Secondary

The forced liquidation of more than $20 billion of positions linked to the firm roiled stocks from Baidu Inc. to ViacomCBS Inc., casting a spotlight on the opaque world of leveraged trading strategies facilitated by some of Wall Street’s biggest names.

The development bodes well for outcomes on distressed loans backed by major government-related mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Five transactions in the past week provided cash infusions for tech companies that are developing products for real estate finance.

The proceeds are expected to be reinvested into agency mortgage-backed securities, which already make up 93% of Annaly's portfolio.

The FHFA’s forbearance extension to September is forcing nonbank servicers to buy out more delinquent loans. It's also upended loss estimates for investors and made racial and income disparities in the mortgage market worse.

But UWM says the provision is designed to protect against a broker double-locking the loan and is used by other lenders.

Volumes were at a record high in the final quarter of 2020 but lenders didn’t make quite as much since gains on loan sales to the secondary market fell.

The San Diego-based company produced $10.6 billion in the fourth quarter, and has done $6.1 billion in the first two months of 2021.

A PIMCO-sponsored HELOC securitzation, as well as a mortgage-insurance linked transaction, are the latest examples of issuers getting a head start on switching to an expected replacement benchmark for Libor.

Also: How 9.3 million renters could enter the purchase market, lessons from Flagstar’s data breach and a possible 15-year plan for Fannie and Freddie.