PowerSeller80 Domain Glossary
Terms extracted from database columns, window titles, menu labels, and business logic.
Core Entities
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Loan | A mortgage loan in the pipeline. The fundamental unit of business. Lives in the loan table while active, moves to loan_shipped when settled, and to loan_history when fallen out. |
| Instrument | A financial product definition (e.g., FNMA 30yr Fixed). Has a type (loan, MBS, whole loan, futures, treasury, eurodollar), investor, guarantor, and security class. Stored in pscat_instruments. |
| Investor | An entity that buys loans or MBS. Also called a counterparty when they are a trading partner. Stored in pscat_trade_counterparties with investor_counterparty_type of 'i' (investor), 'c' (counterparty), or 'b' (both). |
| Counterparty | A trading partner (broker/dealer). May also be an investor. See Investor. |
| Trade | A commitment to deliver loans or securities to an investor at a specified price. Types: MBS, whole loan, best efforts, futures, futures option, eurodollar, eurodollar option, treasury. Stored in pscat_trades. |
| Pool | A group of loans assembled for delivery to an investor under a specific program and commitment. Stored in pscat_pools. |
| Security | A mortgage-backed security (CUSIP) created from one or more pools. Stored in pscat_securities. |
| Program | A marketing program offered by a guarantor (e.g., "FNMA 30yr Fixed Cash"). Defines term, guarantor, securitization rules, and instruments. Also called a Marketing Program. Stored in pscat_programs. |
| Guarantor | An agency or entity that guarantees MBS (e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae). Stored in pscat_guarantors. |
| Master Agreement | A high-level agreement between the lender and a guarantor. Contains master commitments. Stored in pscat_master_agreements. |
| Master Commitment | A commitment under a master agreement specifying amount, dates, and programs. Stored in pscat_master_commitments. |
| Reservation | A capacity reservation with a guarantor for future pool delivery. Stored in pscat_reservations. |
Trading Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| MBS Trade | A trade for mortgage-backed securities delivery (forward sale). |
| Whole Loan (WL) Trade | A trade for whole loan (individual loan) delivery. |
| Best Efforts (BE) | A commitment type where the lender is not obligated to deliver; used for individual loan locks. |
| Mandatory | A commitment type where the lender must deliver the specified amount. |
| Futures Trade | A trade in mortgage-related futures contracts (e.g., Treasury futures). |
| Eurodollar Trade | A trade in Eurodollar futures/options; can be bundled into packs and bundles. |
| Treasury Trade | A trade in Treasury bonds/notes used for hedging. |
| AOT (As-of-Trade) | An assignment of one trade to another for settlement purposes. |
| Pair-Off | Offsetting two trades against each other to cancel delivery obligations. Stored in pscat_pair_offs. |
| Designation | The act of assigning pools, securities, pair-offs, or AOTs to a trade. |
| Settlement | The process of completing a trade by delivering loans/securities and receiving payment. Moves loans from loan to loan_shipped. |
| Cash Grid | A pricing grid that maps note rates to prices for whole loan trades. Stored in pscat_cash_grids with syntax in pscat_cash_grid_syntax. |
| Trade Builder | A tool for constructing Eurodollar trade bundles (bundles of packs of single contracts). |
| Rollover | Extending a trade's settlement date, typically by pairing off the original and creating a new trade. |
| Tolerance | The acceptable variance between committed and delivered trade amounts. |
| Transaction Type | Buy or sell indicator on a trade. |
| Phantom Trade | A hypothetical trade used in What-If risk analysis; not actually executed. |
Pooling Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Pooling Engine | The automated process that assigns qualifying loans to pools based on pooling syntax and constraints. |
| Pooling Syntax | SQL-like criteria that determine which loans qualify for a pool (e.g., loan type, amount range, state). |
| Pool Allocation | The dollar amount assigned to a pool from qualifying loans. |
| Pool Priority | The order in which pools are filled during the pooling run. |
| Variance Override | Allowing a pool to exceed or fall short of its target amount. |
| Variance Fill Indicator | Whether to fill a pool to its high, low, or target amount. |
| Securitization Rules | Rules governing how loans can be grouped into securities (e.g., max loans, spread limits). |
| Agency Pool Number | The identifier assigned by the guarantor agency (Fannie/Freddie/Ginnie). |
| Notional Pool | A pool used for pricing/risk analysis purposes that does not represent actual loan allocation. |
| Bulk Sale | A pool designated for bulk sale to an investor via the bid packaging process. |
| Loan Qualifier | SQL syntax defining which loans are eligible for a specific pool. |
| Note Rate Spread Limit | Maximum allowed spread between the highest and lowest note rates in a pool. |
| Fee Override | Per-pool override of standard guarantee fees or servicing fees. |
Pricing Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Best Execution (BestEx) | Analysis that determines the optimal investor/instrument for each loan based on pricing, adjustments, and cost basis. |
| Price | The dollar amount per $100 par value that an investor will pay for a loan or security. |
| Par Rate | The note rate at which an instrument prices at par (100). |
| Coupon Rate | The interest rate on the MBS security (typically note rate minus guarantee fee and servicing fee). |
| DDE Price | A price received via DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) from an external pricing application. |
| Modified Price | A manually entered or adjusted price (as opposed to DDE-sourced). |
| Price Adjustment | A loan-level price modifier based on loan features (e.g., LTV, FICO, property type). Also called Feature Adjustment. |
| Feature Adjustment | See Price Adjustment. Groups of rules applied to loan characteristics to adjust pricing. |
| Price Adjustment Group | A named collection of price adjustments applied together. |
| Profit Margin | The spread between the price received from the investor and the price offered to the borrower. |
| Cost Basis | The accounting cost of a loan for gain/loss calculation purposes. |
| Unit Gain | The profit or loss per loan when comparing the trade price to the cost basis. |
| Pricing Window | The number of days until settlement; affects pricing (forward pricing). |
| Delivery Window | The settlement date range for an investor instrument. |
| DPC (Dollar Price Change) | The change in price for a 1-basis-point change in interest rates. Used in risk analysis. |
| Rate Sheet | An investor's published pricing grid showing prices by note rate and delivery window. |
| Inquiry | A rate sheet analysis mode for informational pricing (not committing loans). |
| Notional | A rate sheet analysis mode using notional (hypothetical) pools. |
| Buy-Up | Paying a higher guarantee fee to reduce the coupon rate and increase the security price. |
| Buy-Down | Receiving a lower guarantee fee resulting in a higher coupon rate and lower security price. |
| Source Price Management | Configuration of where prices come from (DDE vs. modified) for each instrument/investor. |
Risk Management Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Risk Analysis | The process of measuring the interest rate risk of the pipeline and hedge positions. Run via profiles. |
| Profile | A named configuration for risk analysis specifying instruments, segments, and parameters. |
| Segment | A grouping of instruments within a risk profile (e.g., by term or type). |
| Rate Cone | A set of interest rate shift scenarios used in risk analysis (e.g., -200bp to +200bp). |
| Rate Shift | A hypothetical change in interest rates used to calculate potential gains/losses. |
| Position Reconciliation | A report comparing loan positions, trade positions, and net exposure by segment and rate shift. |
| Hedge | A trade that offsets interest rate risk in the pipeline (e.g., selling MBS forward). |
| Closing Ratio | The percentage of pipeline loans expected to close (not fall out). Affects hedge sizing. |
| Closing Date | A named date configuration for when closing ratio analysis should be measured. |
| Fallout | Loans that do not close (borrower withdraws, denied, etc.). Fallout reduces the pipeline position. |
| Fallout Analysis | Historical analysis of loan fallout patterns to predict future fallout rates. |
| Correlation Analysis | Analysis of the statistical relationship between interest rate movements and pipeline behavior. |
| Benchmark Values | Reference values for comparing risk analysis results across periods. |
| Directive | A named set of actions to perform during or after risk analysis (e.g., archive, calculate analytics). |
| What-If Analysis | Scenario analysis using phantom trades to evaluate potential hedging strategies. |
| Target Coach | A tool in What-If analysis that helps size trades to reach a target hedge ratio. |
| SFAS | Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (now ASC). Specifically SFAS 133 (ASC 815) for hedge accounting. |
| Similar Asset Group (SAG) | A group of loans with similar characteristics used for SFAS hedge effectiveness testing. |
| Hedge Effectiveness | A measure of how well a hedge offsets changes in the value of the hedged item (required by SFAS 133). |
| Mark-to-Market (MTM) | The current market value of a position, used in hedge effectiveness testing. |
Pipeline Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Pipeline | The collection of active loans being processed from application through closing and delivery. |
| Pipeline Processing | Running underwriting stages and fallout processing on pipeline loans. |
| Underwriting Stage | A step in the loan approval process (e.g., application, processing, underwriting, closing). |
| Loan Status | The current state of a loan in the pipeline (e.g., active, approved, denied, closed, shipped). |
| Fallout Reason | A code indicating why a loan fell out of the pipeline (e.g., withdrawn, denied, expired). |
| Process Pipeline | An automated process that moves loans through underwriting stages and identifies fallout. |
| Loan History | Historical record of loans that fell out of the pipeline. Stored in loan_history. |
| Loan Shipped | Loans that have been delivered/settled to an investor. Stored in loan_shipped. |
Document and Shipping Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Document Tracking | Tracking the status of required documents for each loan (e.g., note, deed of trust, title). |
| Shipment Task | A task in the post-closing shipping process (e.g., prepare shipment, send to investor). |
| Document Status | The current state of a document (e.g., received, reviewed, shipped, missing). |
| Default Documents | The standard set of documents required for a loan based on product and investor. |
Bid Packaging Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Bid Package | A bundle of loans offered for bulk sale to multiple investors for competitive bidding. |
| Bid Price | The price offered by an investor for a bid package. |
| MSR Price | The price for the mortgage servicing rights component of a bid package. |
| Weight Average Price | The weighted average of bid prices across instruments in a package. |
| Bulk Sales | The process of selling pools of loans to the highest-bidding investor. |
System and Infrastructure Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Module Window | A standard maintenance window for editing entity data, configured via pxcat_mod_windows. |
| Search Object | A named search/filter configuration for finding entities in pick lists. |
| Support Object | An additional data view attached to a module window (e.g., related tables). |
| VMD (Visual Model Designer) | A query builder that lets users construct SQL queries visually. |
| Data Pipeline | A configured ETL process that moves/transforms data between tables. |
| Macro | An automated sequence of operations that can be scheduled and run in batch. |
| Macro Group | A collection of macros run together, optionally at scheduled intervals. |
| DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) | A Windows protocol for inter-application data exchange. Used for real-time pricing. |
| GoldKey | A master password mechanism for admin access recovery. |
| Site Key | An encrypted configuration file containing license and plugin information. |
| User Group | A named set of users for access control (RBAC). |
| Access Rights | Permission level: 'w' (read-write), 'r' (read-only), or 'n' (no access). |
| Activity Log | An audit trail of user actions within the application. |
Table Prefix Convention
| Prefix | Meaning |
|---|---|
pscat_ | PowerSeller catalog — core business tables |
rmcat_ | Risk Management catalog — hedging, analysis, pricing tables |
pxcat_ | Platform cross-cutting catalog — security, macros, queries, UI config |
rmtmp_ | Risk Management temporary — working tables for calculations |
rmarc_ | Risk Management archive — archived prices, rates, yields |
psarc_ | PowerSeller archive — archived trades, pools, loans |
psuldd_ | PowerSeller ULDD — staging tables for XML import/export |
pxcatv_ | Platform views |
pscatv_ | PowerSeller views |
psrepv_ | PowerSeller reporting views |
Abbreviations
| Abbreviation | Full Term |
|---|---|
| ACH | Automated Clearing House |
| AOT | As-of-Trade |
| ARM | Adjustable Rate Mortgage |
| BE | Best Efforts |
| BestEx / BX | Best Execution |
| BUBD | Buy-Up / Buy-Down |
| COH | Cost of Hedging |
| CUSIP | Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures |
| DDE | Dynamic Data Exchange |
| DPC | Dollar Price Change |
| FA | Feature Adjustment (or Fallout Analysis, context-dependent) |
| FHLB | Federal Home Loan Bank |
| FNMA | Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) |
| FHLMC | Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) |
| GNMA | Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) |
| MBS | Mortgage-Backed Security |
| MISMO | Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization |
| MSR | Mortgage Servicing Rights |
| MTM | Mark-to-Market |
| NRFS | Non-Risk-For-Sale |
| PDD | Pool Delivery Data |
| PSA | Public Securities Association |
| RIC | Reuters Instrument Code |
| RM | Risk Management |
| SAG | Similar Asset Group |
| SFAS | Statement of Financial Accounting Standards |
| ULDD | Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset |
| VMD | Visual Model Designer |
| WL | Whole Loan |