Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appear to be using aggressive pricing at the cash window to boost whole loan purchases, then retaining the most attractive coupons.

A mortgage with a prepayment penalty might be as much as 65 basis points cheaper for borrowers, according to GSE shareholder Bill Ackman.

Freddie sets an end date for investors to exchange legacy securities for those created as part of the single security initiative.

The prepayment rate on agency MBS hit a high for the year in September and that’s expected to be topped again in October. Analysts note that their prepayment models are off due to changes in lenders’ practices.

Neither Fannie nor Freddie issued any green bonds in the third quarter, though social bond issuance has been relatively healthy.

Issuers are looking to create spec pools of FHA loans to help reduce default risk.

President Trump attempted to mollify concerns about the post-conservatorship guarantee of GSE MBS, but questions remain about the regulatory treatment of those securities and the TBA market.

The Fed is allowing its holdings of agency MBS to run off and many other big players in the MBS market appear to be close to tapped out.

The Federal Reserve is allowing its MBS holdings to run off in a predictable manner; Ginnie provides more details on change to buydown policy; Cerberus affiliate issues securitization of closed-end second liens.

It’s not clear how the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision to cut the DEI and ESG programs at the GSEs will impact MBS issuance.