Trading desks had a busy month in February as rising rates caused participants to act. Where do we go from here? Good question.

The Federal Reserve wants to continue buying agency MBS at its current pace, which should keep rates and spreads down for the foreseeable future.

If you’re interested in buying delinquent FHA/VA mortgages out of MBS pools, one shop, PennyMac, reveals just how much money you can make.

Bank of America increased its MBS portfolio by a whopping $93.5 billion during the fourth quarter. Big gains were also reported by Chase, Schwab and Truist. (Includes two data charts.)

Read the tea leaves: Rising rates and a jump in MBS activity could portend trouble up around the bend.

So far, performance of the multifamily businesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2021 resembles 2020. It’s not clear if these similarities will persist.

Profits in the fourth quarter weren’t enough to offset losses incurred earlier in the year by Annaly and Two Harbors. Meanwhile, a REIT with a non-agency focus turned a profit.

One of the largest REIT investors in the MBS market took a loss of $266 million in 2020, with gains in the final three quarters unable to wipe out the red ink posted in the first quarter. Still, officials at AGNC are optimistic about the future.

Have Federal Reserve policies, and the flood of refis that they’ve created, permanently altered MBS markets?

The latest transaction is an actual loss deal issued through a trust; previous Multifamily Structured Credit Risk deals were structured as fixed-severity deals issued as corporate debt.