A sluggish mortgage-bond market could be jump-started by a new service that allows investors to short home loans.
Skeptics say the rise of derivatives on credit-risk transfer notes sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has echoes of the 2008 credit crisis, when the market plunged under the weight of collapsing subprime securities.
Fannie and Freddie – the biggest guarantors of U.S. home loans – started transferring mortgage-default risk to bond funds and other investors in 2013 to help reduce risks to taxpayers according to Bloomberg. But the program has been generating more traction in recent months, after New York-based Vista Capital Advisors rolled out a pilot program that would eventually allow investors to bet on U.S. homeowner defaults.
Craig Phillips, a former BlackRock executive serving as head of financial markets advisory and client solutions for the Treasury Department, said credit-risk transfers will be core to U.S. housing policy.
The madness begins again with creative new derivatives and credit risk transfers that put the risk on the taxpayer.
Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: derivatives, Fannie MAe, Freddie Mac, housing shorts |
Reblogged this on California freelance paralegal.