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Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton: GSE reform is not, and I cannot stress this enough, is not limited to legislative action.
21 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted by timhoward717 in Fannie Mae Freddie Mac
˜ 24 Comments
Huge day today folks. Just when I was hoping for a little reprieve to work more on the “Summary of Truth” and we get a day of non-stop developments. Anyone who followed the news emanating from the MBA conference in Vegas saw a resounding confirmation of what both I and Rep. John Larson have been saying for months, “Fannie and Freddie aren’t going anywhere.” Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton came out swinging with these telling statements: “We no longer look to act as a government entity, or as part of a duopoly. Our goal is to compete for your business.” and our headline: GSE reform is not, and I cannot stress this enough, is not limited to legislative action.
I know there were rumors that mel watt was going to announce funding for the housing trust fund but obviously the Democrats thought it would be prudent to wait till after the elections to make any bold moves. Mel Watts speech today spoke volumes not by what he said but what he didn’t say. Notably absent was any mention of congressional GSE reform or winding down Fannie and Freddie.Not even a whisper, I have attached a link below with his remarks to see for yourself.
We witnessed two stinging rebukes to Lamberth’s unbelievably flawed decision in the “Perry Injunction”. One from William Isaac, http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/broken-promises-to-fannie-and-freddie-investors-1070591-1.html
The other came in the Continental case. 10:20:14 Continental destroys Lamberth. . I hope to get more time to elaborate on the Continental rebuke later, they clearly show that Lamberths decision was nothing more than a blatant attempt to grossly manipulate the law to provide legal cover in our governments attempt to nationalize two private companies.
A lot of bold claims have been made by both sides in this epic battle. We have been the subject of repeated attacks by both our elected leaders and a media intent on backing their vicious assault on our liberty. But let me assure you one thing, when the last man is standing we will be vindicated. The tide has turned, and much of our opposition is so blinded by their lies they have not even begun to see it. Our simple message of truth will be looked upon by generations to come as a model for standing up to government tyranny.
We will be working on the “Summary of Truth” over the next several days. I put up a short intro tonight. This will play a critical role as the final stages of our long war play out. Keep the Faith!
http://timhoward717.com/
7% more Americans to apply for mortgages in 2015 than 2014
By Daniel Goldstein
Published: Oct 21, 2014 5:36 p.m. ET
Shares 26
LAS VEGAS — With 30-year fixed interest rates likely to remain at or below 4% for the remainder of this year and most of next, 7% more Americans will apply for mortgages in 2015 than in 2014, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) predicted.
“We are forecasting that strong job growth, coupled with still-low mortgage rates, should translate to an increase in home sales and purchase originations,” Michael Fratantoni, the MBA’s chief economist, told bankers at the group’s annual convention in Las Vegas.
The biggest portion of the jump will come from new mortgages, which are projected to increase 15% to $731 billion, from $635 billion in 2014. Refinancing, however, will fall 3% to $457 billion from $471 billion. The MBA also upgraded their prediction for originations in 2014, to $1.11 trillion from $1.01 trillion. And 2013’s results were boosted as well, from $1.76 trillion to $1.85 trillion.
Powering the jump in mortgage applications is the likelihood that the 10-year Treasury note, the benchmark for most mortgage rates, will stay at or below 3% for the remainder of the year and much of 2015, Fratantoni told bankers. “Concerns about broader global issues have caused a flight to quality, with investors seeking safety in U.S. Treasury Securities,” he said.
An improved jobs outlook is another key factor. The MBA predicted that the U.S. economy would generate on average 220,000 jobs a month and that the unemployment rate would fall to 5.4% by the end of 2015 - and as low as 5.2% by the end of 2016. Generally, most economists see “full employment” for the U.S. at around 4.5%, however the number of long-term unemployed workers who don’t count toward the unemployment rate has stayed stubbornly high since the Great Recession.
Nevertheless, the MBA sees job growth going forward that’s strong enough to absorb both the new workers the U.S. population increase creates and the return of long-term unemployed to the work force. “We have seen payroll growth outpace population growth and a declining number of unemployed workers,” Fratantoni said.
Mortgage originations and home sales may also get a boost from Monday’s announcement by Federal Housing Financial Agency’s (FHFA) director Mel Watt that he plans to streamline GSE loan buy-back provisions that have inhibited lending growth. Fratantoni said that while it’s difficult to quantify what effect the FHFA’s moves will have on mortgage origination, it’s likely they will at the very least be a “floor” for the MBA’s projections.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-more-americans-to-apply-for-mortgages-in-2015-than-2014-2014-10-21?siteid=rss&rss=1
I must admit that there are so many reasonable arguements for the plaintiffs I end up questioning my grasp of the english language when Lamberth and others side with defendants. I also think that the spinning and manipulation of facts have to be as transparent to a judge as they are to me. But Lamberth passing the buck was something that I had not considered before it happened. Plans within plans, ulterior motives, and other misdirections have no place in a court in my perfect world. Wow I am rambling. I got sucked down the rabbit hole. I need a nap.
Sometimes brilliant people cant keep up with their thoughts. Did you know a spider web is stronger than steel? How about some tea? Steel cable that is. Their brain functions too fast.
Icahn cnbc now
Fitch: Mixed Messages Should Not Deter U.S. Housing Ramp-Up In 2015
October 21, 2014 04:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Link to Fitch Ratings' Report: U.S. Homebuilding/Construction: The Chalk Line (Fall 2014)
http://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=781788
Disjointed results of late for U.S. single-family housing should not prevent more consistent growth for next year, according to Fitch Ratings in the latest edition of the 'Chalk Line'.
Consistent economic growth, robust employment gains, attractive affordability and a steady easing of credit standards should accelerate an upturn for housing following a subpar 2014. That said, 'all eyes will once again be on the spring selling season as a key indicator of how robust housing demand will be in 2015,' said Managing Director and lead homebuilding analyst Robert Curran.
Fitch now projects single-family starts to improve 3% to 636,000 as multifamily volume grows almost 17.5% to 361,000. Fitch expects total starts for 2014 to come in at approximately one million. Fitch also projects new home sales to advance about 1.5% to 436,000 while existing home volume is expected to decline 6% to 4.785 million, largely due to fewer distressed homes for sale. In 2015, single-family starts should expand 18% and multi-family volume gain 7%. New home sales should improve 18%, while existing home sales rise 5%.
Fitch expects stable ratings for most issuers within the homebuilding sector during the balance of 2014 and in 2015, reflecting a continued, moderate cyclical improvement in overall construction activity over the next 15 months. There is potential for a few positive outlooks and/or upgrades.
Fitch will provide a brief recap of second-quarter 2014 (2Q'14) and comment on expectations for the 3Q'14 and years 2014 and 2015 during a teleconference to be held tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. ET (separate press release to follow).
Fitch's latest 'U.S. Homebuilding: The Chalk Line - Quarterly Update: Fall 2014' includes the following key updates and new features:
--Homebuilders' quarterly growth trends and margin statistics for 2Q'14, excluding the impact of non-recurring, non-cash real estate charges, are provided;
--Liquidity analyses are updated and historical liquidity profiles are presented for perspective;
--Recovery ratings are detailed for five single B or lower rated homebuilding credits;
--The aging of the housing stock is discussed;
--A new study by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 'Housing America's Older Adults' is referenced;
--Highlights of the NAHB's study of the characteristics of subdivisions are provided;
--Data and commentary are provided for NAHB's 55+ housing market index;
--Market penetration by the top 5 and top 10 builders in the largest metro markets for 2013 is noted as are major public builders' positions in the top 50 metro housing markets for 2013;
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141021006848/en/Fitch-Mixed-Messages-Deter-U.S.-Housing-Ramp-Up#.VEbObShOlEI
GSE CEOs Not Waiting on Congress to Make Reforms
by Austin Kilgore
OCT 21, 2014 5:10pm ET
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While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wait for Congress to decide when and how to act on housing industry legislation, the government-sponsored enterprises are working with their regulator on "nonlegislative GSE reform" that will better prepare them to implement new laws.
"Nonlegislative GSE reform has been going on for several years, and continues going on today," said Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton.
The goal of these efforts is to position Fannie and Freddie to respond to an inevitable change to the role of the secondary market giants, whatever that entails.
Such efforts are guided by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Layton said the annual GSE scorecards the regulator publishes are "the blueprint and manifesto of nonlegislative GSE reform."
Other GSE efforts include a renewed focus on customer service and support for small lenders, the CEOs of both Fannie and Freddie said during a joint presentation Monday at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Annual Convention, ongoing this week in Las Vegas.
The GSEs are leveraging technologies developed through recent loan and data quality initiatives to "facilitate the building of more systems and tools that will allow us to deliver risk management capabilities to the lenders," said Fannie Mae CEO Timothy Mayopoulos.
For example, Fannie Mae announced a new appraisal review tool for lenders to check data points before the appraisal is submitted. And Freddie Mac has added services like targeted community lender training and other resources for rural lenders.
Layton said Freddie is "breaking with our company's traditional past," to improve its relationships with lenders and increase the amount of business it does with small lenders.
"Our vision is to compete for your business...this is a cultural revolution given the history of the company," Layton said.
The CEOs also discussed a renewed focus on improving access to credit, specifically with a 97% loan-to-value loan product, which they said can be done responsibly because of safeguards that have been added to the GSEs underwriting and loan standards.
"We're not changing our credit box…we're just trying to create opportunities to make it easier for people to deliver it," said Mayopoulos.
"I know there will be commentary that we're opening up the floodgates and taking on a bunch of bad loans. We are not going to do that," he added.
The difference between the current environment and the run-up to the housing crisis is that in the past, there was "little to no documentation," Mayopoulos said. "That problem has been solved."
"We're going to offer a 97% product, but this doesn't mean we're taking on loans we shouldn't be," he added
http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/regulation/gse-ceos-not-waiting-on-congress-to-make-reforms-1042942-1.html
GSE CEOs Not Waiting on Congress to Make Reforms
by Austin Kilgore
OCT 21, 2014 5:10pm ET
Share Comments
A A A
While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wait for Congress to decide when and how to act on housing industry legislation, the government-sponsored enterprises are working with their regulator on "nonlegislative GSE reform" that will better prepare them to implement new laws.
"Nonlegislative GSE reform has been going on for several years, and continues going on today," said Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton.
The goal of these efforts is to position Fannie and Freddie to respond to an inevitable change to the role of the secondary market giants, whatever that entails.
Such efforts are guided by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Layton said the annual GSE scorecards the regulator publishes are "the blueprint and manifesto of nonlegislative GSE reform."
Other GSE efforts include a renewed focus on customer service and support for small lenders, the CEOs of both Fannie and Freddie said during a joint presentation Monday at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Annual Convention, ongoing this week in Las Vegas.
The GSEs are leveraging technologies developed through recent loan and data quality initiatives to "facilitate the building of more systems and tools that will allow us to deliver risk management capabilities to the lenders," said Fannie Mae CEO Timothy Mayopoulos.
For example, Fannie Mae announced a new appraisal review tool for lenders to check data points before the appraisal is submitted. And Freddie Mac has added services like targeted community lender training and other resources for rural lenders.
Layton said Freddie is "breaking with our company's traditional past," to improve its relationships with lenders and increase the amount of business it does with small lenders.
"Our vision is to compete for your business...this is a cultural revolution given the history of the company," Layton said.
The CEOs also discussed a renewed focus on improving access to credit, specifically with a 97% loan-to-value loan product, which they said can be done responsibly because of safeguards that have been added to the GSEs underwriting and loan standards.
"We're not changing our credit box…we're just trying to create opportunities to make it easier for people to deliver it," said Mayopoulos.
"I know there will be commentary that we're opening up the floodgates and taking on a bunch of bad loans. We are not going to do that," he added.
The difference between the current environment and the run-up to the housing crisis is that in the past, there was "little to no documentation," Mayopoulos said. "That problem has been solved."
"We're going to offer a 97% product, but this doesn't mean we're taking on loans we shouldn't be," he added
http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/regulation/gse-ceos-not-waiting-on-congress-to-make-reforms-1042942-1.html
Oh that is graphic. :)
Well it's official haha
Remarks Adapted From Comments Delivered by Timothy J. Mayopoulos, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fannie Mae
MBA Annual Convention, Las Vegas, NV
It is always a pleasure to be with you, our customers and business partners. You are on the front lines of our housing finance system, ensuring that credit is available to allow families to buy, refinance, or rent good housing.
For 75 years, Fannie Mae has been the leading partner of mortgage bankers, supporting you with liquidity and the best products and services in the industry. Over those 75 years, we have sought to be a thought leader, an innovator, a standard setter – and most importantly – a trusted business partner to our customers.
I want you to know that, as we all are trying to find our way to a "new normal" in this difficult environment, we at Fannie Mae are re-committing ourselves to being the leading player in the secondary mortgage market – and to being your most valued business partner – both now and in the future. We are committed to providing you with the products, services, and tools you need to serve the market confidently, efficiently, and profitably.
We’ve Come a Long Way
We’ve come a long way since the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. At Fannie Mae, we have improved our credit standards and risk management practices. As a result, our delinquencies are down dramatically, and our credit profile is greatly improved.
We have worked closely with our servicer partners to better serve borrowers and communities, helping over one million families with Fannie Mae-backed mortgages avoid foreclosure.
Our company has paid the government over $130 billion in dividends to date, some $14 billion more than we have received in support.
All of this reflects the good work Fannie Mae employees have done to improve our company, provide liquidity, and help the housing market recover. We are pleased that, working with you, we have made significant progress, and no one can dispute the housing market is in a substantially better state than it was just a few years ago.
Nonetheless, we know that serious challenges persist. First, the economy continues to present headwinds for the housing market. Household formation is down compared with historical norms. Unemployment and underemployment persist for many workers. Wage growth has been negative. And so far, most millennials have been unwilling to enter the housing market, preferring a more risk-averse approach and focusing on saving.
Second, we appreciate that the legal, regulatory, and compliance environment you are facing is extremely challenging. Regulatory and enforcement authorities continue to scrutinize your origination and servicing businesses in unprecedented ways.
Many of you have expressed that the compliance costs have become overwhelming. Just a few days ago, one of the largest and most respected players in the business told me that their cost of servicing a delinquent loan is 50 times higher than a performing loan. This is inevitably leading to unintended consequences, including lenders pulling back from making loans to those borrowers who have anything other than the most pristine credit qualifications.
We at Fannie Mae understand the challenges you are facing. Of course, we do not control all of the factors that are putting pressure on you and the housing system. But where we can exercise influence or make changes, we are seeking to do so in positive and responsible ways. We want to help you succeed today and in the future, not just for your sake, but also to fulfill our mission to help fashion a stronger housing finance system.
Customer Service and the Best Products and Services
As I said at the outset, we have re-committed to being your most valued business partner. We realize that you have choices about who to do business with in the secondary market. We aim to have you choose us – not because you have to – but because you want to. We recognize what is important to you, and we are redoubling our efforts to deliver what matters most to you.
First, we are committed to superior customer service, including dedicated customer teams focused on supporting your business objectives. Customer service is not new at Fannie Mae. Our customer teams have been connected to our partners for many years, learning their businesses inside and out and working to find constructive solutions and deliver the full value of Fannie Mae.
Over the past few years, our customer teams have had to balance customer service with delivering some tough messages. But now that the legacy repurchase issues are largely behind us, our full focus is on delivering the best customer service possible.
We recognize that one way to improve customer service is to make it easier to do business with us. Admittedly, this is not something we have always excelled at. We have embarked on a major effort to remake the front end of our business to make our interactions with you simpler, more efficient, and easier. I am confident you will see improvement.
Second, we recognize that we need to deliver competitive products and services that meet the needs of all of our customers, large and small. We are committed to a level playing field. We deliver the same pricing to smaller lenders that we deliver to the biggest players. We have become the partner of choice for smaller originators, including community banks, credit unions, independent mortgage bankers, and state and local housing finance agencies. Our commitment to this business is not going to change.
We have the leading MBS products, as well as a robust cash window available to our customers for delivery of single-family business. We also provide early funding, to help you manage your pipelines. But we are not content to rest on our existing offerings.
Expanding Access
As we looked at the state of the market, we concluded we needed to offer you more in order to ensure access to credit for qualified borrowers. I believe we would all agree that there are segments of the population that are creditworthy, but not being served in today’s market. That needs to change. We know that loans can be safely and responsibly made to these borrowers under our current standards and we encourage all of you to do so – it is good business.
To meet this market need, I am very pleased that we will again be offering a 97 percent LTV product to all of our customers. This offering will be easy to execute through Desktop Underwriter®. It will also be competitively priced, including against FHA execution. We want this business. We are working now with FHFA to finalize the details of our offering and gain regulatory approval to proceed. I encourage you to stay tuned to learn more about our 97 percent LTV product, which we expect will help you serve more borrowers.
Certainty
We recognize that a 97 percent LTV product will not solve all the issues. In every conversation with customers, I hear that lenders are desperate for more predictability and certainty in their business. You are trying to manage the downside risk. Here again, we are committed to delivering on your needs. In the important area of pricing, we have been committed for some time to predictable pricing.
We strive to allow you to manage your business with greater confidence by using a reservation pricing system that allows lenders to lock in a price on MBS execution on a forward basis. In another critical area, representations and warranties, we have taken a number of actions to provide greater certainty and to reduce your risk of repurchases.
Starting January 1, 2013, working with FHFA, we changed our representation and warranty framework to grant relief on loans that you are delivering to us. For HARP loans, we grant repurchase relief from many representations and warranties after 12 months of timely payments. For other loans, we grant repurchase relief from many representations and warranties after 36 months of timely payments or – if we review a loan as part of our quality control process – we grant repurchase relief immediately.
Over 675,000 loans that have been delivered to Fannie Mae since last year are now free and clear of repurchase liability from many representations and warranties as a result of the 12-month sunset on HARP loans. In the next few years, millions of additional loans delivered to us since January 1, 2013 are expected to receive this repurchase relief thanks to the HARP sunset, the 36-month sunset, and our quality control file reviews.
We realized that these sunset provisions were good, but not enough. As Director Watt reviewed earlier, we’ve engaged with the MBA, FHFA, and Freddie Mac to provide greater clarity on additional fronts, including what constitutes a breach of certain representations and warranties.
We also continue to work with the MBA and others on a mutually acceptable third-party dispute resolution process and an agreed upon approach to remedies. I am confident we will reach agreement on these issues. We’ve also engaged with the MBA and servicers to address compensatory fees to provide greater certainty and clarity in that area. I hope you agree that these are positive changes that will help you manage and limit your potential repurchase risk.
Finally, we have been working closely with you, our lender partners, to reduce the number of underwriting defects in your operations. We have been in your shops, and we have shared with you our findings, both good and bad – not with an eye toward playing "gotcha" – but to help you identify opportunities for improvement. Many of you have expressed your appreciation for our approach which, with your help, is producing positive results. We can see that defect rates have declined.
As you know, under our new representation and warranty framework, we are reviewing more loans closer to the time of delivery to Fannie Mae.
We’ve reviewed samples of the loans delivered to us in the first three quarters of 2013. Out of the 2.7 million single-family loans delivered to us from January through September 2013, we have issued repurchase requests on just 0.3 percent of them. That’s only 8,200 loans out of 2.7 million!
Even more, we’re giving lenders the opportunity to correct issues that prompted a repurchase request. For the first quarter of 2013, lenders corrected approximately 60 percent of our repurchase requests by providing data or documentation – meaning they didn’t actually have to repurchase the loans. So of those 8,200 repurchase requests I mentioned, most were resolved without a buyback. All of these numbers show that you have been successful in delivering loans that meet our standards, and that we are being fair in reviewing loans and giving you the chance to correct defects.
I was encouraged by a survey of executives at the recent MBA Secondary Conference. When asked how concerned they were about repurchase requests, the average rating was 3.2 out of 10 – down from 8 or higher in recent years. This shows progress, and the changes we continue to work on with the MBA should help make fear of repurchases a nonissue. My promise to you is that we will continue to treat you fairly in the loan review process to limit your repurchase risk today and in the future.
Let me note that we will also continue to build and deliver to you foundational tools that will reduce risk to you and the housing finance system. You are already familiar with some of them. For example, Desktop Underwriter is the leading automated underwriting platform in the industry, and provides limited waivers of representations and warranties. Another Fannie Mae tool is Early Check™, which enables you to do quality control checks earlier in your business process. These tools help you meet Fannie Mae’s requirements, and lend confidently to qualified borrowers. In August 2014, nearly 60 percent of loan deliveries came through the Early Check process, and I urge any lender who isn’t using that tool to do so.
We are working hard to develop additional tools to reduce risk to you and the system. To that end, today we announced Collateral Underwriter™ – a major innovation that gives you access to the same tool we use internally at Fannie Mae to analyze appraisals. Collateral Underwriter will help you evaluate the appraisal you order on a loan and understand how Fannie Mae views that appraisal. It compares the appraisal against our database of appraisals, and against other pieces of information we have about the home and neighboring properties.
You can use Collateral Underwriter before a loan closes, allowing you to address appraisal quality long before delivering a loan to Fannie Mae.
We see Collateral Underwriter as a major step toward offering representation and warranty relief on appraisals in the future, and we will work with FHFA on the details to do that.
Previews of Collateral Underwriter are available in our meeting rooms here at the Mandalay Bay, so we hope you’ll stop by to see it. Like Early Check, Collateral Underwriter will be available to you at no additional cost. It is not a vendor solution and we will not charge you to use it.
All of these steps – changes to the representation and warranty framework, greater clarity on what does and does not give rise to a possible repurchase, our loan quality review processes, and new tools such as Collateral Underwriter, should enable you to lend to our standards so that there won’t be surprises down the road – for you or for us.
For your part, with less repurchase risk, I ask you to commit to lending across our full credit box. Again, there is good, profitable business available by expanding your lending to qualified borrowers at a wider range of FICO, LTV, and DTI levels. Increasing access to credit for qualified borrowers is good for borrowers, lenders, and the economy as a whole. We will be there to support you as you expand your work with additional borrowers.
We’re In This Together
At the end of the day, the only way we at Fannie Mae can fulfill our mission of helping to build a stronger, better housing finance system is to make you successful in delivering credit to the market. You are out there every day, working with borrowers to meet their needs, whether that’s to buy or refinance a home. In addition, our multifamily lender partners are helping to ensure that families who choose to rent have access to good, affordable housing. We are striving to equip you with the products, services, and tools to underwrite quality loans and to serve more borrowers.
Our goal is to continue to be the leading player in the secondary mortgage market by being your most valued business partner. At Fannie Mae, we are focused on serving you, and we look forward to winning with you in the future.
Thank you very much.
http://www.fanniemae.com/portal/about-us/media/speeches/2014/speech-mayopoulos-2014mba.html
Fannie Mae: Continental Western Points Out Lambreth Ignored Supreme Court Precedent
by valueplaysOctober 20, 2014, 4:49 pm
Fannie Mae: Continental Western Points Out Lambreth Ignored Supreme Court Precedent by Todd Sullivan, ValuePlays
UPDATE: The court has accepted the brief and Treasury has 15 days to reply ONLY re: Perry decision
This is good stuff…
Charles Cooper has filed a motion on behalf of Continental Western to supplement their brief. In it he points out the flaws in the Perry ruling from Lambreth. The cliff notes here are that Lambreth ignored 2nd Circuit, 8th Circuit, 9th Circuit and Supreme Court precedent with his ruling when he claimed:
1- FHFA has ability to liquidate
2- Because HERA (in his opinion) says FHFA can do whatever it wants, it can
3- Because the companies have not yet been liquidated, there is no taking and the claims are not ripe
Summation below and full annotated filing below (all quotations from filing, all BOLD notations are mine):
1- Interestingly enough, despite it being touted as the main reason for the Conservatorship, “Nowhere in the Perry court’s recent decision upholding the Net Worth Sweep can one find the words “preserve and conserve the assets and property of the regulated entity” or “put the regulated entity in a sound and solvent condition.”
2- “HERA says that “no court may take any action to restrain or affect the exercise of powers or functions of the Agency as a conservator or a receiver.” 12 U.S.C. § 4617(f) (emphasis added). It follows that Section 4617(f) bars review of Plaintiff’s claims only if FHFA was legitimately acting within its authority as a “conservator” when it yielded to Treasury’s demand to impose the Net Worth Sweep. See Plaintiff’s Response to Defendants’ Motions To Dismiss at 24-29, Doc. 45 (“MTD Opp.”). The Perry court, however, never explained how FHFA’s decision to donate to its sister agency all of Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC)’s massive profits in perpetuity could possibly be viewed as the legitimate act of a “conservator.” Our research discloses no act of a conservator in the annals of financial regulatory history that is even remotely comparable to Defendants’ looting of privately owned companies. Nor have Defendants been able to point to a comparable precedent.
The Perry court likewise failed to explain how FHFA’s actions could possibly be squared with HERA’s specific statutory requirements that FHFA, as conservator, “preserve and conserve [the Companies’] assets and property” and strive to place them “in a sound and solvent condition.” ”
3- “As the Eighth Circuit has explained, the conservator of a distressed financial institution is “empowered to take action necessary to restore [it] to a solvent position and to carry on the business of the institution and preserve and conserve the assets and property of the institution.” RTC v. CedarMinn Bldg. Ltd. P’ship, 956 F.2d 1446, 1453 (8th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, “a conservator only has the power to take actions necessary to restore a financially troubled institution to solvency. “
4- “(“The decision to appoint a conservator is not a judgment to divest the owner of his property. Rather, it is a judgment that the owner is unable or unwilling to properly manage or control the assets and it is an attempt to put the institution back into a safe and sound condition.”).
In direct contradiction of the rehabilitative mission that defines the role of a conservator, the Perry court concluded that only “two facts” mattered to its inquiry under Section 4617(f): because Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) (1) “continue to operate” and (2) “have now regained profitability,” FHFA’s actions cannot be challenged as beyond the scope of its powers as conservator. Op. 24. To that court, it mattered not that by stripping all profits from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHFA was depleting the Companies’ capital by billions of dollars every quarter and leaving them just one bad quarter from insolvency.
On the Perry court’s understanding of Section 4617(f), then, FHFA need not offer any rehabilitative rationale for its actions or otherwise even pretend to pursue the traditional goals and actions of a conservator to avail itself of immunity from suit. So long as Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) continue to operate profitably, FHFA is free to give all of the Companies’ assets to anyone, for any reason. Congress surely did not intend Section 4617(f) to bring about such absurd results. “
5- “The Perry court’s extraordinary expansion of the reach of Section 4617(f) is illustrated by the fact that Section 4617(f) is materially identical to the provisions of FIRREA that govern FDIC’s conservatorships and receiverships of banks. Perry has dire implications for financial institutions that may seek to raise capital in the future: if FHFA as conservator can donate the entire value of the Companies to deficit reduction, then the same is true for the FDIC when it acts as conservator for a bank, even a highly profitable one.
In declaring FHFA’s purpose for entering the Net Worth Sweep irrelevant to the jurisdictional analysis, the Perry court said that it would consider only “what has happened, not why it happened.” Op. 21. Even if the Perry court were correct, in this case it is ironically not Plaintiff but Defendants who have sought to shift the focus away from what the Net Worth Sweep did to why it was done. Perhaps recognizing that “what” the Net Worth Sweep does cannot be squared with the most fundamental duties of a conservator under HERA, Defendants have attempted to defend the Net Worth Sweep by offering a patently pretextual purpose. Specifically, in contravention of the Complaint’s allegations, Defendants argue that this extraordinary action was necessary to arrest a “downward spiral” supposedly caused by the Companies’ practice of drawing on Treasury’s funding commitment to pay cash dividends back to Treasury. See, e.g., Treasury MTD Reply at 5-6, Doc. 46; FHFA MTD Reply at 14, Doc. 47. While the Perry court claimed to have deemed this explanation irrelevant to the Section 4617(f) analysis, it appears to have largely credited Defendants’ economic narrative. Op. 6 n.7 (concluding that FFHA was required to pay dividends to Treasury even if it had to draw on Treasury’s funding commitment to do so).2 But even if that narrative were accurate—it is not— Defendants’ purported good intentions would not change the fact that the Net Worth Sweep gave away the assets that FHFA was supposed to “preserve and conserve” as conservator and guaranteed that the Companies will never be able to rebuild capital and resume normal business operations. Such actions, whatever their motive, are not those of a conservator.
In all events, this Court has held that it “must take Continental Western’s factual assertions . . . as true”—including Plaintiff’s assertions “that the net worth sweep was unnecessary and improperly motivated.” Order on Motion To Compel at 6, Doc. 42 (“MTC Order”). To the extent that the Court considers why FHFA imposed the Net Worth Sweep, it cannot dismiss the Complaint on the basis of Defendants’ contested economic narrative. ”
6- Footnote 2 “The Perry court’s reasoning rests on the demonstrably mistaken premise that prior to the Net Worth Sweep the Companies were required to pay Treasury a 10% cash dividend even when they could not do so without drawing on Treasury funds. The Perry court’s reading of the Stock Certificates is inconsistent with the plain language of the contract and applicable law. First, as we have previously demonstrated, MTD Opp. 31 n.9, the plain terms of Treasury’s senior preferred stock certificates gave the Companies another option, specifying that “[t]o the extent” dividends were not paid in cash, “dividends on the Senior Preferred Stock shall accrue and shall be added to the Liquidation Preference.” Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) Government Stock Certificate § 2(b) (Exhibit B to Doc. 23-2). The Perry court determined that declining to declare cash dividends was not an “option” available to the Companies because the Stock Certificates say that if the Companies “fail[ ] to pay dividends in cash in a timely manner as required by this Certificate, then immediately following such failure” the dividend rate increases to 12% until all accrued dividends are paid in cash. Op. 7 n.7 (quoting Fannie Mae Government Stock Certificate § 2(c)). But another provision of the Stock Certificates makes clear that Treasury is only entitled to cash dividends “when, as and if declared by the Board of Directors, in its sole discretion.” Fannie Mae Government Stock Certificate § 2(a). The Perry court ignored that provision, and its oversight is particularly glaring because 31 pages later it pointed to the very same language in the plaintiffs’ stock certificates as the basis for its conclusion, this time correct, that the plaintiffs had no contractual right to be paid undeclared cash dividends. Op. 37. Second, even if no such language appeared in the Treasury Stock Certificates, it would not change the fundamental principle that a corporation is never legally required to pay undeclared cash dividends and may not do so when paying them would render it insolvent. See EBS Litig., LLC v. Barclays Global Investors, 304 F.3d 302, 305-06 (3d Cir. 2002). Under Delaware corporate law, a dividend cannot be mandatory. DEL. CODE tit. 8, § 170(a) (directors “may” pay dividends out of surplus but “shall not” declare or pay dividends out of a corporation that lacks a capital surplus). ”
7- “Perhaps no passage of the Perry opinion better illustrates this error than its startling conclusion that the Companies’ private shareholders do not retain a property interest in their stock:
Whether the defendants executed the Third Amendment to generate profits for taxpayers or to escape a “downward spiral” of Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) seeking funding in order to pay owed dividends back to Treasury, it does not change the fact that it was executed during a period of conservatorship and, thus, after the plaintiffs’ property interests . . . were extinguished.
Op. 46 (emphasis added). Even FHFA, in announcing its decision to place the Companies in conservatorship, acknowledged that under a conservatorship the shareholders “are still in place; both the preferred and common shareholders have an economic interest in the companies.” Compl. ¶ 39 (quoting Oversight Hearing To Examine Recent Treasury and FHFA Actions Regarding the Housing Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC): Hearing Before H. Comm. on Fin. Servs., 110th Cong. (Sept. 25, 2008) (Statement of James B. Lockhart, III, Dir., FHFA)); id. (during the conservatorship, the Companies’ stockholders “will continue to retain all rights in the stock’s financial worth” (quoting FHFA FACT SHEET, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON CONSERVATORSHIP 3 (Sept. 7, 2008)); see MTD Opp. 11-12. FHFA’s donative transfer to Treasury was the act of an owner, not a conservator pursuing its self-avowed “statutory mission to restore soundness and solvency to [Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC)] and to preserve and conserve their assets and property.” 76 Fed. Reg. at 35,726. ”
7- “The Perry court correctly acknowledged that it could set aside the Net Worth Sweep if FHFA acceded to that change in violation of HERA’s proscription “not [to] be subject to the direction or supervision of any other agency of the United States.” 12 U.S.C. § 4617(a)(7); see Op. 23. That court erred, however, in dismissing the plaintiffs’ claim on the ground that “there is nothing in the pleadings or the administrative record provided by Treasury that hints at coercion actionable” under Section 4617(a)(7). Op. 23.
Regardless of whether there was any merit to the Perry court’s conclusion that “nothing in the pleadings . . . hints at coercion actionable under § 4617(a)(7),” Op. 23, this Court has already recognized that the Complaint in this case alleges that the Net Worth Sweep “was the product of a Treasury directive aimed simply at giving Treasury all of the Companies’ profits.”
MTC Order 4 (emphasis added); see Compl. ¶ 78 (“FHFA agreed to the Net Worth Sweep only at the insistence and under the direction and supervision of Treasury.”); MTD Opp. 32-33. Indeed, the Court has previously ruled that it must accept that allegation, like all of the facts alleged in the Complaint, as true in resolving the Defendants’ pending motions to dismiss. MTC Order 6.
It was, of course, quite improper for the Perry court to dismiss a claim on the basis of the incomplete “administrative record provided by Treasury,” id.,4 while at the same declaring that it “need not view the full administrative record” to dismiss the suit. ”
8- “The Perry court’s analysis rests on the false premise that only an act that completes the Companies’ liquidation could be at odds with FHFA’s mission as conservator “to carry on [their] business . . . and preserve and conserve” their assets. 12 U.S.C. § 4617(b)(2)(D). Here,
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/fannie-mae-continental-western-points-lambreth-ignored-supreme-court-precedent/
Obama Ally Wages Class Warfare, Says Bailout Victims Are Too Rich to Sue the Government
The outcome of a legal dispute should depend on the substance of the law and the facts rather than whether one of the parties is “megarich.”
Ira Stoll | October 20, 2014
“Megarich Plaintiffs, Legally Adrift,” is the headline The New York Times ran over the latest article by Steven Rattner, the money manager and former Obama administration official.
Rattner’s article does the useful service of discerning a unifying theme in two different court cases. One is a lawsuit being pressed by former American International Group CEO Maurice Greenberg, claiming that the government unlawfully seized AIG from its shareholders. The second is a series of lawsuits brought by shareholders or former shareholders in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming that those companies and their profits were illegally taken by the federal government.
As the Times headline makes clear, Rattner’s argument concerns less the merits of the property rights cases than it does the wealth of the plaintiffs. “A megarich individual and a battalion of investment funds are claiming unfair treatment and trying to extract billions in undeserved riches,” he writes.
He advises, “Mr. Greenberg and the funds should consider how hard to press on this. Average Americans already feel distaste for Wall Street and rich people; bringing these rapacious lawsuits can only unnecessarily exacerbate class tensions.”
Rattner’s argument fails on several levels. Understanding how requires some retracing of the way that the government response to the financial crisis undermined confidence by arbitrarily trampling property rights.
First, framing these legal battles as a dispute between “Average Americans,” on the one hand, and “rich people,” on the other hand, as Rattner does, misrepresents the reality of what happened in the AIG and the Fannie and Freddie seizures. In the AIG case, for example, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, the money that the taxpayers put in was quickly paid out to AIG’s counterparties. French banks got $19 billion. German banks got $17 billion. Goldman Sachs got $12.9 billion, by the Bloomberg Businessweek count. AIG shareholders were essentially wiped out, while these counterparties were paid back 100 cents on the dollar.
A similar situation applies in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cases, where bondholders, including the Chinese Communist government, were made totally whole, while shareholders were essentially wiped out. As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explained in his memoir, after seizing Fannie and Freddie, he called his “old friends Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of the central bank of China, and Wang Qishan, vice premier in charge of China's financial and economic affairs.” Paulson said he told Wang, “I always said we'd live up to our obligations.”
Plenty of AIG and Fannie and Freddie shareholders weren’t rich at all. Some of them are pension funds representing retirees or public employees. Some of them were charities that do philanthropic work. But even if some of the shareholders were rich, as Greenberg is, this litigation isn’t really about rich people versus “Average Americans.” It’s about rich people versus French and German banks, Goldman Sachs, and the Chinese Communist pals of Henry Paulson.
Second, the fact that one party to a legal dispute is rich and another party is not should be entirely irrelevant to the merits of the case. That’s why the classical portrait of justice has her wearing a blindfold. This is such an important principle that it is enshrined in the Bible, in Leviticus 19:15: “You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kinsman fairly.” The sages of the Talmud, in the tractate Shevu’oth 31a, took this admonition so seriously that if two litigants came to court, one dressed in rags and the other in fine clothes, they said, “either dress like him, or dress him like you.” Another litigant was reportedly advised, “remove your fine shoes, and come down for your case.”
The principle that the outcome of a legal dispute should depend on the substance of the law and the facts rather than whether one of the parties is “megarich” is one that serves justice well; one needn’t be a religious believer or an adherent of the Talmud or of all of Leviticus to understand its merits.
Which brings us to the third point. The best thing for “Average Americans” is a system where property rights are strong and so is the rule of law—not one where the government can use a crisis arbitrarily to take control of companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or AIG from their shareholders, while seizing future profits and paying off politically connected and influential counterparties and bondholders in full. If Rattner doesn’t grasp that, how’d he like it if “Uncle Sam” took his Manhattan apartment and turned it over to me? If he complained, I’d tell him to be quiet, lest he “unnecessarily exacerbate class tensions.”
http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/20/obama-ally-wages-class-warfare
I was hoping for a hint
Drum roll please........ oh I mean rim shot. The joke is on us once again. Or Lucy pulled the football out again !
When Treasury’s PaulsonTruckled to Red Chinese,
Betraying AIG Investors
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
October 20, 2014
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“Megarich Plaintiffs, Legally Adrift,” is the headline the New York Times ran over the latest article by Steven Rattner, the money manager and former Obama administration official. Mr. Rattner’s article does the useful service of discerning a unifying theme in two different court cases.
One is a lawsuit being pressed by American International Group’s former chief executive officer, Maurice Greenberg, claiming that the government unlawfully seized AIG from its shareholders. The second is a series of lawsuits brought by shareholders or former shareholders in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming that those companies and their profits were illegally taken by the federal government.
As the Times headline makes clear, Mr. Rattner’s argument concerns less the merits of the property rights cases than it does the wealth of the plaintiffs. “A megarich individual and a battalion of investment funds are claiming unfair treatment and trying to extract billions in undeserved riches,” he writes.
He advises, “Mr. Greenberg and the funds should consider how hard to press on this. Average Americans already feel distaste for Wall Street and rich people; bringing these rapacious lawsuits can only unnecessarily exacerbate class tensions.”
Mr. Rattner’s argument fails on several levels. Understanding how requires some retracing of the way that the government response to the financial crisis undermined confidence by arbitrarily trampling property rights.
First, framing these legal battles as a dispute between “Average Americans,” on the one hand, and “rich people,” on the other hand, as Mr. Rattner does, misrepresents the reality of what happened in the AIG and the Fannie and Freddie seizures. In the AIG case, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, the money that the taxpayers put in was quickly paid out to AIG’s counterparties. French banks got $19 billion. German banks got $17 billion. Goldman Sachs got $12.9 billion, by the Bloomberg Businessweek count. AIG shareholders were essentially wiped out, while these counterparties were paid back 100 cents on the dollar.
A similar situation applies in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cases, where bondholders, including the Chinese Communist government, were made totally whole, while shareholders were essentially wiped out. As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explained in his memoir, after seizing Fannie and Freddie, he called his “old friends Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of the central bank of China, and Wang Qishan, vice premier in charge of China's financial and economic affairs.” Mr. Paulson said he told Wang, “I always said we'd live up to our obligations.”
Plenty of AIG and Fannie and Freddie shareholders weren’t rich at all. Some of them are pension funds representing retirees or public employees. Some of them were charities that do philanthropic work. But even if some of the shareholders were rich, as Mr. Greenberg is, this litigation isn’t really about rich people versus “Average Americans.” It’s about rich people versus French and German banks, Goldman Sachs, and the Chinese Communist pals of Henry Paulson.
Second, the fact that one party to a legal dispute is rich and another party is not should be entirely irrelevant to the merits of the case. That’s why the classical portrait of justice has her wearing a blindfold. This is such an important principle that it is enshrined in the Bible, in Leviticus 19:15: “You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kinsman fairly.”
The sages of the Talmud, in the tractate Shevu’oth 31a, took this admonition so seriously that if two litigants came to court, one dressed in rags and the other in fine clothes, they said, “either dress like him, or dress him like you.” Another litigant was reportedly advised, “remove your fine shoes, and come down for your case.”
The principle that the outcome of a legal dispute should depend on the substance of the law and the facts rather than whether one of the parties is “megarich” is one that serves justice well; one needn’t be a religious believer or an adherent of the Talmud or of all of Leviticus to understand its merits.
Which brings us to the third point. The best thing for “Average Americans” is a system where property rights are strong and so is the rule of law — not one where the government can use a crisis arbitrarily to take control of companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or AIG from their shareholders, while seizing future profits and paying off politically connected and influential counterparties and bondholders in full.
If Mr. Rattner doesn’t grasp that, how’d he like it if “Uncle Sam” took his Manhattan apartment and turned it over to me? If he complained, I’d tell him to be quiet, lest he “unnecessarily exacerbate class tensions.”
http://www.nysun.com/national/when-treasurys-paulson-truckled-to-red-chinese/88887/
Federal Housing Finance Agency Unveils Plan to Loosen Mortgage Rules
By DIONNE SEARCEY and PETER EAVIS
October 20, 2014
A federal housing regulator on Monday announced a plan that could ease tight credit and allow more people to qualify for mortgages in an attempt to get the nation’s housing market back on track.
The plan, announced at a convention of mortgage bankers, includes offering reassurances to lenders that fear they could suffer unpredictable losses on the loans they sell to the government. Separately, plans are in motion to set up programs for borrowers to receive government-backed loans with much smaller down payments than are now required.
“We know that access to credit remains tight for many borrowers, and we are also working to address this issue in a responsible and thoughtful manner,” said Melvin Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The move in large part is intended to reassure banks that have had to pay tens of billions of dollars to settle legal cases in the wake of the housing crisis and buy back bad loans sold to Fannie and Freddie. To avoid having to make those payments again, many lenders now demand borrowers meet stricter requirements for loans known in the industry as overlays.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/us/life-in-quarantine-for-ebola-exposure-21-days-of-fear-and-loathing.html
You shouldn't feed us animals at zoo paranoia.
Yea I get that but I thought fdic shares were from other institutions taken into receaivership. They had fnf shares but got them from other compaies. That was my only point. Wheather or not they sold on insider info. I was not addressing. They probably did have privelaged info. Really why would any intelligent person think that fdic didn't have inside info?
I see an evil plot unfolding. Restore fnf but only after they have been hobbled. Taking all of their profit ensuress that they can not recapitalize. Now make them take on additional risk similar to what was required of them in the past. At that point they would be in worse shape than they were in 2008. When the next housing bubble bursts they will once again be the scapegoats. They will be taken back into conservatorship or into receivership with the mantra that they can not manage themselves. Oh what tangled webs we weave!
I think they mean the entities that were taken over into recievership. That is where they got those shares of fnf. So they were selling them to liquidate. Not referring to sahres of fnf that they got from fnf. That is my take. Hope that makes sense they way that I typed it.
I am concerned that the select set of circumstances that you are reffering to are merely the camel's nose under the tent. What is discussed or proposed openly may not be what is written into regulation or law. I guess I have a misguided distrust of our government and it's hidden agendas. Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean that they are not out to get me.
Yes I don't know why he is disgruntled. Maybe he owns some fnf.
Broken Promises to Fannie and Freddie Investors
by William M. Isaac
OCT 20, 2014 10:00am ET
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William M. Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is senior managing director and global head of financial institutions at FTI Consulting.
William M. Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is senior managing director and global head of financial institutions at FTI Consulting.
Earlier this month, D.C. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth threw out a lawsuit brought against the government by shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some critics of the housing giants have hailed Judge Lamberth's finding against investors as a win for American taxpayers — but nothing could be further from the truth. The case has further shaken the confidence of investors who aren't sure what to expect next from a government that has often acted unilaterally and unpredictably in dealing with the recent financial crisis.
In a stunningly misguided opinion, Judge Lambert dismissed the two core claims that had been brought by plaintiffs: first, that the Federal Housing Finance Agency was illegally taking profits from Fannie and Freddie shareholders; and second, that the siphoning of these profits was a violation of FHFA's duty as conservator.
It's worth a quick recap of the history behind this litigation. Congress passed the Housing Economic and Recovery Act in 2008, authorizing emergency loans to Fannie and Freddie and establishing a framework for FHFA to take over the housing giants.
Believing Fannie and Freddie to be insolvent, the FHFA placed them into conservatorship. As part of the conservatorship agreement, the United States got senior preferred shares in both companies as well as the right to purchase 79% of the common stock. The government's preferred shares paid a 10% dividend to the government. Four years later, as Fannie and Freddie were becoming profitable again, the FHFA enacted a Third Amendment changing the terms of the government's preferred stock from a 10% dividend to a 100% sweep of all of the profits — in perpetuity. Shareholders promptly sued.
In the conclusion of his ruling, Judge Lamberth conceded that it would be understandable for the amendment "to raise eyebrows" before suggesting that the plaintiffs' grievance really ought to be with Congress for enacting HERA in the first place.
It's ironic that Judge Lamberth would point the plaintiffs back to the HERA statute, because it provides no basis at all for his ruling. Congress specified that the FHFA's responsibility as conservator was to "take such action as may be necessary to put [Fannie and Freddie] in a sound and solvent condition," and to "preserve and conserve [their] assets."
The dividend sweeps required by the Third Amendment are completely at odds with this "preserve and conserve" mandate and have prevented Fannie and Freddie from rebuilding capital, even though both have become hugely profitable. Since 2008, they have paid back more than $218 billion to the Treasury, about $30 billion more than they were loaned in the first place. It is estimated that the government's right to acquire 79% ownership of the common stock is worth another $200 billion or so.
But perhaps the most astonishing portion of Judge Lamberth's ruling was his contention that shareholder rights were "extinguished" by the conservatorship. By law, a conservatorship merely suspends temporarily certain shareholder rights until the company leaves conservatorship. The conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie is no different.
Congress expressed in HERA its desire to maintain the GSEs as private shareholder-owned companies. In addition, the FHFA itself said this about shareholder rights when it placed the GSEs into conservatorship: "by statute, the powers of stockholders are suspended until the conservatorship is terminated. Stockholders will continue to retain all rights in the stock's financial worth, as such worth is determined by the market."
Not surprisingly, the plaintiff in the suit before Judge Lamberth will appeal the ruling. Other GSE shareholder cases are also active and further along in the process. For instance, Judge Margaret Sweeney has awarded discovery to Fairholme Funds in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in an entirely separate case. This may produce information about what the government knew about the future profitability of Fannie and Freddie when it decided to enact the sweep.
These cases will eventually be resolved one way or another, but there is a larger issue at hand. The federal government, by acting arbitrarily in imposing the unlawful sweep, has sent a clear message to private capital: There's only downside to being the government's partner in a time of crisis.
As a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., I find this is deeply concerning. The ability of the FDIC and Federal Reserve to act decisively and effectively in a time of financial crisis is dependent on their ability to engage the private sector in solutions.
When I headed the FDIC, the widespread banking and savings and loan crises were threatening to destabilize the world's financial system. The FDIC and Federal Reserve worked with countless financial institutions and private investors to help stabilize the industry and prevent the crisis from raging out of control. Private capital stepped up, often with little or no time for due diligence, because investors could trust the United States to keep its word.
The government's behavior during and after the most recent financial crisis is having the opposite effect. By changing the rules in the middle of the game, the government has not only violated its responsibility as a conservator, it has undercut the FDIC's and the Federal Reserve's ability to work effectively with private capital in future crises.
Private capital won't show up when the rule of law is subverted, as it has been so dramatically in the case of Fannie and Freddie. The government's actions are wrong and terribly short-sighted; if not reversed, they will come back to haunt us during the next crisis.
William M. Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is senior managing director and global head of financial institutions at FTI Consulting. Isaac and his firm provide services to many clients, including some who may have an interest in this litigation. The views expressed are his own.
http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/broken-promises-to-fannie-and-freddie-investors-1070591-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Seems like a double edged sword. If banks won't bite because of exposure to potential losses well ok Fnf are still the only game in town. But If fnf get released but they can not sue the loan originators then the big banks can make bad loans with impunity. fnf are on the hook for the bad loans. Another tar pit for fnf to fall into since it seems that the govt. can require fnf to take on even more riskier debt just like before but worse because fnf have no recourse under this scenario. It could all be pieced together by pres. admin, FHFA and Treasury to help banks and totally screw fnf
FHFA plans looser mortgage rules to boost housing video link
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/fhfa-plans-looser-mortgage-rules-to-boost-housing-DFaOq1wESQ~f1w08DhBhyQ.html
From Pariah to Presidential AdvisorsThe Obama GSE Hypocrisy Rolls On
When in doubt look to Fannie Mae (for help).
The reliable word, when Barack Obama first was elected, was that his (badly uninformed) "people" told him to stay away from Fannie Mae issues and officials, because the company was a festering mess.
He did, later actually turning against the Fannie business model and calling for its disassembly.
But, some of thought that political paranoia ended when in 2009, he nominated a former Fannie colleague and friend, Donald Remy, to be the General Counsel of the US Army. (Remy had senior legal positions at Fannie, the Justice Department and was an assistant attorney to the Army GC, previously.)
One McCain Memory (Thank You!)
But, the old Obama doubts returned when a Senate Armed Services Committee GOP staffer, working for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)*, suddenly claimed that the Committee hadn't realized Remy had served as a Fannie lawyer and Obama—wilting from pressure--promptly folded his hand and pulled the plug on Donald (who went on to be named the NCAA’s chief legal officer).
*During the 2006 presidential campaign, when candidate John McCain began making disparaging GSE comments, I told the NYT that McCain’s campaign staff was filled with ex-Fannie consultants, causing the McCain camp some long faces and embarrassment, especially when it became known his campaign director still was on Freddie’s payroll. So, I knew why the Senator disliked Fannie.
From a June 13, 2009, n ABC Network news transcript: “An administration source pointed out that Remy fully disclosed his tenure at Fannie Mae in other documents provided to the committee, including his Senate Armed Services Committee Questionnaire, his National Security Questionnaire and his Public Financial Disclosure Report.”
But when desperate and unable to call Ghostbusters, you call....
The President didn’t do the “Fannie blanch” at Tom Donilon’s six influential years of "Fannie service," when—in 2010--he tabbed Donilon to be his National Security Advisory. Nor did Barack let Tom Nides Fannie’s service-- before Nides had returned to Wall Street-- stop him when he named Nides in 2011 to support Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
And now President Obama has chosen, former O’Melveny and Myers lawyer and Fannie Mae consultant (who also served as VP Joe Biden's Chief of Staff) to be the country’s "Ebola Czar."
Good luck, Ron, just pull off your normal excellent job. The nation needs your best.
One Klain Memory
When working with Fannie, consultant Ron Klain produced an exemplary piece of work, a proposed strategic (as opposed to just tactical) Fannie attack aimed at the FM Watch antagonists, its member companies, their principals and lobbyists.
Based on Klain’s rich research and arguments, had Fannie adopted his plan, it might have saved a lot of people from losing their jobs and the company getting heavily besmirched by the GOP and Fannie’s business and political opponents and it would have been so much fun to implement.
But, Klain’s idea was rejected by those above my pay grade, a fact I didn’t support and never will understand.
I wonder when and if the WH will back off its “Fannie bad!” script, they once aimed at individuals and publicly still used against the institution.
Maybe this week?
Fannie & Freddie Get New Obama Tasks?
Mel Watt and HUD Secretary Julian Castro will speak this week to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas (recently the trade group said it had association earnings $9 million over last year’s).
Most of what Watt and Castro will say has leaked (hey, its Washington isn’t it).
Reportedly, Watt will ask Fannie and Freddie to again finance/securitize 97% LTV loans. The Admin and the industry hope this return to limited 3% down financing--with slightly lower credit criteria--will jumpstart American housing finance, building and purchases.
The other rumored development is that Watt will announce F&F providing funds for two multifamily and rental low income programs. Past GSE regulator s balked at funding them, because: (1) the Administration never prioritized the recipients’ needs; (2) didn’t believe the GSEs had the money for the efforts; or (3) Treasury desperately wanted all the F&F earnings for the general fund 9see first reason).
So now a desperate Administration once again is turning to the two Gorilla mortgage finance entities to help with housing problems the “private” banks and other lenders won’t/can’t do on their own. Gee, sound familiar?
Hasn’t America seen this picture before, say in 1992 and later when the Bush and then Clinton administrations leaned on F&F to do more for low income and minority families?
Given this regulatory reinvigoration, what will the Obama Admin do when the next US Senator or GOP Member asks for F&F to be shut down or phased out??
Ludicrous and “Ludicrouser”
(Personally, I call “Bullshit” on judge Margaret Sweeney’s decision to deny Tim Howard access to “discovered documents,” while she claims he still can work for plaintiffs Fairholme Capital. I am pessimistic about a plaintiff’s victory because I think—but can’t prove—the Judge was reflecting her inclination on the core hearing question.)
Here is a link.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/243262662/Sweeney-Order-Re-Howard
Sweeney’s objections to Tim Howard are a shaky concluding Howard, only, is a risk to leak information.
She said he owned/owns Fannie stock; he wrote the US government was wrong in charging him and others with crimes, allegations that later a federal judge threw out of court; and he settled some OFHEO restitution demands with no personal assets lost.
Despite claiming she wasn’t questioning Howard's honesty re stock dealings, she does exactly that and ignores that Fairholme's lawyers filed a formal notice--which Tim had signed when Fairholme approached him—assuring the court that he would not buy, sell, or trade in any securities for the duration of the trial/hearing and until such time as Judge Sweeney rendered her final decision.
Howard’s Book Said What?
In rejecting Howard’s proposed role, she argues he said the federal government—i.e., Fannie's regulator, then known as the Office of Financial Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)--had wrongly accused him (and two other Fannie execs) of "securities fraud," a 2004 charge, compounded, when the Bush SEC supported it.
These events, and the intervening eight years until a federal judge threw the matter out were covered in Tim's book, published last year.
Sweeney's view suggests, if the federal government f****d you over and you say it, you can’t be part of legal discovery on some future related case. (Why, will Howard the consultant invent material not in government files?)
Way back, Tim did give up some claims to financial assets in his settlement with OFHEO (as did Frank), which OFHEO, by design, over 6 years ago and Judge Sweeney, again, last week grossly/significantly inflated their value.
Look carefully at what they "gave" and then answer: why would anyone not do the same to get the vengeful OFHEO absurdist hacks off their back?
To make their prize look more impressive, OFHEO six years ago valued the “captured” securities at their much higher initial award price, not their depressed near zero dollars market price (April 2008). The regulator also counted as part of the settlement a cash payment to Treasury from an insurance company.
Result, the $6.4 million that both OFHEO and Sweeney claimed Howard "paid" to settle the bogus OFHEO charges was made up of worthless underwater stock options, a contribution to a housing non-profit of stock he hadn't been given, and cash paid by an insurance company.
None of it was out of Howard’s (or Raines's) pocket, or represented any admission of guilt. Sweeney knew all that—since it was made clear in a motion submitted by Fairholme’s lawyers—yet she still chose to portray the settlement as if it consisted of real money.
Administration Hyper-bloviation?
In opposing Howard participating in “discovery,” defendants told (a gullible?) Judge Sweeney-–again, suggesting Howard would mistreat the data—that the government is sitting on information about two companies it has tightly controlled for the past six years, that are conservatively operated and spitting out annual billion dollar profits—which if revealed could have “external deleterious consequences” and a “destabilizing effect on the nation’s housing markets?
(I think I now know where Uncle Sam’s true “Area 51 and Roswell UFO crash” data is kept!)
Also, with regard to Mel Watt and Mike Stegman claiming Howard should be kept away from these financially momentous, powerful and weighty government records, really, what are you guys smoking, or what is it you truly fear?
I cannot comprehend what in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac record(s), if divulged, could cause serious and catastrophic damage to the mortgage finance system, but Judge Sweeney swallowed that propaganda whole.
Compounding her myth acceptance, Judge Sweeney raked Tim Howard with her legal claws, possibly reopening old wounds on a man whose reputation federal Judge Richard J. Leon helped cauterize two years ago when Leon ruled none of the claims against Howard (and Raines) had any merit?
Why the Government’s Fear and Anxiety?
I suspect that there are a skein of documents that show OFHEO/FHFA was a Treasury tool, an empty suit, a "conservatorship" puppet failing to vigorously chart F&F's financial recovery, which the Congress called for in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA).
And further, there might be documents which would show Treasury mismanaged its "third amendment sweep," when it underestimated how quickly Fannie and Freddie could rebound given the housing recovery starting in 2012 and it probably bent/broke the law in denying F&F any earnings from which they might be able to recapitalize.
Those facts will show up somewhere, ideally in Sweeney’s court or maybe as part of an appeals hearing on the original Lamberth decision.
But, none of that justifies Sweeney’s clumsy trashing of Howard's character. Unless her mind is set and she plans to back the government’s actions—“discovery be damned”—meaning she has to fantasize events and possibilities supporting where she’s headed on the larger case matter.
David Fiderer on Judge Sweeney’s Decision
In a communication to me, our insightful lawyer friend, David
Fiderer, who has been through major financial services cases, with discovery and similar matters, offers the following.
“Anyone who works for the plaintiffs’ lawyers—a small army of support staff that consultants, the secretaries the file clerks—is bound by the same confidentiality strictures.”
(Maloni asks, how many dozens or hundreds of these folks can pass Sweeney’s more pure than “Caesar’s wife” test, which she applied to Howard only?)
“The US government defendants basically are saying that since Tim Howard is so desperate to reestablish his reputation—ignoring that it already had been restored in a court of law--he is disposed to breaking the law and disclosing confidential information to the public Of course, if you accept the defendant’s other premise, the danger is nonsensical. The defendants claim the GSEs are joined at the hip to the government, so how could the market react one way or another if the preferred and common shares are, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent.”
“Do you think Judge Sweeney understood that Howard (and Raines) went through an eight-year federal court case, which featured 65 million pages of hearing material and testimony, and there is not one shred of evidence that Tim Howard ever divulged anything from those records until his case was history and he authored a book?”
“And for the umpteenth time, shame on anyone who dares to claim that the Fannie Mae “accounting scandal,” had one iota of substance.”
http://malonigse.blogspot.com/2014/10/lots-of-sweeney-reaction-new-gse-tasks.html
Fannie, Freddie Surge As FHFA Looks Set To Impose New Lending Rules I couldn't load the article
http://www.bidnessetc.com/27576-fannie-freddie-surge-as-fhfa-looks-set-to-impose-new-lending-rules/
Editorial: A vibrant housing market remains key to recovery
Debt Rating S&P
The Fannie Mae headquarters is seen in Washington, Monday, Aug. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The Republican Editorials By The Republican Editorials
on October 20, 2014 at 10:07 AM
The Great Recession didn't simply happen.
After all these years, folks talk about it -- the global economic collapse that followed the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008 -- as though it had been an inevitability, another part of history, a terrible turn in the up-and-down cycle that is the global economy.
It was, in fact, none of the above.
It was created, and sustained. There were the unscrupulous, fly-by-night lenders who willingly pushed valueless paper out the door, caring only about making more deals, because it was the deals themselves that made money. There were the borrowers who jumped on the bandwagon, who saw a good thing -- buy your dream house with no money down! -- and just couldn't resist, even though there was no way in the world they could afford the type of house they were about to move into. There were the ratings agencies that turned a blind eye to the whole affair, overvaluing packages of mortgages that were selling as fast as they could be produced.
And when it all blew to pieces, the impact was felt across the globe. We haven't yet recovered from the collapse of the house of cards that was the housing market back in the bad old days. Part of the problem is that even good lenders, the legitimate banks that were never a part of the financial shenanigans that created the bubble in the first place, remain spooked. Lenders still aren't much lending, except to the small handful of those with pristine credit and lots of cash to put down, and the overall economy thus remains mired in place.
Thankfully, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have an impending agreement with lenders. The deal, set to be announced this week, should go a long way toward freeing up credit that would get the housing market moving again.
The plan, in essence, would hold lenders responsible for making fraudulent loans that fail, but would endeavor to shield them from the repercussions that would otherwise come from a good loan gone bad through circumstances beyond anyone's control.
Without a vibrant housing market, there'll be no real, sustainable recovery. This new program is a solid step.
http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/10/editorial_a_vibrant_housing_ma.html
Non-QM and Expanded Products; If Agencies go to 97% Will Lenders and MI Companies Follow?
Oct 20 2014, 7:26AM
I brought a set of workout clothes to the MBA conference, which turned out to be a waste because we're all burning lots of calories dashing to meetings in this immense hotel-conference center. I decided to venture into the Business Center at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. It's a small, windowless room equipped with a PC, a Mac, a LaserJet printer and a tray filled with pads, pens, Post-it notes, paper clips, rubber bands, a stapler, a tape dispenser, and a ruler. It is a perfect place to do business if your business is writing episodes of MacGyver.
Many companies use the MBA's conferences to make major announcements. This one is no exception, and news broke late last week that Fannie & Freddie will introduce 3% down payment loan programs. Of course, aggregators such as Wells & Chase will take time to think out their policies and procedures, as will the mortgage insurance companies. And any servicing investor will bid these back. But the move is certainly a nod toward the government wanting to boost mortgage lending, Dow Jones reports. Not only that, but they are also close to agreement that could reduce lender penalties.
(Read More: Relaxed QRM Rules Expected Next Week)
Mel Watt is expected to discuss F&F heading up the LTV curve and more into other credit buckets (my words, not his). Clea Benson with Bloomberg writes, "A U.S. housing regulator plans new steps to encourage banks to lend to buyers with less than- perfect credit scores...Melvin L. Watt, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will clarify in a speech when banks are required to buy back failing loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...Lenders have complained they're hesitant to offer mortgages to riskier buyers, because it's unclear what triggers requirements that they repurchase loans that go bad...Watt will also discuss an effort that would allow borrowers to put down as little as 3 percent of the purchase price on loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Under current rules, lenders are permanently exempted from buybacks on loans with a three-year clean payment history...Watt's announcement is part of an effort to encourage banks to ease credit and follows a series of steps he first described in May."
The latest Fannie Mae Lender Sentiment Survey discusses compliance costs and how much it costs. Most lenders (72%) reported that recent regulations have had a "significant" effect on their business. Critics ask what the Agencies are doing about that. Mid-sized lenders reported a 50% increase in compliance spending. Note that most lenders are worried more about compliance risk than volume decrease risk.
Let me know when all of this starts reminding folks of 2004, or even 2001 when Cuomo encouraged increasing home ownership. Of course it will take a while for aggregators to go along for the ride, although many depository banks have been at 97% for portfolio products for quite some time. And the big guys have already removed dozens of credit overlays. And why not - Fannie and Freddie have gained immense market share with small and mid-size lenders already, and the Wells and Chases of the world have to compete. LOs, when thinking about making a move, will tend toward the companies that will close these loans. So good mortgage companies lose originators - a wonderful spiral. On the other side of the fence are lenders grappling with buybacks from the Agencies - they will be much less inclined to increase LTVs or accept lower credit scores based on a "flawed GSE academic theory of increasing home ownership rates" (as one CEO who wrote to me observed). And lenders just want buyback criteria better spelled out!
Congress, of course, has been unable to do anything by itself in terms of GSE reform. So the MBA, FHFA, and others are taking matters into their own hands. Eliminating F&F without an effective replacement would devastate the market, so let's change them to suit the marketplace. Those in the trenches - LOs - know that Freddie & Fannie have policies, procedures, intellectual capital, and so on - there is little use in trashing them. Probably better to change their structures of governance and combining private shareholding with politically-determined operating targets. In the primary markets, F&F have DU and LP - is someone going to step in and replace those? F&F have not gone directly to the borrower as feared by many years ago. They are not geared for it, and I am sure realizing that their clients would not like the competition.
But let's play some catch-up on relatively recent Agency changes...
Bulletin 2014-17 announced the following Freddie Mac servicing updates: Updated eligibility requirements for Freddie Mac Streamlined Modifications including the removal of the 720-day delinquency cap so more eligible borrowers have the opportunity to modify their loans and stay in their homes, effective April 1, 2015. Modification eligibility has been opened to borrowers with mortgages under non-routine litigation, applies to Freddie Mac Standard Modifications, Streamlined Modifications, and Capitalization and Extension Modifications for Disaster Relief, Effective April 1, 2015.
This Announcement updates the eligibility guidelines for Fannie Mae Streamlined Modifications, revises the modification eligibility of mortgages subject to active non-routine litigation, and addresses foreclosure proceedings conducted in Fannie Mae's name. In addition, the Delinquency Status Code Hierarchy and Definitions has been updated and is available on the Business Portal. Fannie Mae Announcement includes adding a new policy allowing third-party vendor verifications of asset and depository information; Changes and clarifications to the rental income policy along with the publication of three rental income worksheets with step-by-step guidance to assist lenders in calculating rental income, and so on.
Statistics show that the fastest growing group of homebuyers in the United States is Hispanics. Freddie Mac has tools and resources available published as trends and valuable information. September is Hispanic Heritage Month - a great time to focus on this growing market. Help your customers achieve their homeownership goals with its CreditSmart® Consumer Online Training, available in English and Spanish. Feedback helped develop the Freddie Mac Default Fee Appeal System, which will eliminate the manual appeals process. Available October 27, this new online tool will allow submission of appeals for foreclosure timeline compensatory fees online. In order to make loan modifications easier to process, the Freddie Mac Reimbursement System has been updated to include the ability to be reimbursed for recordation fees, title costs, notary fees, and Home Value Explorer® expenses on all loan modifications and the Trial Period Plan timelines has been extended up to 12 months total for borrowers in bankruptcy.
Fannie Mae plans to implement Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) Version 9.2 the weekend of Dec. 13. The updates will include LTV, CLTV, and HCLTV ratio updates for cash-out refinance transactions, a new multiple financed properties message, a new pending sale property message, a change to the DU treatment of life insurance assets, removal of retired ARM plans, HFA message updates, changes to the DU Underwriting Findings report, excessive value message modifications, updates to align with the Selling Guide, and the retirement of DU Version 9.0. Review the DU Version 9.2 Release Notes for additional information. EarlyCheckTM Version 2.5 will be implemented the weekend of Dec. 13. The EarlyCheck release will include new and modified edits and a few edit deactivations. The majority of new edits in this release will provide lenders with access to acquisition edits that occur after a loan is submitted via Loan Delivery (post-submission acquisition edits) or a preview of Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset (ULDD) Phase 2 edits in advance of their implementation in Loan Delivery. View the EarlyCheck Release Notes for more information.
Freddie Mac Loan Prospector® enhancements to be released on October 19 will provide transparency into Loan Prospector liabilities excluded from the debt calculation. This enables you to reconcile to the DTI calculation and ensure its accuracy. Reminder: Changes to the determination of total debt and related new messages apply to all new Loan Prospector submissions on or after implementation. Loan Prospector® will be updated by November 24, 2014, to support the changes to the Home Possible Mortgage requirements. Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide (Guide) Bulletin 2014-18 has the details on the enhancements, effective for mortgages with settlement dates on or after November 24, 2014.
Turning to lenders...
On Q Financial, Inc., is introducing non-QM loan programs. "On Q's new non-QM loan products include solutions for self-employed or recently retired borrowers, individuals with a short credit history or flawed credit from a past short sale or foreclosure. On Q will also be offering debt-to-income ratios up to 50% on certain products and introducing a 40 year amortization Jumbo loan with an interest-only option in the weeks to come. In addition, On Q, a FNMA, FHMC and GNMA approved seller/servicer is also relaxing its underwriting credit overlays."
AMX, A Division of Land Home Financial Services is now Land Home Financial Services Wholesale Division (LHFSW). LHFSWholesale posted Prior Derogatory Credit Event fact sheet summarizing the previous and revised policies of Fannie Mae's updated policy, and includes borrower scenarios for a previous short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
Effective on all loan documents currently being drawn, LHFS Wholesale will require the 1st half 2014-2015 taxes to be paid at closing.
Impac Mortgage Corp. Correspondent has an innovative bank statement program product which serves the self-employed. Unique features for borrowers include: Up to 50% DTI, down to 680 FICO, 5/1, 7/1, 10/1 ARMs, LTVs up to 80%, Cash out up to $350,000 on primary home, Loan amounts up to $2M.
LDWholesale announced a New Jumbo Product. Loan amounts up to $3,000,000, 2-4 unit loans available, cash out refi's on second homes and investment property permitted to $1,000,000 for purchase and rate term refi's.
JMAC Lending Inc. recently announced three innovative products: Malibu 5/1 ARM Jumbo with high LTV, Malibu Expanded I and II (30 Year Fixed and 7/1 ARM), and Sonoma Jumbos & Sonoma Investment.
Shifting gears to the markets, this week is light on the economic calendar. We have zip today; tomorrow is Existing Home Sales (measuring the total number of previously constructed homes in which a sales closed in the previous month). Wednesday is the Consumer Price Index - does anyone care about inflation anymore? Thursday is weekly Jobless Claims, Leading Economic Indicators, and the FHFA House Price Index, and on Friday we'll have New Home Sales. Friday we had a 2.20% close on the 10-yr yield, and in the early going today we're roughly unchanged.
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/channels/pipelinepress/10202014-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.aspx
Fidelity shows Oct. 2 has the 52 week low of $1.43 and it shows today Oct. 17 with a 52 week high of $6.50 but it also shows the high of day for today is $2.20. This is hinkey. I sure hope something good is going on. Something big enough to disrupt otc.
That news would be great. This is confusing but at least I am not watching it go down throughout the day.
Fannie is going to get jealous of you messing around with Frannie
Don't plant seeds in my fertile imagination
It must be those viscous guard dogs from SEC. They are going to put a stop to all of this manipulation. LOLZZZ
you are right I have been playing with a fannie all morning.
I am the chef!
I think all otc stocks are halted right now. None of mine are moving at all.
how about what's for lunch? I am having grilled pork loin chops and roasted vegetables.