It Starts: Subprime Auto Loans Implode (in Your Bond Fund)

[marmar]

It Starts: Subprime Auto Loans Implode (in Your Bond Fund)
by Wolf Richter • February 23, 2016


[font color="blue"]“Fears of an impending liquidity crunch in that asset class.”[/font]

“What is happening in this space today reminds me of what happened in mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the crisis,” U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry warned in October about the auto loan bubble.

And his warning is now becoming reality.

Subprime auto loans aren’t big enough to take down our megabanks, the way subprime mortgages had done. But they’re big enough to take down specialized auto lenders and cause a lot of tears among investors that bought the highly rated structured securities backed by subprime and deep-subprime auto loans that are now defaulting at a rate last seen during the days of the Financial Crisis.

And they’re big enough to knock the auto industry, one of the few booming sectors in the otherwise lackadaisical economy, off its record perch. An auto-loan implosion would start at subprime and work its way up, just like mortgages had done.

The business of “repackaging” these loans, including subprime and deep-subprime loans, into asset backed securities has also been booming. These ABS are structured with different tranches, so that the highest tranches – the last ones to absorb any losses – can be stamped with high credit ratings and offloaded to bond mutual funds designed for retail investors. ..........(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/02/23/subprime-auto-loan-asset-backed-securities-come-home-to-roost-in-your-bond-fund/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Student loan bonds to follow......

Did they think that the securitization of these loans would NOT create the same problem as sub-prime mortgages????????
Same kind of dodgy credit risk car loans were going on .......

And it is already very clear that student loans are in trouble for lack of a job market.

Deja vu all over again..........