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The Institutional Risk Analyst
© 2003-2025 | Whalen Global Advisors LLC All Rights Reserved in All Media | ISSN 2692-1812
Banks | Markets | Finance


Housing Finance Outlook | Q3 2025
We expect to see continued consolidation in the world of residential mortgage finance in coming months. The sad fact is that many less competitive businesses in mortgage finance have been waiting for the FOMC to ride to the rescue with lower interest rates. If rate cuts do not materialize in 2025, however, then many of these businesses may not survive.
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May 279 min read
273 views


Housing Finance in the Age of Volatility: GHLD, UWMC, RKT, COOP, JPM
While GHLD provides a lot of good information about their business, the investor disclosure provided by UWMC is a bad joke, especially when you remember that UWMC is the largest nonbank lender in the US. The Q1 2025 press release is just 9 pages in length and lacks some of the most basic financial information available from UWMC’s peers.
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May 910 min read
292 views


Trump to Fire Jay Powell? No. Bank Earnings? Nada. Bayview for Sale?
President Trump will not try to fire Chairman Powell. Why not? First, because Powell cannot be removed save for malfeasance. Second, because firing Powell would seriously piss off Senate Republicans, killing Trump's hopes for tax legislation this year.
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Apr 226 min read
966 views


Rocket + Redfin + Mr. Cooper = First in Class
COOP and RKT, plus RDFN, creates an integrated business of realty, lending, servicing and asset management that is impressive
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Apr 15 min read
415 views


Is Ameriprise Overvalued? Is PennyMac Cheap vs the REITs?
We think it is notable that AMP has underperformed the other members of the group other than SCHW over the past year.
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Feb 37 min read
178 views


Residential Mortgage Finance 2025
The majority of the actual cash profit generated from residential lending is found in the mortgage servicing rights (MSRs).
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Jan 2012 min read
390 views


Liquidity Preference: SVB Financial Group, WaMu & Reemerging GSEs
Selling the Treasury's control position in the GSEs while dragging the furious shareholders along behind is not an attractive opportunity
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Dec 12, 20247 min read
498 views


Kamikaze GSE Release? Oh Yeah...
Yes, that's right, we are going to downgrade $8 trillion in GSE MBS and hundreds of billions in corporate debt.
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Dec 10, 202415 min read
3,470 views


Update: Blend Labs Inc.
BLND is generating operating leverage via cost reductions, another way of saying that management is slowly winding up the business.
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Dec 5, 20244 min read
350 views


Update: Block Inc, Nu Holdings & Guild Holdings
Notice that SQ co-founder Jack Dorsey styles himself as "block head" in the corp roster, a silly affectation that does not help the stock
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Nov 15, 20247 min read
417 views


Is Trump Bullish for Interest Rates? Pump & Dump for GSE and Fintech Stocks
You can tell lies and damn lies about the idea of releasing Fannie and Freddie, but the SEC and FINRA cannot and will not say a word.Â
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Oct 30, 20246 min read
812 views


Housing Finance Outlook; PennyMac, Mr. Cooper & NYCB/Flagstar
NYCB and the unsold rent-stabilized assets left over from the failure of SBNY are two little surprises waiting for the next POTUS.
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Oct 28, 20249 min read
748 views


Citigroup + (Cenlar - Black Knight) = ?
The Citi decision to exit mortgage servicing perhaps made sense in 2017, but today not so much.
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Oct 9, 20247 min read
417 views


Yellen's FSOC: Housing Policy Dreams vs Mortgage Market Reality
Yellen's proposal for a backstop is merely a canard to help Treasury avoid another fiasco next time a Ginnie Mae issuer fails
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Jul 30, 20246 min read
717 views


Update: New York Community Bank & Mr. Cooper
Joe Otting does not seem to understand the value of the Flagstar correspondent lending and mortgage servicing business...
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Jul 27, 20248 min read
636 views


Update: CapitalOne Financial & PennyMac Financial Services
Of note, PFSI has been growing share in wholesale, a direct challenge to UWMC
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Jul 25, 20245 min read
342 views


Joe Biden Goes Subprime; Should Citi Buy NYCB/Flagstar?
Citi is a subprime lender. They should be directly involved in government lending.
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May 20, 20246 min read
991 views


Portfolio Update & Mortgage Survivors
The survivors in mortgage finance optimize operations around purchasing loans from brokers/ correspondents, and direct to consumer (DTC)
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May 8, 20246 min read
475 views


Debt Deflation in CRE? PFSI, COOP & RKT
If the run-of-the-mill Republic First interest rate mark is 13.3% of assets that is not just wiping out one bank’s 8% capital but also FDIC
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May 5, 20249 min read
695 views


Top-Five Banks: Q1 '24 Earnings Setup
We see higher credit costs, narrowing NIM and still rising funding costs squeezing the banking industry in Q1 2024...
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Mar 19, 20247 min read
586 views
Christopher Whalen
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