Economy

Gelt Financial looks to troubled sectors, including retail, for prospective deals.

To truly manage risk, banks must invest in more sophisticated modeling, reporting and analytics to track market movements and ultimately maximize profitability, Vice Capital Markets’ Christopher Bennett says.

The move follows a report last year that the government-sponsored enterprise was looking into working with the provider of artificial intelligence-driven credit-risk models.

The Trump administration has moved forward on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Joe Biden appointees could take steps to slow or stop their release from conservatorship.

The new capital framework for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a prelude to letting the mortgage giants potentially retain all their earnings. But efforts to privatize the companies could face pushback from the Biden administration.

The 2021 cap is still pretty high, historically speaking, but it’s down from the cap the Federal Housing Finance Agency put in place for a five-quarter period last year.

New-home construction maintained its momentum in October while possible site shutdowns loom.

Rates could be 50 basis points steeper than the MBA’s current projections, which anticipate the 30-year mortgage will average 3.3% next year, up from nearly 3% this year.

Lenders also increased jumbo product availability as well as rolling out new SOFR-indexed ARMs.

There have been several extensions of the policy since it was put into place as a way to sustain originations amid a wave of forbearance allocated to borrowers with government-related loans.