This article compares default patterns among prime and subprime mortgages, analyzes the factors correlated with default, and examines how forecasts of defaults are affected by alternative assumptions about trends in home prices. The authors find that extremely pessimistic forecasts of home price...

This article computes the returns from dynamic hedging of the interest rate and prepayment risks of insured fixed rate mortgages. Changing durations cause dynamic hedges with futures markets. Nonparallel shifts in the yield curve are also investigated. Hedges are found to be risk-reducing, but...