Now control US mortgage REITs

The weekend has been consumed by hypothesis over what would possibly occur to Silicon Valley Financial institution’s depositors. On Sunday night time we lastly came upon. Jason Calacanis saved the monetary system.

Nevertheless, one little-discussed concern that also warrants consideration is the influence on mortgage-backed bond markets, and the aftershocks that would trigger elsewhere.

SVB remains to be sitting on a $50bn e-book of MBS. It’d have to dump these bonds to assist in giving depositors a few of their a reimbursement if it isn’t bought — or probably even whether it is. That has already brought on ructions within the US mortgage market on Friday, when different buyers understandably rushed to keep away from getting squashed by SVB’s potential MBS dump.

You gained’t see this cleanly within the headline value of MBS or general mortgage charges as a result of Treasuries additionally rallied onerous as a result of apparent flight-to-safety dynamics. However spreads exploded on Friday as SVB went down the drain.

Right here’s JPMorgan earlier than the federal government’s intervention on Sunday night time:

Although we expect the collapse of SIVB has comparatively restricted implications for the broader monetary system, the announcement on Wednesday that it had liquidated its AFS portfolio and the following receivership announcement left the mortgage market questioning if (when?) the ~$50bn HTM MBS portfolio would possibly hit the market. Mortgages sharply widened on Friday in anticipation of a liquidation, with decrease coupons 10bp T-OAS wider and manufacturing coupons 4-5bp wider as of mid-afternoon. That leaves decrease coupon 30yrs on the least expensive ranges (excessive 30s T-OAS) that we’ve seen shortly and the present coupon foundation equally extensive at 50 T-OAS. The gradient of unfold modifications on the stack displays the market’s tackle the coupon distribution of SVB’s HTM holdings. Provided that their portfolio grew sharply in the course of the QE4 interval, and that their holdings look like tilted towards shorter-term, decrease e-book yield MBS, it is sensible that the ache in mortgages was felt extra acutely down the stack and in 15yrs. Whereas it’s unclear at this level what’s going to occur with SIVB’s holdings, it appears seemingly that the bonds, or a minimum of their period, are going to return again to the market in a single type or one other. Valuations do look engaging to us throughout a lot of the stack at this level, however there are clearly unknowns and stresses out there which are onerous to quantify.

Most individuals don’t have to care about this — and the federal government’s efforts might make it a moot level — however there’s one space that was already feeling the warmth and will find yourself being incinerated if now we have extra days like Friday: mortgage REITs.

MREITs are like conventional actual property funding trusts, however they purchase particular person mortgages and MBS as an alternative of property. They hedge out their period threat, that means they’re purely uncovered to mortgage spreads. MREITs are a lot smaller than the broader REIT business, however they’re chunky gamers in mortgages as they use numerous leverage to put money into what’s normally fairly steady-eddie, low-return stuff.

For instance, Annaly Capital Administration, the largest one, had whole property of $81.9bn on the finish of 2022. AGNC Funding Corp has $51.7bn, The Starwood Property Belief manages $28.3bn, Rithm Capital has $32bn, and the Blackstone Mortgage Belief one other $26.8bn.

Now take a look at what the share value of among the public ones did late final week.

The issue is that with numerous leverage, it may not take many days like Friday earlier than their capital is toast? After which we might face a tsunami of MBS portfolios washing over the market. That is most likely a minimum of a part of the reason for why the US authorities acted so forcefully.

Now, Friday was distinctive, and initiatives just like the Fed’s Financial institution Time period Funding Program — permitting banks to supply Treasury and MBS collateral to the Fed at their par worth — signifies that issues may very well be fully nipped within the bud. As DB’s George Saravelos mentioned this AM:

. . . taking a step again, the Fed’s new Financial institution Time period Funding Program could be interpreted as re-establishing a brief QE program by providing to soak up UST and MBS from banks at above-market costs. That is in impact a self-regulating break to QT whereby if funding strain turns into too acute as bond costs sell-off, liquidity will get reinjected into the system offsetting the reserve drain from QT.

However simply because SVB’s depositors can be made entire doesn’t imply that this saga can’t nonetheless find yourself inflicting aftershocks.