Replies to post #792104 on Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[real777mellon]

Paulson's funds hold common Fannie Mae shares: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4030454-fannie-mae-why-i-sold-preferred-and-own-common

[kthomp19]

Paulson is a preferred holder not commons.

Correct. The Seeking Alpha article says "Recall too that John Paulson, whose fund holds Fannie common is a part of Trump's transition team" but that is not anything even approaching proof. Instead it is a misconception, likely based on the idea that Seeking Alpha sometimes auto-inserts the ticker FNMA when it detects the first instance of "Fannie Mae" in an article, similarly with FMCC and "Freddie Mac".

In the past some posters here have made erroneous claims that big investors owned commons when in fact it wasn't true. Even Seeking Alpha gets this wrong sometimes so it can't be used as proof.

For example, this Seeking Alpha article from 2018 claims that Berkowitz's Fairholme Fund owned FNMA and FMCC. But checking Fairholme's 2018 semi-annual report and Fairholme's 2018 annual report shows no ownership in FNMA or FMCC at all. They had FNMAS and FMCKJ instead.