Excellent quarterly earnings report out. Should see a nice pop today.

Great plan. In a just world, this would be implemented to the fullest. Sadly, we don’t live in one.

Trump White House is “extremely committed” to housing-finance reform and favors reform objectives outlined this week by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt. (Reporting by Carisa Chappell / cchappell@imfpubs.com.)

Surprised we haven't seen a bigger surge on this news. However, any hint of a dead-in-the-water bill by Corky and we drop 10%

Excellent find kip!

FHFA breaks silence on housing finance reform
By Ian McKendry
Published January 17 2018, 5:59pm EST
More in Housing finance reform GSE reform GSEs Fannie Mae Freddie Mac FHFA
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WASHINGTON — Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt finally detailed his views on housing finance reform, saying that the agency believes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reincorporated as private entities and the government must provide an explicit guarantee for catastrophic losses in the secondary mortgage market.

In a letter dated Tuesday to Senate Banking Committee leaders, Watt said once returned to the private sector, Fannie and Freddie would represent the first two "secondary market entities" that would be able to issue government-guaranteed mortgaged backed securities as a common security that has a mandated rate of return set by a regulator.

Watt's views appear to broadly coincide with the package being developed by Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Indiana, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

"We see this document as helpful to efforts in the Senate to enact housing finance reform by giving FHFA's seal of approval to the basic framework that banking committee leaders have been working on," said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group.

FHFA Director Mel Watt.
FHFA Director Mel Watt's reform plan is broadly similar to the one being developed by the Senate Banking Committee.
Bloomberg News
Watt said he was making the recommendations based on repeated requests by Congress as it begins to take up housing finance reform. But he added that he still believes “it is the prerogative and responsibility of Congress, not FHFA, to decide on housing finance reform.”

In an outline FHFA document obtained by American Banker, the agency said Fannie and Freddie should be preserved, but "reincorporated as private, shareholder-owned corporations with a regulated rate of return.”

It adds that the government should provide an "explicit and paid-for catastrophic guarantee" on all MBS issued by Fannie, Freddie and other private-sector competitors. The regulator would collect the fees from the guarantee and create a mortgage insurance fund that would cover losses in the event of a severe downturn, similar to how the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s fund covers losses on insured deposits.

Under the FHFA's plan, the secondary market entities would have mandated capital and liquidity requirements. Though FHFA suggested there should be more than two guarantors, it warned against having so many that it leads to a race to the bottom.

The document also outlined a number of housing goals, including maintaining the cash window utilized by smaller lenders and affordable housing mandates for Fannie and Freddie.

The FHFA's document is likely to be at the center of discussions as housing finance reform talks heat up.

“I do think that this document should have considerable weight in the GSE reform debate,” said Ron Haynie, senior vice president of mortgage finance policy for the Independent Community Bankers of America. “Any proposals that are radically different than this document, at least in the eyes of the regulator, would not be workable or questionable at best.”

Watt said in the letter that requests for the FHFA to weigh in on the debate have increased in recent months, likely in response to the “growing perception that reform could be achievable this year.”

He said some of the principles outlined had been shared in bits and pieces but “this is the first time we are sharing the enclosure in its entirety.”

The Mortgage Bankers Association embraced the outline.

“MBA is grateful for the well-informed input provided by the Director and hope that it contributes to momentum for congressional action on reform," said MBA head lobbyist, Bill Kilmer.[color=red][/color]

Pretty much every major auto manufacturer will have a huge line of electric vehicles until all cars will be mandated to either be hybrids or all electric.

I HIGHLY recommend to put at least some of this stock in a ROTH IRA because 10 years from now, it will be at least $50 if it isn't bought out by a $Billion company before that.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2018/01/15/ford-to-spend-11b-on-electric-vehicles-through-2022.html

I’m with you. This doesn’t appear to be anything to get excited about.

Was it showing zero before? Wouldn’t rely on this without credible news to back it up.

Sickening! One can only hope we will be vindicated.

Old article, but still relevant.
Sickening how long awareness has been achieved but nothing’s been done

https://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/34280-the-three-card-monty-accounting-of-fannie-freddie-conservatorship

A joke? Nope. She’s too scared to do her job and is kicking the can down the road hoping the government fixes it before she has to rule on it. How many years has it been now? There should be a law against these delays.

True statement. Unfortunately.

Great, here comes another dump. SMH

To a layman such as myself, that’s splitting hairs.
What it seems like is the Judges interpretation of the law is incorrect.
Technically speaking, Lamberth did uphold the law in place. But when you peel back the onion, it’s plain to see the law itself is unjust. One can argue HERA/FHFA should have been challenged instead, but it seems like judges tend to hide behind technicalities way too much. I’ve never liked that about our legal system. It becomes too easy to manipulate with technicalities.

Very informative. Thanks for the post.

This is disgusting and I’m getting sick of how our investment is getting jerked around by all the people who are supposed to protect it.

We've been through these perplexing trading days before. Nice pops followed by inexplicable drops. The bottom line is if you believe these companies will be returned to shareholders intact, then we have a good investment here.

The frustrating thing is that we have no control over the illegal actions of our government and their extremely slow course of action to rectify an unsustainable situation. And even more frustrating is that the courts have been unreasonably slow and inefficient at vindicating our plight.
Sweeney's court has been our best hope. But it's dragged on an extremely unreasonably long time and has been silent and stalled for months. It's as if she decided to take her ball and go home. Hello, anybody out there?

However, I remain hopeful that this will be our year as Mnuchin stated there will be resolution in 2018. Let's hope our government finally does the right thing.

That’s what we’re all speculating by investing in the GSEs

What you say is true, but currently irrelevant to our situation. When we try to connect dots that aren’t there, we sound desperate and foolish. It may be connected and relevant down the road, but the market needs direct impact which isn’t there.
The market sentiment is the main thing that matters and is currently not impressed with any revelations about swamp draining when it comes to Fannie and Freddie.
So I’ve done my homework, thank you.

Nobody knows those answers to 1&3. Anyone who says they do is selling you something. As for class of common shares, they’re all equal.

There’s already several laws against what’s happening now and that hasn’t stopped the illegal activity yet so what’s one more law going to do? stop grasping at straws.

All of these so-called "plans" are nothing but self serving analysts outlining what they think could or should happen to support their own positions.
What eventually will happen could be all, some, or none of any combination of those plans.
They're nothing but speculative ideas of what they'd do if they were in charge so they're all to be taken with a grain of salt.

Haha. You forgot 6R... Realize it was a dream lol

Thats not exactly what has been declared at this point in time. Maybe in the future it will, but for now, only $3b will be maintained. Anything above that will go to Treasury. We’re still being screwed.

That would be a welcome change.

This is great news and I expect 2018 to be a great year.

These stocks are very difficult to understand. Hopefully there will be some type of jump in SP once they physically have the $$ on the books, but realistically, that should be priced in already.

They jumped 10% initially on the news of retaining capital and have been down since. Extremely weird to say the least.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133770-time-buy-gses?auth_param=o8foh:1d41uv1:2c08f431f885222b74e2109469f42fe1&uprof=45&dr=1

If that’s the case, why are we red? Market doesn’t agree with your statement

Kind of a disappointing day so far. Was hoping the news would start a short squeeze, but didn’t.

I wonder if the clock starts ticking at the beginning or the end of the NWS

So with $3b capital, what’s the market cap? Without any PE, it’s right at $3, no? Or am I missing something?

That's what I thought, but some people are under the impression it's significant. I'm willing to accept that if there's proof of such, just can't make that connection myself.

Explain how you think the two are related. I'm not following the logic.

Could you please elaborate?

If he's right, we'll all have a very Merry CHRISTmas!

Been a long time coming. Waiting with bated breath.

You’re kidding right? Did you see the charts? SMH

I understand what you're saying. It's just disappointing all the way around that it's taken this long to do what is cut and dry the right thing to do.
You're left wondering how bad or corrupt the reasons are as to why things are the way they are. It's truly one of the biggest mysteries in govt today.

Not according to Mnuchin. He specifically said in the Bartiromo interview that the GSE dividends were used to fund gov't programs. I'll take his knowledge on the subject at face value.