Mortgage rates and MBS spreads may depend on how the White House structures the proposed IPO for the GSEs and how markets react to a potential merger of the two mortgage giants.

President Trump said he plans to maintain an implicit guarantee for the GSEs if they’re removed from conservatorship. Prominent agency MBS investors expressed relief about the administration’s stance on GSE reform even though they don’t expect near-term action.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said the central bank’s balance sheet hasn’t grown as much as people think, but that MBS sales might be needed to balance the duration of assets and liabilities.

It may take time for MBS investors to fully understand how use of the new credit score for underwriting loans sold to the GSEs impacts pricing and hedge strategies.

Changes to Common Securitization Solutions, including being renamed U.S. Financial Technology, appear to set the company up to serve additional secondary mortgage market participants.

New studies show that the expectation of future climate risk effects the current behavior of lenders and CRT can be used to estimate the true cost of hurricane 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.

Participants in the agency MBS market said if the Trump administration wants to release the GSEs from conservatorship, it should be done in a way that preserves many of the functions currently provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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.