orthopa

The stars appear to be aligning... any link to the piece?

There we go it was that!

So meaning that the case will continue forward? Not sure how this means anything if at all. Preferred trading up today on OK volume. My read was speculation on capital rule timing then the mediation cancellation. Isn't the short term price movement just related to news flow about next steps, esp looking back over all these many years? Nothing has materially happened all this time for it to be considered true "insider trading" based on material information. The times there has been major price movement up or down has been either public statements about release from conservatorship or court verdicts. Yes major movements after public statements mostly. Could obviously be random and nothing capital rule is next so maybe some speculation on the release of that.

So meaning that the case will continue forward? Not sure how this means anything if at all. Preferred trading up today on OK volume. My read was speculation on capital rule timing then the mediation cancellation.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chuck-grassley-senator-tests-positive-covid-19/ "Grassley's announcement comes after Alaska Congressman Don Young, who is also 87, tested positive for COVID-19 last week. Young is currently the longest-serving member of the House." Uh oh.

Do you have any evidence for this? Or are you just spewing B.S.? Yes there was ......and were posted before, including by myself. The four countries that wear masks most in Europe are Italy, France, UK, Spain as per yougov survey..check how these countries are doing with Covid please. In US below article by National Geographic 92 percent of 2,200 Americans polled say they wear a face mask when leaving their home, with 74 percent saying they “always” do. (In October). That “always” percentage is up nearly a quarter since July, according to the poll, which has a 2 percent margin of error. The positivity rate in july in US is around 6-7%. Now 12%. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/10/poll-increasing-bipartisan-majority-americans-support-mask-wearing/ BS? Huh. KC the longer this thread goes on its harder to tell if your just trying too hard or if this topic is just out of your circle of competence.

I agree with rb. Furthermore, Investor20 posted a link to an empirical study, where antibodies appeared to fade away within about a few months. The head of the Swedish Health Authority, Mr. Tegnell, yesterday publicly expressed concerns & second thoughts about the Swedish pandemic strategy, btw. [Ref. the Swedish situation has been touched recently in this topic.] Personally, I'm very happy today, that my ticket in the ovarial lottery turned out to be Danish. - - - o 0 o - - - In short : Don't challenge your own fate by trying to mess around with this sucker. [Also, I think that this is what Greg all the time has been expressing in his posts.] Dont overlook cellular immunity which is the better way to look at immunity. Just looking at antibodies gives an incomplete picture and if not all the great majority of people should have long term immunity regardless of IgM, IgG antibody counts. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html Wow we went from immunity may not last more then a couple months and you can get covid twice!!! to now immunity may last for decades. Wow things are coming around. 2 vaccines with >90% efficacy and all of sudden we have discovered this virus follows normal cellular immunity patterns. Rejoice! What a difference 3-4 weeks makes in the media and perception!!! This truely is an exceptional time as we coalesce post election. Who would have thought. Now we just need some more evidence that people who bitch about covid symptoms for months afterwards are babies and we will be on the home stretch!!!!

Even Marine corps recruits under supervision? 2. Masks unquestionably work. If examples are brought up to suggest they don't its undoubtedly quickly explained as laziness or irresponsibility of people even with wide spread usage. Irresponsibility seems to run contemporaneously on different continents. 2.1 For some reason 20%, 50%, 90% of people wearing masks all have the same outcome and you seem to get increasing cases. See 2 for an easy explanation why they don't work. Hard math is then used to explain softly understood situations. Guilt is placed or ignorance is assumed based on the hard math as its obvious masks work and we quickly move on. From my previous post. Around and Around the merry go round we go.

https://www.fhfa.gov/AboutUs/Reports/ReportDocuments/FHFA-2020-PAR.pdf There is mention of capital plan once capital rule finalized. If they were not going to go through with this they sure are doing a good job and spending a lot of time/money faking it.

If I was a CEO Ill admit I wouldnt stick around to take pay 90% below what I could get elsewhere. Maybe at the end of my career but taking this position, now truly is an act of public service.

I agree on the corporate culture angle. Most of us were taken a back and didn't really understand what Calabria meant during the most recent Senate hearing. I think we know now. There has been alot of shuffling at the top of these companies over the last 2 weeks. Sheila Bair at Fannie, David Brickman gone as well as many EVP https://www.businessinsider.com/fannie-mae-single-family-business-leadership-mortgage-conservatorship-capital-markets-2020-11. If it was purely due to capital plan or PSPA I would expect the Fannie CEO to be gone too if the future was absolutely bleak. The good thing is we have a comparison with these 2 companies. There certainly seems to be a clearing out of some of those in charge, many have been with the companies for a long time. Tim Howards angle is interesting but not too sure I agree with it. If thats the case great but I think the corporate culture angle makes more sense. David Metzner from ACG said he left amicably for whatever that is worth.

Update: source is telling me capital rule might get pushed to next week. No update on timing of PSPA. Back to waiting for Godot. I hate this investment.

In a lame duck period where Trump et al are angry and contesting results who/what becomes the enemy? FnF and ending the conservatorship or Stevens, Demarco, Parrot etc. It would take some really special motivation for Mnuchin(I think there is no way in hell he would) to hand the power over to essentially the previous admin and their housing policy team. I open to anyone changing my mind on that. This has GSEs written all over it. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/12/trump-lame-duck-concession-436146

I don't know who MTH is, but he/she is counting on SCOTUS a lot more than I am. I would much rather have a decent settlement now than shoot for the moon with SCOTUS and risk coming away with nothing. Tim Howard. I am focusing on what I see as most likely, which is that the lame duck session doesn't accomplish anything significant. I don't know that for sure so I could be wrong. But the administration can't even decide they're in a lame duck session yet. It's chaos. Unlike most folks here I have no faith in Mnuchin. My point is not what Tim Howard's preference is, it's that he sees this as a good thing, and so should we. If case not settled and goes to SCOTUS and Calabria found removable are you ok with a Biden appointed Treasury Secretary and new FHFA director say Jim Parrot running the show for us? Tim is.

I dont think there has been anything similar between this admin and the last admin in regards to GSE policy. Its 180 degrees different. I also am not sure why anyone was under the impression that the capital was not going to be "bank like" Which one of the comments from its regulator led anyone to believe it was not going to be? I can cite probably 10 examples from the FHFA director where it telegraphed it was going to be. The trade off for having an 180 degree view could always have been high capital levels. Outside of politics its hard to argue with "releasing the GSEs" when they are well regulated and safe and sound. Dealing with the high capital levels are a bridge FnF will cross. For now if its a bridge we have to cross so be it. I agree that investing on hope is not a great strategy but since its taken 6-7 years and the case has gone all the way to the SCOTUS its surely up for debate how sound the law is too.

This likely reflects Mr. Tim Howard's political views. Also IMO his primary objective is advancing FnF's homeownership mission over the shareholder / NWS issues. I think the cat bird seat would be PSPA, settlement, consent decree and eventual lower cap requirements for investors. Once converted to common preferred holders can pine for lower cap requirements. Why would they wait for after the election to do reform if they were not going to anyway? Why not extend the comment period if they were not going to do anything in the lame duck period? Why pre announce another amendment to the PSPA if they were not going to do anything? Why mention consent decree if they were not going to do anything? Why is it reported there has long been agreements on parts of the PSPA for months? Why put out a Treasury Plan if they were going to do nothing. Why does Calabria say he has to follow the law if they were going to do nothing? I would have to have good answers to the above before I would believe they would do nothing.

While that would be nice and just, the Jr pref @ 30-35% of par with sellers everywhere is a clear signal that nothing is likely to happen and we're on a hold course until the June SC ruling. We were likely abandoned by the Trumpers who narrowly lost the EC by ~50k votes due imo in part to their repeated punting of this issue and the inability for FnF to support the economy in a more robust manner this year. Market is certainly in wait and see mode. Capital rule being released may see a bump but the PSPA will be the big one. Probably wont see a ton of sellers on that day if price still significantly before par. In mnuchin and calabria we trust. If capital rule is released soon my belief and % of certainty the PSPA follows before Dec 9th goes up. If its Dec 8th and capital rule isnt out yet I think most will become frustrated and re default back to wait and see mode, ie 20-30% of par. This is all based on rumor of course but once the ball gets set in motion and inertia is gone my bet it continues on.

This plays into the delaying after election thesis from last summer. Mark and Steve have been "working" on an amendment for 14 months. Nice to finally see in print some understanding that it has long been known what the contents of such amendment would be. They just needed to know when they would "come to the agreement". Any guesses on what has long been in agreement? Mine are retirement of Sr. Preferred and pre paid faith and credit fee based on overages of 10% moment paid. No idea on what % that is. In my mind any conversion of Sr Preferred to common would come with capital plan but I guess the agreement could come with some consideration otherwise? The agreement has to be final in language though.

Not sure how much water the Gary Hindes connection holds but some have mentioned that as an angle where Biden wouldnt hammer the GSES. Personally if we have PSPA, consent decree settlement, etc, etc Im not worried much about Biden. If he gets pesky Calabria can appeal all day long. We all have gotten a good taste of how slow and fine the justice system grinds.

In a lame duck period where Trump et al are angry and contesting results who/what becomes the enemy? FnF and ending the conservatorship or Stevens, Demarco, Parrot etc. It would take some really special motivation for Mnuchin(I think there is no way in hell he would) to hand the power over to essentially the previous admin and their housing policy team. I open to anyone changing my mind on that.

All the more reason to settle Collins. If Calabria can entrench himself for at least another 12-18 months he should be able to get all the dominoes lined up and tip the first one over. I do wonder if this is also a tell that Mnuchin is on board, because FHFA cannot release FnF while the seniors still exist: core capital is still hugely negative right now and would trigger an immediate "critically undercapitalized" designation under HERA. Inverting this how could they continue to double down if they dont settle collins, do a 4th PSPA, and get a consent decree? Mnuchin is willing to give power and influence to a Biden Treasury Secretary to negotiate with Calabria?

All the more reason to settle Collins. If Calabria can entrench himself for at least another 12-18 months he should be able to get all the dominoes lined up and tip the first one over. I do wonder if this is also a tell that Mnuchin is on board, because FHFA cannot release FnF while the seniors still exist: core capital is still hugely negative right now and would trigger an immediate "critically undercapitalized" designation under HERA. Agree, this statement points to 4th PSPA amendment, and consent decree at a minimum. Otherwise they cant continue to release them from conservatorship once Biden comes into office. If they were smart (dumb statement) they would settle collins, give Calabria more time as you mention and set FnF up to raise capital once the Srs fate is decided. This could allow them to start to raise capital before summer. I don't have a target for when they would start to raise capital but if collins is argued and decision is waited for then late summer/fall 2021 maybe the soonest they could do something. With the lawsuits settled, capital structure known etc 1st capital raise could come much sooner while Calabria def in office which allows the recap to be farther along before he maybe removed. As nasty and as bitter as this election and the period after is/maybe I could see the lame duck period being more of sticking it to the dems and carrying out the agenda then leaving it "for them". If Biden wins all political risk is gone and Mnuchin/Calabria can move at will.

Hopefully the events of today are a big step towards the end. We have been waiting for this since last summer.

This is the exact line of thinking I have. You will have a 180 degree change in who controls policy with what will still appear to be a shareholder unfriendly DOJ by arguing the case. The damage even with a favorable SCOTUS outcome is how different can the policy be? Are Obama era holdovers coming back? Elizabeth Warren has been floated as a Treasury Sec possibility. I don't even want to guess the chances of that but jesus, imagine negotiating a PSPA with her! lol. I have picked the Brain of others who have said wait 4 more years till the next election for a possible Rep president if Biden gets in. No thanks. The 12/9 date has become the defacto point of no return in my mind in regards to a settlement in that I have leaned heavily on others in regards to that its disrespectful to settle a case after its argued at the SCOTUS, etc, etc. Maybe that's wrong I don't know. Its certainly the final count down.