The roll of the Markit ABX.HE, a synthetic index of U.S. home equity asset-backed securities, has been postponed for three months.
The new series, the Markit ABX.HE 08-1, was scheduled to launch on 19 January 2008. The decision to postpone its launch was taken following consultation with the dealer community.
It follows a lack of RMBS deals issued in the second half of 2007 and eligible for inclusion in the forthcoming Markit ABX.HE roll. The Markit ABX.HE 07-2 remains the on-the-run series until further notice.
Under current index rules, only five deals qualified for inclusion in the Markit ABX.HE 08-1. Markit and the dealer community considered amending the index rules to include deals which failed to qualify initially but decided against this approach at this time.