All Things in Moderation

Vital Statistics:

Markets are stronger this morning a strong economic report out of Germany and optimism that Greece’s debt swap will go through without major problems. Markets are continuing yesterday’s rally that was sparked by QEIII hopes. Initial Jobless Claims were 362k.

I was at the JP Morgan Securitized Products conference all day yesterday. Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ) spoke regarding the regulatory environment. It is an election year, so expect more initiatives out of the administration to provide relief. A couple takeaways from his talk:

• LIberals agitating for wholesale principal reductions are just conducting election – year posturing. Everyone in Congress is getting phone calls from their state pension funds (who are large holders or MBS) begging them not to do it. Liberals acknowledge in private they would annihilate pension funds and would do great damage to the future housing finance system if they allowed large-scale principal forgiveness in GSE paper. Which makes FHFA Director Ed DeMarco a very convenient figure at this point and means he probably isn’t going anywhere.
• The MERS headache is generating preliminary discussion of a global settlement fund (a la asbestos or tobacco) to settle all of the claims coming from the financial crisis. Probably a low-probability event, but it is out there.

• Origination margins have spiked – originators are probably making 3-4 points on new loans (pre-expenses)
• QEIII will not do much for housing. The Fed is pushing on a string at this point. Fund managers are at record overweight levels on MBS, which means the Fed could spend a lot of money and not move mortgage rates (or affect house prices) all that much.
• The Fed thought it would be cute to institute new fail charges right ahead of QE, thus adding a short squeeze to the mix. Dealers are having a tough time getting paper to satisfy the appetite of the Fed and won’t short due to the fail charges. This is part of what is driving MBS spreads so tight.
• Ally is scaling back the correspondent business, while Wells and Citi are getting more aggressive. Chase overshot in downsizing correspondent lending and plans to increase it this year.
• House prices will fall another 3% this year and that should mark the bottom
• The government is probably going to experiment with a “first loss” tranche in conforming paper. Expect this in the next 3 – 6 months. This would accomplish two things – first it would start the process of handing off mortgage financing to private capital and it would give a market-based indication of what it should charge for its guarantee (its G-fee). The G-fee is set on the basis of politics and funding needs (for example, it was just raised 50 bp for 10 years to pay for the 2 month payroll tax extension). It would be subordinated paper that absorbs the first 5%, making FHA more of a re-insurer. Concern is demand for the first loss tranche.  Banks would have to reserve 100% for it, so hedge funds would have to buy it. The concern is that they don’t have the capacity.
• JPM estimates the shadow inventory to be about 5.5 million homes and net demand for housing is 1.25 million per year. Household formation has fallen off a cliff.
• Basel III requirements for MSRs are extremely harsh (MSR value over 10% Tier 1 becomes a capital deduction) Expect MSRs to remain very cheap. Banks are contemplating cutting servicing fees to 12 basis points.
• Fan and Fred will remain wards of the state. It would take $250 – 300 billion to capitalize them and they already owe Treasury $160 billion. That is basically the enterprise value of Exxon Mobil. You can’t raise that kind of capital in the private sector.
• Once the economy picks up steam, the fiscal problems will become front and center. We are looking at about half a trillion of contraction in early 2013, with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts ($250B), the sequestration due to the failure of the debt supercommittee ($100B) and the expiration of the payroll tax cut ($120B). Don’t be surprised if we fall into a recession early next year.
• Household balance sheets are improving, (DTI ratios are falling) but this has been 100% due to defaults. Debt service ratios are at multi-decade lows due to low interest rates.

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