Standard and Poor's Rating Services dropped the other shoe Thursday, announcing it would downgrade 418 classes of U.S. residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) backed by second-lien collateral.
The action covered second-mortgage loans, such as home equity loans (HELs) and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).
The rating agency said it acted because of the poor payment histories for these loans; recent data on late payments have been much higher than on similar loans in the past and S&P does not expect that performance to improve.
