mortgage-backed securities

Two surprises in the finance biz: A small group of bond investors has thrown a wrench into Bank of America's massive mortgage securities settlement, while the Fed revealed a secret $15 billion loan it made to Goldman Sachs in 2008. But in retail, there are no bad surprises on same-store sales so far.

Bank of America will soon finalize an $8.5 billion agreement to settle investor claims that Countrywide sold them lousy mortgage-backed securities before the housing bust. Meanwhile, private regulator FINRA is angling to take over the watchdog role for registered investment advisers.

The news across the financial world is good for unions, which will find organizing a bit easier; adequate for Greece, which will find getting bailed out a bit easier, and bitter for JPMorgan which had to accept a $153.6 million SEC fine for misleading investors about a mortgage securities transaction.

When Countrywide Financial created deeply flawed mortgage-backed securities, it wasn't just selling bad financial products: It was breaking its contracts. Now some ordinary investors are suing Countrywide's buyer, Bank of America, to force it to repurchase those bad mortgages. That's their right, but there's nothing simple about this case, or its ramifications.

Executives from the mortgage servicing industry testify before the Senate today, and they'll try to save face by apologizing for their industry's role in the foreclosure mess. But don't believe the hype.

Investors have hit Goldman Sachs with a class-action lawsuit for allegedly failing to disclose that it would benefit if its debt products lost value. The investment bank -- and several others -- say more lawsuits are likely on the way.

Goldman Sachs has been fined $650,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for failing to properly disclose to regulators that two of its executives were going to be investigated by the Securities & Exchange Commission, FINRA announced Tuesday.

While defending the rating agencies last week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Warren Buffett also admitted, "I don't need them." It seems that more and more, the financial markets are coming to agree with Buffett's stance on ratings.

Before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, The World's Greatest Investor essentially said this: We are all of us, myself included, a bunch of junkies -- and history shows that markets will always oblige us with a fix.

CDOs were a way for investment banks to evade their capital requirements, just as asset-backed securities played a similar role for savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. This time around the banks had plenty of help, especially from fee-hungry credit agencies.