The Institutional Risk Analyst

The UWMC stock bounced on Friday to $1.40 vs $1 a week before, but can the markets move to the key threshold of $2 given the limited disclosure and some inconsistencies that we discuss below? The contrarian in us thinks that there may be more upside in UWMC that many realize, as we discuss below, but remember that this is a non-bank mortgage issuer that is in the process of making significant operational changes.

To get a sense for the kind of price volatility you can expect to see from Treasury 10s, take a look at the response to the earnings release this week from AGNC. The REIT reported a sizable decline in book value, which resulted from rising interest rates and an inadequate hedge. The stock slid down to a 52-week low of $8.40 before triggering buying from income oriented investors. AGNC’s tangible net book value dropped by 16.9% (or $1.45 per share) down to $7.13 per share from

UWMC must completely focus any partial redemption efforts on cleaning up Oaktree's senior Series A-1 shares first before it can touch junior tiers of preferred capital. Shareholders widely expect UWMC to sweep its core free cash flow exclusively toward these preferred redemptions in the coming years to remove Oaktree's high-coupon burden, but the available cash flow may not even be sufficient to cover the dividend. That is, Oaktree owns UWMC.

Bank of America CIO Michael Hartnett notes that it is imperative for the Bessent/Warsh combo to stop higher US Treasury yields, since long duration trades are working ”too well.” We view such talk as wishful thinking from the Sell Side of the market. There is no way for the Treasury to force LT yields down, thus the only alternative is for the Fed to 1) raise ST interest rates and 2) restart quantitative easing (QE), an eventuality that will signal surrender on the fight aga

Federal Housing Finance Director William Pulte reappeared on X this past week, promising “decisions” on highly technical areas like loan level pricing adjustments (LLPAs) for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But could director Pulte expound further on just why LLPAs need to be changed at this point in the home price cycle? After all, most home prices are falling.

Some observers think that United Wholesale Mortgage Corp (UWMC) collapsed into the arms of Oaktree Capital Management because they erroneously hedged Two Harbors, a company they ultimately did not buy. But this is wrong. UWMC collapsed because the CEO, Mat Ishbia, extracted hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from a company that was never really profitable. UWMC was run for volume, not profits. Indeed, his aggressive strategy compressed profits across the entire mortgage

We think the board of UWMC has a duty to ask for the resignation of the current CEO Mat Ishbia, should ask Howard Marks, Chairman of Oaktree, to chair the board, and should commence a search for a replacement CEO or pursue a sale. The magnificent loan funnel created by some refugees from Flagstar for Mat Ishbia has enormous value, but the current management instead seems intent upon destroying value at every turn.

But the greater risk to borrowers and investors is the widely held illusion that the valuations for rental properties grow to the sky. Take the example of China, where two decades of home price appreciation has been reversed and home prices have now fallen steadily for the past three years. How did this happen? Because the Chinese foolishly imitated the US methodology for tracking home prices, giving their citizens a false image of the actual conditions in the housing market

Consumers and policy makers will probably be surprised to learn how imprecise the world of aggregating consumer data remains in 2026, almost 40 years since the first standardized consumer credit score, known as the FICO Score, was published in the United States in 1989. The fact that several new scores have been published by the aggregators of consumer data has not improved the situation appreciably. How can the consumer finance industry and the regulatory agencies get this r

Several major private credit firms capped investor withdrawals this week, as an accelerated exit wave hit the industry. Firms typically limited redemptions to their customary 5% quarterly threshold. The Ares Strategic Income Fund capped withdrawals at 5% after receiving requests to redeem 14.4% of shares. And Apollo's flagship $26 billion retail-focused fund curbed redemptions at 5% after investors attempted to cash out 16.8% of their holdings.

The contest to see who will acquire the mortgage REIT Two Harbors (TWO) seems to have ended in a defeat for United Wholesale Mortgage Corp (UWMC) and a win for CrossCountry Mortgage, the #2 retail lender in the US behind Rocket Companies (RKT). The TWO Board of Directors unanimously recommended a vote for the proposed transaction with CrossCountry Mortgage at the Special Meeting on June 23, 2026.

We all need to remember that shrinking the Treasury portion of the Fed balance sheet is the easy part. The $2 trillion in notional amount of MBS held in SOMA, which now has an effective duration that is much, much bigger than the rest of the portfolio combined, requires some subtlety. The good news is that the agencies and Ginnie Mae are thinking about a potential Fed MBS swap with Treasury. Wall Street can make it all happen and profit handsomely by selling a lot of “AAA” ra

The aggressive behavior of some issuers is distorting pricing for loans in the secondary market and may be creating the circumstances for the next systemic “surprise” in the nonbank sector. To us, Exhibit A in the category of a potential nonbank default event is United Wholesale Mortgage (UWMC), aka “Countrywide II.”

Whereas in the early part of the year, mortgage lenders were looking forward to lower interest rates and higher lending volumes, the start of hostilities in Iran suddenly reversed this narrative. As we discussed this week in our podcast with Julia LaRoche, the war with Iran will likely keep inflation and interest rates elevated for months or years to come.

As of December 31, 2025, Athene had the ability to draw up to an estimated $30.7 billion via advances, inclusive of borrowings then outstanding. But when the funding agreements are added, the total exposure to the FHLBs from APO is over $50 billion vs $74 billion in total capital and retained earnings for the FHLB system.

Once again, the management of TWO seems to have managed to destroy shareholder value in great bloody chunks. Given that the mortgage servicing rights of TWO had a book value of $2.4 billion at the end of Q4, it seems fair to ask whether the best trade for TWO shareholders is to vote against the merger with UWMC and simply sell the MSR.

The changes proposed by Governor Bowman, if made effective, will have a significant and very positive impact on banks and non-banks operating in the residential mortgage market.

Large-cap tech stocks experienced the worst week since November, causing a split market where value-oriented stocks are gaining attention, while tech stocks and crypto tokens are being liquidated. Equity managers are rotating out of tech and into everything else, creating a cosmic imbalance that is difficult for the non-tech equity market to absorb.

But the key factor that generated investor angst was under-performance in terms of loan recapture, an illustration of the hyper-competitive market in residential mortgages. True retention = Retained fundings divided by total run off. On that basis, we figure that PFSI retained less than 1/3 of mortgages that prepaid in Q4 2025. After touching $160 in late January, PFSI closed yesterday below $95 per share.

The addition of Kevin Warsh as Fed Chairman does not change the ST calculus on the FOMC in terms of support for further rate cuts. Even as a former Governor, Warsh begins his term as leader of a minority on the Committee, especially if former Chairman Powell remains on the Board. This is why the inability of Trump to blame Powell for the astronomical increase in home prices, as we discuss below, is so remarkable.