The Institutional Risk Analyst

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated early in the Trump Administration that expanding the stablecoin market will create a "surge in demand for US Treasuries, which back stablecoins," but he was clearly mistaken. Growth in stablecoins has slowed dramatically as the value of bitcoin and other tokens has plummeted. Notice that Bessent has not had much to say on the subject of stablecoins recently as Treasury yields have steadily risen.

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

And as we predicted several months ago, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the bottom of the list now instead of the top, reflecting the fact that release from conservatorship has been shelved in favor of the GSEs buying back their own debt. Using the balance sheets of the GSEs to buy MBS basically makes them instruments of public policy, but this does not preclude President Trump from directing an equity offering after the midterm elections.

So why would a firm like CrossCountry or UWMC be a buyer of higher coupon MSRs? The short answer is that they believe their ability to retain the borrower by recapturing a prepayment will offset the obvious negative of high prepayments that comes with a lower interest rate environment. These firms, it seems, would rather try to recapture prepayments on higher rate MSRs than own lower coupons and benefit from the stable cash flow from the servicing.