Ratings on hundreds of classes of residential mortgage-backed securities that were impacted by principal write-downs have been lowered. Large loans originated with alternative documents back a majority of the impacted classes.
Ratings were downgraded on 321 classes from 175 U.S. RMBS transactions. The impacted securities were issued between 2002 and 2009.
The RMBS ratings were downgraded to D. Previously, the RMBS were rated at either CCC or CC.
The downgrades were announced Tuesday by New York-based Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.
“Today’s downgrades reflect our assessment of the impact that principal write-downs had on the affected classes during recent remittance periods,” the ratings agency stated.
Around 69 percent of the defaulted classes were from transactions backed by Alt-A prime jumbo mortgages.
Nearly a quarter were non-jumbo Alt-A, while 18 percent were subprime and 10 percent had negative amortization.