OREANDA-NEWS. S&P Global Ratings today corrected its rating on class 3-A from CWHEQ Revolving Home Equity Loan Trust's series 2006-F by lowering it to 'A+ (sf)' from 'AA (sf)'. The downgrade reflects the application of our counterparty criteria, "Counterparty Risk Framework Methodology And Assumptions," published June 25, 2013.

The transaction is structured with a currency and interest rate swap, for which the counterparty swap provider is BNP Paribas ('A'). Specifically, the dollar-based interest and principal paid to the class 2-A-1B notes in the transaction are swapped for euro payments via the swap with BNP Paribas. The euro payments from BNP Paribas are then used to pay interest and principal on the class 3-A notes.

Class 2-A-1B's interest and principal payments are insured by Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. ('AA'), but class 3-A's interest and principal payments are uninsured. When we raised our rating on Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. in March 2014 to 'AA', we also inadvertently raised our rating on class 3-A (along with our rating on class 2-A-1B) to 'AA (sf)' from 'AA - (sf)' without considering the rating on BNP Paribas (which at that time we rated 'A+').

Our current counterparty criteria allows for a one-notch uplift from the counterparty's rating if the replacement provision in the swap agreement is in line with the any of the previous versions of S&P Global Ratings' counterparty criteria.

We lowered our rating on BNP Paribas to 'A' earlier this year and, pursuant to our counterparty criteria, we are lowering our rating on the class 3-A notes to 'A+ (sf)' to reflect the one-notch uplift from our rating on BNP Paribas.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOKWhen determining a U. S. RMBS collateral pool's relative credit quality, our loss expectations stem, to a certain extent, from our view of how the loans will behave under various economic conditions. S&P Global Ratings' baseline macroeconomic outlook assumptions for variables that we believe could affect residential mortgage performance are as follows:

An overall unemployment rate of 4.8% in 2016;Real GDP growth of 2.0% for 2016;The inflation rate will be 2.2% in 2016; andThe 30-year fixed mortgage rate will average about 3.7% in 2016.Our outlook for RMBS is stable. Although we view overall housing fundamentals positively, we believe RMBS fundamentals still hinge on additional factors, such as the ultimate fate of modified loans, the propensity of servicers to advance on delinquent loans, and liquidation timelines.

Under our baseline economic assumptions, we expect RMBS collateral quality to improve. However, if the U. S. economy were to become stressed in line with S&P Global Ratings' downside forecast, we believe that U. S. RMBS credit quality would weaken. Our downside scenario reflects the following key assumptions:Total unemployment will tick up to 4.9% for 2016;Downward pressure causes GDP growth to fall to 1.8% in 2016;Home price momentum slows as potential buyers are not able to purchase property; andWhile the 30-year fixed mortgage rate remains a low 3.7% in 2016, limited access to credit and pressure on home prices will largely prevent consumers from capitalizing on these rates.