MBS- FNMA 4.5 price: 101-06 closed.

10-yr Treasury Yield: 3.55% closed.

In my opinion, this should have been at the forefront of the first draft of financial reform.  I don’t think it’s lost on anyone that businesses need credit to fuel innovations and to fund new hires to implement said innovative strategies.  Been needing it quite a while now, but I guess better late than never:

President Obama met Monday with the nation’s biggest bankers, hoping to jawbone them into providing more small-business loans. Previous administration efforts to boost credit have not yet paid off, and cash-starved business owners are growing impatient.  Link to article…

Australia’s Westpac Banking Corporation is returning to the market, after an over 2-year hiatus, offering close to $1 billion in MBS notes.  Interesting and good news, indeed, to have another world player return to the market in response to promising demand for these securities.  Ultimately, this is good for the American market as well because the investor demand for MBS is a primary driver for good rates on mortgage loans.  I laughed (and winced) out loud when I read the quote below regarding how the average loan-to-value ratio of the package is 58%.  Jeez… is that a safe investment???  It better be. 

The loans underlying Westpac’s notes have an average age of almost three years, and the weighted average loan-to-value ratio, which measures the size of a mortgage against the value of the house it’s secured over, stands at 58 percent, according to Moody’s.  Link to article…