FACTBOX: No longer "subprime" problem for credit markets

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Loose U.S. mortgage lending standards, rising interest rates in 2006 and falling house prices have resulted in a tsunami of less-creditworthy U.S. borrowers defaulting on their so-called subprime home mortgages and losing their homes, according to industry analysts.

However, many subprime mortgages were packaged into mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), or bundles of securities with differing yields and credit ratings, which were then sold to hedge funds, banks and pension funds who wanted to diversify their risks.

With the losses on subprime mortgage, the ensuing crisis of confidence in the form of tighter credit conditions has touched many corners of the financial world.

The following is a snapshot of where these markets stand:

AUCTION-RATE SECURITIES

* Auction-rate securities, debt whose rates are reset in periodic auctions, are a key source of funding for everything from municipalities to closed-end funds. The $330 billion market was roiled in late January by actual or threatened rating downgrades of monoline insurers backing the debt.

* Broker-dealers swept up in the credit crunch backed away from their market roles as liquidity providers, leading to failed auctions that pushed interest rates for some issuers as high as 20 percent.

* The number of failed auctions topped 80 percent in mid-February but fell to nearly half that amount by the end of the month, or about $10 billion to $12 billion of debt daily, according to analysts' estimates.

* About half the market is made up of municipal issuers such as states, student loan providers and hospitals. The other half includes closed-end funds and corporations. Many muni issuers, stung by skyrocketing interest rates, have restructured their troubled debt into fixed- or variable-rate modes or plan to.