More on RMBS and CDO downgrades

• In addtion to S&P's announced RMBS downgrades the agency said on Tuesday that more than 350 collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) are exposed to possible downgrades of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, which equates to roughly 13.5% of all U.S. cash-flow and hybrid collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), or 218 deals, are exposed to the downgrades. Another 135 synthetic CDOs are exposed.

• Around 60% of the 399 subprime RMBS Moody's announced ratings cuts for and possibly another 32 were orignated by Fremont Investment & Loan, a division of Fremont General, Long Beach Mortgage Company, a unit of Washington Mutual (WM) WMC Mortgage Corp, part of General Electric (GE) and New Century, according to Moody's. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that GE could take a hit of $200m in 2Q07 for subprime losses to add to the $500m it took in 1Q07.
  

• Several other subprime-mortgage players were listed by S&P as well, including Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) and its subsidiary First Franklin, NovaStar Financial Inc. (NFI), Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC) and Citigroup Inc. (C)