Banks and savings institutions maintained their healthy appetite for agency single-family MBS during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Banks and thrifts held a record $1.254 trillion of agency MBS, up 2.2 percent from the end of the third quarter and an increase of 12.4 percent from a year ago. The biggest gains were in holdings of Ginnie Mae MBS, which also happen to be the fastest-growing component of the agency securities market. Bank and thrift holdings of Ginnie pass-throughs jumped...[Includes two data tables]
Freddie Mac reported a net income of $4.85 billion in the fourth quarter, more than double its earnings from the previous quarter and lifting its full-year income to $7.82 billion. The government-sponsored enterprise released its earnings this week, posting one of its best profits ever in the fourth quarter. Net income for the quarter was fueled in part by gains on derivatives which amounted to $6.38 billion. “Interest rates went up an unusually large amount in the fourth quarter, therefore you saw an unusually large gain in the accounting,” Freddie CEO Donald Layton told Inside MBS & ABS. Freddie also reported...
Now that investment banker Steven Mnuchin has been installed as the Treasury secretary, work can begin on finding a solution to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government guarantors that serve as the linchpin to housing and mortgage markets. For the most part, senior mortgage officials who have been in the business for a decade or more applauded President Trump’s choice of Mnuchin, pointing to his days as the head of MBS trading at Goldman Sachs & Co. “At the very least, this is...
When Freddie makes that next “dividend” payment, its “account surplus” with Treasury will total $34.6 billion: federal assistance of $71.3 billion since September 2008 versus dividend payments of $105.9 billion.
In a few weeks, almost all of that profit will be swept into the coffers of the U.S. Treasury, which supported the GSE during its money losing years...
Private mortgage insurers grew their share of the primary mortgage insurance market during 2016 even though they lost some ground during the second half of the year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Private MIs wrote an estimated $270.30 billion of new mortgage insurance last year, a robust 23.1 percent increase from 2015. The main engine was a 24.2 percent increase in traditional, or flow, MI business, coupled with a jump in bulk primary coverage – though such activity totaled just $860.0 million in 2016. Private MIs covered...[Includes three data tables]
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