What We're Hearing

Plenty of mortgages executives and consultants — including at least one former GSE regulator I'm told — are still scratching their heads over the Federal Housing Finance Agency's decision to push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off the New York Stock Exchange and onto the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board market. FHFA chief Ed DeMarco isn't exactly sharing his thought process with the media, including me, nor is his public relations staff waxing poetic on the matter. Just be thankful you didn't buy any Fannie/Freddie stock the day before the announcement at $1 (or so) only to see it fall by 50% the next day, before recovering slightly. I would assume that the move to the OTC market will have no affect on preferred stockholders of the GSEs who — I've been told — have already marked down the value of such shares to nil. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong...