OREANDA-NEWS. Another strong quarter of issuance is positioning new U.S. prime jumbo RMBS to well outpace last year's levels, according to Fitch Ratings in its latest quarterly 'US Prime Jumbo RMBS Trends' report.

Fitch reports eight RMBS deals coming to market in second-quarter 2015 (2Q'15). Despite a slight decline in volume from 1Q'15, the number of newly-issued transactions added to what turned out to be a strong first half of the year. The roughly \\$7.1 billion of issuance in first-half-2015 is well on pace to surpass both the 2014 total of \\$8.3 billion and the 2013 total of \\$13.1 billion. 'The slowly increasing pace of new RMBS issuance reflects more issuers willing to tap the market,' said Director Sean Nelson.

The performance of post-crisis RMBS remains exceptional. 'Only eight borrowers out of roughly 32,000 are more than three months behind on their mortgage,' said Nelson. In addition, mortgage rates have dropped about 50 basis points from the start of 2014, resulting in a modest increase in prepayment speeds.

On July 2, Fitch upgraded 56 ratings in 14 transactions to reflect the improved relationship between credit enhancement and collateral loss expectations. On average, the current credit enhancement (CE) percentage for classes that were upgraded is over 2.0x higher than the original CE percentage. All upgrades were a single rating category in magnitude and were only considered for transactions with at least two years of seasoning.