Mortgage cover pool
The set of loans and claims whose payments service a mortgage-backed bond.
How to read the number
The quality of the issue is set by what is in the pool: loan-to-value, geography, and how long the loans have already been paid.
When the metric lies
The pool changes over the life of the issue — repaid loans are replaced by new ones. The portfolio assessed at placement is a different portfolio several years later.
Also known as: cover pool, collateral pool