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Tag Archives: Mortgage-Backed Securities

Freddie Mac’s Portfolio Shrinks at Fastest Rate This Year

Freddie Mac’s mortgage portfolio has declined in each of the first three months of this year with the fastest annualized decline in March, according to the GSE’s latest monthly volume summary. Freddie’s mortgage portfolio declined at an annualized rate of 2.9 percent in March. The last time the GSE’s portfolio grew was in December, when it demonstrated an annualized growth rate of 0.4 percent.

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New Business Slips to Five-Year Low at Fannie

Fannie Mae reported further contraction in its book of business for February—the second this year and the third in as many months—as new business acquisitions dropped to a five-year low. According to the enterprise’s monthly volume summary for February, business shrank at a compound annual rate of 1.4 percent, bringing the book’s total growth rate for the year to -2.4 percent.

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New Business Keeps Shrinking at Freddie Mac

Freddie Mac’s book of business declined during both of the first two months of this year with an annualized growth rate of -2.2 percent during the month of February, according to the GSE’s monthly volume summary. Year-to-date, the annualized growth rate for Freddie Mac’s portfolio is -2.0 percent, on par with the growth rate of -2.1 percent reported for the year in 2013.

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Fitch Finalizes Criteria on QM, Non-QM Securities

Two months after the implementation date of the qualified mortgage (QM) and ability-to-repay rules, Fitch Ratings announced it has finalized new criteria for analyzing loans in securities taking the new guidelines into account. Fitch developed assumptions with respect to the probability of challenges to the rule or a mortgage’s QM status, as well as the potential costs or damages.

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Fed Members Vote to Continue Taper

Citing the “cumulative progress toward maximum employment and the improvement in the outlook for labor market conditions” since the start of the current stimulus program in 2012, the Federal Open Market Committee decided at its March meeting to reduce purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities to a pace of $25 billion per month and to dial back purchases of long-term Treasury securities to a pace of $30 billion each month, starting in April.

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Analysts Revise Forecasts on Weak MBS Issuance

Citing weak Q1 MBS issuance data, researchers for investment bank FBR Capital Markets anticipate a weak first quarter, with issuances likely totaling near $200 billion. While noting that issuances are not the same as origination figures, FBR nevertheless dialed back its first-quarter origination projections to $244 billion, bringing its full-year forecast to $1.2 trillion from $1.3 trillion previously.

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Treasury Official Chimes in on Housing Finance Reform

Amid calls from the Obama administration for a more stable housing market—particularly where affordable housing is concerned—Michael Stegman, counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury for Housing Finance Policy, Thursday called for top-down reforms that would rewire how the federal government funds and regulates both government and private-label securities. He also criticized a pair of "implausible scenarios" that would either leave the GSE system to amend itself or rely on minor revisions.

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New Year, New Drop in Business at Fannie

The new year didn’t bring any new trends in Fannie Mae’s Book of Business, which shrank at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent in January. While business was down, delinquency rates, too, kept declining. According to the GSE, the single-family serious delinquency rate dropped 5 basis points to 2.33 percent in January, while the multifamily serious delinquency rate was flat at 0.10 percent.

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New Year Brings Another Decline in Freddie’s Portfolio

After a slight uptick in December, the annualized growth rate of Freddie Mac's mortgage portfolio dipped back into the negatives in January, with growth clocking in a rate of -1.9 percent. The GSE's monthly volume summary notes the unpaid principal balance (UPB) of mortgage-related investments decreased by approximately $7.1 billion in January.

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