Mortgage lending, a major component of the US bond market, continued strong in Q1 2006, as shown in Federal Reserve flow of funds table F217. The four largest suppliers of mortgage funds continue to be commercial banks, savings institutions, agency mortgage pools, and issuers of asset-backed securities, accounting for 86.8% of the market in Q1 2006. In […]

After having the market for mortgage securitization virtually to themselves, while Fannie Mae was in the regulatory doghouse, issuers of asset-backed securities again faced fierce competition as government-sponsored enterprises returned with a vengeance to the market. (See: Agency Bond Issuance Recovers: Q1 2006) The graph, based on Federal Reserve flow of funds table F126, shows how, […]

Although the pace of net new issues of agency bonds was still $79 billion below levels of 2003 — the peak year before the crack-down on Fannie Mae for accounting irregularities — issuance of mortgage bonds by government-sponsored-enterprises recovered to $492 billion in Q1 2006 (annual rates), according to Federal Reserve flow of funds table […]