say that this online analysis tool is the first to enable fixed income investors to assess and forecast both voluntary and involuntary prepayment risk trends associated with agency MBS.

    Agency Prepayment Analyzer tracks the speeds at which the collateral underlying commonly-traded agency securities will prepay due to .......

    News Round-up 18 October 2011

  • Basel 3 implementation reviewed

    The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued its first progress report on the implementation of Basel 3, as of end-September 2011.

    The report focuses on the status of domestic rule-making processes to ensure that the Committee's capital standards are transformed into national law or regulation according to the internationally agreed timeframes. The Committee believes that disclosure will provide additional .......

    News Round-up 18 October 2011

  • ABS CDO liquidation announced

    Stone Tower Debt Advisors has been retained to act as liquidation agent for Kent Funding II. The collateral will be sold at five public sales - split into subprime RMBS, prime/Alt-A, CDO, CMBS/re-REMIC and small-balance loan auctions - in New York at 10am EST on 26 October.

    .......

    News Round-up 18 October 2011

  • Structured lending head hired

    Nomura has appointed Munish Varma as global head of structured lending and special situations, based in London. He will report to Georges Assi, global head of credit products & co-head of fixed income EMEA, and Kieran Higgins, co-head of fixed income EMEA.

    Varma and his group will focus on providing tailored financial solutions at all levels of the capital structure .......

    Job Swaps 18 October 2011

  • Rising prepays unlikely to benefit RMBS

    Fitch expects US mortgage prepayments to increase in the coming months on the back of expected HARP reforms, as well as low-risk borrowers taking advantage of low interest rates to refinance with cheaper loans. However, the FHFA's expected reforms to HARP only affect government-agency sponsored loans and therefore will not directly benefit rated RMBS.

    Low-risk borrowers with equity in their .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • Collateral management system upgraded

    4sight Financial Software has added new functionality to its Xpose Collateral Management system. The new features include: the ability to net and margin call exposures by multiple criteria across multiple asset classes; and optimised, schedule-driven booking of collateral trades in bulk, based on collateral concentration and cost.

    The firm is working on further enhancements to help customers respond to the .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • Quanto CDS service launched

    ReMATCH has introduced a new service to help its customers reduce their exposure to quanto CDS risk. The service, which launched in September, has eliminated over US$15bn of quanto CDS risk for customers in its first three sessions.

    Typically, Eurozone sovereign CDS contracts are denominated in US dollars to mitigate the strong correlation between the creditworthiness of the Eurozone countries .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • SCI Start the Week - 17 October

    A look at the major activity in structured finance over the past seven days

    Pipeline
    Further details of Credit Suisse Asset Management's latest CLO - the US$365.5m Atrium VII - emerged last week. Also entering the pipeline were the US$136.6m LEAF Receivables Funding 7 series 2011-2 equipment ABS and the US$75m Queen Street IV Capital catastrophe bond.

    Pricings
    Three jumbo European RMBS printed last week: the US$5.5bn Arran Residential Mortgages Funding 2011-2, the US$3.4bn-equivalent Silverstone Master .......

    News 17 October 2011

  • Hong Kong OTC consultation begins

    The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) have issued a joint consultation paper on the proposed regulatory regime for Hong Kong's OTC derivatives market. The bodies have been working together since G20 commitments were made in 2009.

    The HKMA and SFC propose that they jointly oversee the new regime. The HKMA will oversee and regulate .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • Auction due for hybrid CDO

    VCAP Securities has been retained to act as liquidation agent for Dalton CDO. Public sales of the collateral will be held in the morning and afternoon of 26 October.

    .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • Differing drivers for Eurozone performance

    The deterioration in the creditworthiness of some peripheral Eurozone sovereigns has created uncertainty about the performance of securitisations from those countries, says Fitch. Drivers are different across the jurisdictions and performance deterioration is not always driven by sovereign downgrades.

    "Sovereign risk has become of far more importance in the analysis of structured finance transactions in this latest phase of the .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011
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