waynepolsonAtoZ

I'm leaning to casting Cohn as the villain as he was said to be upset that Phillips was talking to people about GSE stuff. He's said to be unpopular with The Donald now.

Gary Cohn was (reportedly) annoyed with Phillips taking to people about GSE reform. He's less popular now with The Donald. Not that recap and release is going to happen any time soon.

There is definite a "this is the best of times, this is the worst of times" quality to the news on FnF, encouraging news, discouraging news. Having said that, the FnF preferreds have held up pretty well in recent months. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,...'

"Mr. Cohn’s staff felt frustrated to discover that Craig Phillips, the Treasury counselor most involved with planning structural reforms to the government-backed mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had been meeting with key players in the private sector to discuss potential policy without alerting the National Economic Council." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/politics/trump-tax-plan-cohn-mnuchin.html?emc=edit_tnt_20170828&nlid=12864748&tntemail0=y&_r=0

Things are getting a bit whacky, LOL. To me, tax reform seems very unlikely. The Rs may have the WH, House, and Senate, but that doesn't mean that they can all agree on a tax cut. It seems likely (to me) that the "debt ceiling" "debt default" issue will be a big deal in September and October. Again, even though the Rs have majorities, it seems likely that the Rs are going to have a hard time agreeing on what to do about the debt ceiling. "President Donald Trump himself is already in demand-making mode: On Tuesday, he threatened a government shutdown at the end of September if he hasn’t gotten money for his border wall (which Congress was unwilling to give him in April)." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/23/16112322/immigration-congress-trump

Well, each preferred has its own 2/3 vote requirement. That's a lot of separate preferreds to deal with. About the worst they could do is completely delist us and only trade in the grey market, where you would have to call your broker every time you wanted to know what it is trading at.

I imagine the hedge funds would want to be bought out for cash. So long as they restore the dividend for the small guys, that's fine. The optics of hammering the small guys relative to the hedge funds would be pretty bad. Not that Trump, Mnuchin, or Cohn would care.

Me too. There have been encouraging developments, but Mnuchin and Gary Cohn can't be trusted. I've said that before. They can basically do what they want at this point.

Odd article? https://economics21.org/html/treasury-should-not-bail-out-fannie%E2%80%99s-and-freddie%E2%80%99s-subordinated-debt-2521.html I wonder though exactly who were the subordinated debt holders? Exactly who did the underwriting? Somebody with clout methinks.

"If there's one thing we know about Corker it's that he looks out for himself first." That's my point. He wants to get reelected. It's far from a slam-dunk at this point.

LOL. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sen-bob-corker-says-investors-should-short-fannie-and-freddie-2015-10-07 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/corker-omnibus-protects-fannie-freddie-from-wall-street-hedge-funds/article/2578667

With Corker, he's gotta know about Mark Green as a potential R primary opponent. And Mackler seems like a credible D candidate. Also, a fellow from Portland, TN I met the 2nd time in DC said TN is basically a purple state now, a lot milder on social issues than the deep south. He can't afford to continue on the path he had chosen.

In all honesty, with the next debt ceiling crisis coming up in September, good luck to the Rs! Not to mention they probably still want to pursue possible tax reform. I'm going to assume they've given up on wiping out the health insurance market.

Pollock always has been the best of a bad pack of AEI dogs. His proposal is pretty reasonable. The 5% equity ratio is OK, keeping in mind its not going to happen anytime soon, and maybe never. I'll have to try to replicate his IRR calcs sometime.

Mnuchin is a friend of FnF, lol. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/conservative-koch-brothers-are-secret-investors-wonder-woman-1027376

A lot of FMCKJ sold on Feb. 21 and 22, 2017. Same for FNMAS. Could be Fairholme sold some shares at that time. The volumes would have accommodated sizable sales.

The Fannie conference call felt more perfunctory, reading from a script. Not that the quarterly results weren't excellent. One point is that earnings are 25% from the portfolio, 75% from elsewhere. Pretty impressive having these good resulting while reducing the portfolio. The PIK options sounds ok. However, it's not likely to be this quarter. The Rs will struggle within the party when they get back re raising the debt limit and avoiding default. I suspect that that struggle will take precedence over health care, taxes, and housing, etc. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/23/congress-next-big-battles-spending-bills-debt-limit/497477001/

Listen to the audio of the Freddie earnings call. Layton sounded optimistic, almost excited, but not giddy. However, they are very unlikely to not pay the Sept. dividend as they are going to go going through a budget crisis by then.

LOL. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/05/senate-republicans-shutdown-debt-default-239083

I listened in to the earnings conference call. Layton really seemed to be trying to set the stage for the end of conservatorship. Basically, they are ready to go and have their act together. And decent earnings.

Freddie Mac http://www.freddiemac.com/investors/financials/pdf/2017er-2q17_release.pdf http://www.freddiemac.com/investors/financials/pdf/supplement_2q17.pdf Key highlights $ Millions Note: Totals may not add due to rounding.  Comprehensive Income (CI) of $2.0 billion, Net Income of $1.7 billion.  CI stable quarter-over-quarter due to reduction in market-related earnings volatility. » Market spreads were relatively unchanged. » Implementation of hedge accounting offset most net losses arising from changes in interest rates.  Higher adjusted guarantee fee income partly due to continued growth in total guarantee portfolio balances.  Credit quality: improving in Single-family, very strong in Multifamily.

Washington Federal. http://gselinks.com/Archive/Court_Filings.html#washington_federal Steve Berman of Hagens Berman is the counsel My cousin, Yale Law, Rhodes Scholar, says he's very good, Berman used to work at the same firm, Preston Gates.

It was really bad. I'd like to see the tr. to figure out exactly who said what amongst the three judges. How about the 7th Circuit case, the Chris Roberts one? It would be a nice surprise if Posner was one of the judges.

John Carney's at Breitbart. Sad!

I'd also like to draw attention to this document. http://fanniefreddiesecrets.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/FHFA00056237_CLEAN.pdf