Treasury counselor Michael Stegman noted that policymakers on both sides of the aisle are dissatisfied with the current status quo regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But that reticence could be slipping. As the week opened, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury was at 1.94 percent, the highest it has been in several weeks.
Michael Stegman, a counselor to the Treasury on housing finance policy, said the exercise aims to solve the “chicken-and-egg” issue that some see as holding back non-agency MBS activity.
New issuance of single-family MBS by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae fell 4.6 percent from December to January, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. The three agencies produced $85.18 billion of new single-family MBS last month. The good news is that was up a hefty 24.3 percent from January 2014; the bad news is January 2014 came toward the end of a nine-month swoon in agency MBS production. All of the decline in monthly MBS issuance resulted...[Includes two data charts]