Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[Venomous Frog]

By the end of March, both companies will have returned nearly $203 billion to the U.S. in the form of dividend payments. Beginning last year, all of their profits are required to go to the Treasury as dividends, making it impossible for them to rebuild capital. The Treasury Department faces multiple lawsuits challenging those terms.

Many investors have bet that the firms will become so profitable that Congress and the administration will have little choice but to let some value flow back to shareholders. Shares of both companies have traded in recent days at their highest levels since the firms were taken over by the government in 2008.