Tag Archives: Investors

Fannie Mae cast the U.S. economic recovery as on the rocks Monday with a report suggesting that events at home and abroad primed the country for a return to recession. The GSE cited restlessness in European financial markets, sluggish growth in emerging economies, and upheaval in the Middle East as reasons why America may be bordering on a double-dip. According to the GSE, third-quarter data suggests that U.S. GDP will chug below 2 percent over the remainder of 2011 and 2012.

Commercial real estate loans are making Wall Street headlines again. Joint financing options are becoming increasingly abundant for financial firms struggling to handle the fall out from recent volatility in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market. During the summer, yields rose steadily, increasing the need for investor protection measures. As part of events underway, Barclays CApital announced a partnership with FundCore Finance Group to conduct CMBS loans jointly.

With fears on the rise about a Greek default, stocks for U.S. companies and lenders fell around midday Monday. Speaking with MReport, federal regulatory agencies downplayed the fears despite quarterly numbers that found an expansion in lending volume between wobbly euro zone and U.S. financial institutions over the first quarter. New worries about a spreading debt contagion arose over the weekend when European Union officials reached an impasse in bailout talks.

Enhanced technology initiatives for wholesale and correspondent lenders is now available thanks to ClosingCorp's new platform. The company recently announced that it would release the SmartGFE Service, targeting streamlined processing for entities in both markets. ClosingCorp's SmartGFE product will provide instant access to RESPA-based Good Faith Estimate (GFE) data to those in the wholesale and correspondent segments.

Even as the good news emerged that fewer banks are failing countrywide, Bloomberg News found that the nation's biggest lenders have lost some $65.7 billion in bad mortgage-backed securities, with billions in the red. A number of suits by mortgage lenders, one against the other, plus a barrage of action to recover losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suggest more losses may be in store for U.S. financial institutions. Market watchers disagree over whether culpability is needed in lieu of the bad economy.

Chatter about a sudden sweep of bank failures may be all the rage in Europe, but fewer closures for financial institutions stateside led the FDIC to shutter a temporary office in the Midwest on Friday. The glacial crawl for U.S. bank failures makes good on FDIC predictions that fewer institutions would fail over 2011 as more ledgers stay in the black - a change of pace for an era in which the federal agency closed a record number of banks. The FDIC said Friday that it would close the Midwest Temporary Satellite Office in Illinois.

In another twist for the nation's largest mortgage lenders, Wells Fargo upped the ante against JPMorgan Chase & Co. by filing a suit in a Delaware court to order the latter to buy back over $558 million in bad mortgage-backed securities. Multiple news outlets offered up the latest tizzy Thursday, with Wells escalating the case after JPMorgan refused to budge on the repurchases. The loans stem from the Bear Stearns Mortgage Funding Trust 2007-AR2, otherwise known as the EMC unit, which JPMorgan acquired in 2008.

Changes are on the way for Clopton Capital, with the company's recent announcement that it would launch a small-balance mortgage plan for minimally-sized loans. Primarily focused on commercial mortgages, SBA loans, commercial real estate loans, and niche financing, Clopton's new program is a rarity among similar lenders Clopton's offering will target single applicant loans between $25,000 and $400,000.

An international partnership between the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and Clearstream is set to enhance operations for bilateral loans. The companies plan to combine DTCC's Loan/SERV and Clearstream's collateral management platform to streamline the registration and reconciliation of loans, as well as facilitate the use of loans as collateral. DTCC and Clearstream will the collaboration to support credit claims and syndicated loan markets, with Clearstream initiating the leveraging of DTCC's Loan/SERV reconciliation service during the first half of 2012.

As Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) made waves this week with legislation to curb voting rights for Fed governors, key provisions under his namesake law, the Dodd-Frank Act, manifested themselves in decisions by major federal regulators. The FDIC and Federal Reserve rubber-stamped a rule that require the nation's largest banks to send up blueprints for bankruptcy, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau steadily moved forward with the uniform mortgage disclosure form.