Two Harbors Investment Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 29, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. My name is Cynthia, and I will be your conference facilitator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to 2's Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period.

Operator

I would now like to turn the call over to Maggie Carr.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call to discuss 2's Q3 2024 Financial Results. With me on the call this morning are Bill Greenberg, our President and Chief Executive Officer Nick Ledica, our Chief Investment Officer and William Dallall, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. The earnings press release and presentation associated with today's call have been filed with the SEC and are available on the SEC's website as well as the Investor Relations page of our website at 2imv.com. In our earnings release and presentation, we have provided reconciliations of GAAP to non GAAP financial measures, and we urge you to review this information in conjunction with today's call. As a reminder, our comments today will include forward looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations.

Speaker 1

These are described on Page 2 of the presentation and in our Form 10 ks and subsequent reports filed with the SEC. Except as may be required by law, CU does not update forward looking statements and disclaims any obligation to do so. I will now turn the call over to Bill.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Maggie. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. Today, I'll start by providing an overview of our performance and strategy, followed by a discussion on the markets and finish with an update on Roundpoint operations. William will cover our financial results in detail, and Nick will discuss our investment portfolio and return outlook. As you may have noticed in our earnings presentation and on our website, we have recently launched a new brand referring to ourselves simply as 2 going forward in all of our Investor Relations and Marketing Communications, reflective of our evolution as a company into an MSR focused REIT.

Speaker 2

While our core competencies have always been the understanding and managing of interest rate and prepayment risks, this new branding marks in a very visible way our commitment to MSR as a core part of our investment strategy. Although we intend to grow our origination and operational capabilities within our Roundpoint subsidiary over time, we are intently focused on providing high quality investment returns and our combined strategy is designed to extract the most value that we can from our MSR asset for the benefit of our shareholders. I'll tell you about some of those things in a few moments. Please turn to Slide 3. Our book value at September 30 was $14.93 per common share and which including the 3rd quarter common stock dividend of $0.45 per share represented a 1.3% quarterly economic return on book value.

Speaker 2

For the 1st 9 months of 2024, we generated a 7.0% total economic return on book value, which demonstrates that our strategy is designed to produce strong returns across market environments. Please turn to Slide 4. Figure 1 shows market expectations over the past year for the Fed funds rate. As you can see by looking at the green line, at the end of the second quarter, market expectations were for a total of 50 basis points in cuts in 2024. However, forecasts rapidly changed for the short end of the yield curve following the Fed's 50 basis point cut in September, such that by the end of the quarter, the market was pricing in almost 200 basis points of cuts over the next 15 months, bottoming out at around 3% referenced by the blue line.

Speaker 2

Recent data including inflation, jobs and retail sales have all come in hotter than expected and ambiguous statements from several Fed governors have resulted in the market tempering its enthusiasm, so that as of October 21st, 2 cuts have been taken out of the market and the terminal rate is projected to be around 3.4%, which you can see in the purple line on this chart. Moving to Figure 2, ultimately, the 10 year treasury yield finished the quarter 62 basis points lower at 3.78 percent, while the 2 year treasury yield fell by 111 basis points to 3.64%, which you can see in the blue line. The curve steepened by 50 basis points, resulting in the 1st positively sloped yield curve between 2 10 year treasury notes since 2022. However, the change in Fed expectations took their toll on the long end of the curve and rates increased in the month of October. As of October 21, which is the purple line in this chart, 10 year rates had given back approximately 2 thirds of the 3rd quarter's rate declines, rising 42 basis points to 4.20 percent, while the 2 year rate rose 39 basis points to 4.03% during the same period, deepening the curve by 3 basis points.

Speaker 2

Please turn to Slide 5. The acquisition of Roundpoint was almost exactly 1 year ago and we are on track to achieve the cost savings that we initially set out and improving the economics for our investments in the MSR asset. Additionally, the direct to consumer loan origination channel that we started from scratch in December is starting to bear fruit. Once at scale, we imagine this effort to provide significant hedge benefits to our MSR portfolio and to protect our asset from significantly faster than expected prepayment speeds should interest rates drop precipitously. In our 1st full quarter of DTC originations, we closed and funded $22,400,000 UPB of 1st mortgages and have approximately another $35,000,000 of UPB in the pipeline.

Speaker 2

While not a large number, keep in mind that only about 1% of our MSR portfolio is considered in the money, meaning that the customer has 50 basis points or more of rate incentive to refinance. We also kicked off a partnership with a large originator of 2nd liens and we acted as a broker on $7,500,000 UPB in a combination of both open ended and closed ended loans. We continue to observe a great deal of interest in this product with mortgage rates hovering in the low 6s. Although these numbers are small, these results show the proof of concept. It also must be noted that these numbers that I just quoted were achieved by a very small team of only 3 to 5 loan officers during the quarter.

Speaker 2

And by year end, we expect to have about 30 loan officers. As a reminder, we built our DTC originations from scratch with no legacy risk. We spent a de minimis amount of money getting it to this stage and it is now essentially breakeven. We are confident that we are building a strong platform and brand for our customers to turn to for their mortgage and home equity needs. We are thoughtfully augmenting our investment portfolio with additional revenue and hedging opportunities in order to further enhance the strategy that we expect will deliver attractive returns for our shareholders through a variety of market environments.

Speaker 2

With MSR at our core, we have built an investment portfolio with RMBS and has less exposure to changes in mortgage spreads than portfolios without MSR, while still preserving upside to decreasing volatility and spread tightening. By investing in 2, our shareholders are able to take part in the mortgage market and benefit from our team's deep expertise in investing in and managing MSR and Agency RMBS. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to William to discuss our financial results.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Bill. Please turn to Slide 6. Our book value was $14.93 per share at September 30, compared to $15.19 on June 30. Including the $0.45 common stock dividend, this resulted in a 1.3% quarterly economic return, as Bill has already mentioned. Please turn to Slide 7.

Speaker 3

The company generated comprehensive income of $19,300,000 or $0.18 per weighted average common share in the 3rd quarter. Net interest expense of $42,000,000 was higher in the 3rd quarter on higher average borrowing balances that were partially offset by higher RMBS interest income. Net servicing income was $172,000,000 minus $4,000,000 of third party subservicing fees and other MSR related servicing costs. Net servicing income was unfavorable to the 2nd quarter by $4,000,000 due to lower servicing fee collections offset by higher float income and lower third party servicing costs from servicing our MSR on the Ramp Point platform. Investment Securities gain and change in OCI was favorable to the Q3 by about $337,000,000 due to a rally in rates and spread tightening versus a sell off in rates and slight spread widening in the 2nd quarter.

Speaker 3

Servicing asset losses were $133,000,000 in the quarter, unfavorable to the 2nd quarter due to declining rates that drove a larger decrease in the servicing asset. Net swap and other derivative gains were lower in the 3rd quarter by $225,000,000 due to hedging losses from the rally in rates. Please turn to Slide 8. RMBS funding markets remained stable and liquid throughout the quarter with ample balance sheet available. At quarter end, our weighted average days to maturity for our agency RMBS repo was 78 days.

Speaker 3

Spreads for repurchase agreements widened with financing for RMBS between SOFR plus 24 to 28 basis points. The widening was primarily due to uncertainty of the Fed's actions in September. At quarter end, bank balance sheets were temporarily tight, owing to a number of factors that included settlements of auction treasury securities as well as banks managing quarter end reporting metrics. Post quarter end liquidity and balance sheet room quickly returned to easing financial conditions. Similar effects may occur at year end and as has been the case in past years, we will seek to minimize our exposure to year end funding pressures.

Speaker 3

We finance our MSR activities across 4 lenders with $1,600,000,000 of outstanding borrowings under bilateral facilities. We ended the quarter with a total of 610,000,000 dollars in unused MSR assets and asset capacity and $91,000,000 of unused capacity for servicing its assets. I will now turn the call over to Nick.

Speaker 4

Thank you, William. Please turn to Slide 9. Our portfolio at September 30 was $16,400,000,000 including $11,400,000,000 in settled positions and $4,900,000,000 in TBAs. Overall, our portfolio benefited from the net performance of mortgages over the quarter, but performance across coupons was uneven. Lower coupons outperformed as investors added duration in the bond rally, while production and higher coupons lagged as negative convexity kicked in and prepayment concerns emerged.

Speaker 4

We entered the quarter with an up in coupon bias, but as interest rates declined, we shifted our TBA exposure lower, mainly tracking the change in current coupon exposure coming from our MSR and also selling some higher coupon TBAs to mitigate prepayment risk. I'll review spread performance shortly, but given the performance of spreads over the quarter, we steer the portfolio to have less spread exposure by quarter end, even as the economic debt to equity rose slightly to 7 times. The increase in leverage naturally results from MSR requiring more current coupon hedging as rates rally. The amount of spread duration is a function of how many and which TBAs or pools we are long after taking into account the effect of the MSR. We continue to manage our exposure to rates across the curve very closely as you can see in Figure 2 and can be seen in more detail on Appendix Slide 17.

Speaker 4

Please turn to Slide 10 to discuss the market for investing in Agency RMBS. Over the Q3, against the backdrop of the Fed continuing to have success in guiding the economy to a soft landing, risk assets performed well. The S and P 500 was higher by about 5.5 percent and with interest rates falling and a yield curve steepening, demand remains high for fixed income assets. Figure 1, which we have shown over the past several quarters, shows spreads versus volatility from 2019 through present. Our preferred implied volatility gauge to your options on tenure rates decreased from 104 to 94 basis points on an annualized basis, close to its lowest level for 2024.

Speaker 4

The nominal spread on current coupon RMBS finished 20 basis points tighter at 107 over the treasury curve, while option adjusted spreads finished 6 basis points tighter at 18 basis points. While nominal spreads remain wider than longer term averages, by quarter end option adjusted spreads moved tighter than a long term non QE average of 29 basis points. With OASs at these tight levels, future spread tightening will likely need to be driven by an increased demand from depository institutions and or further declines in volatility. The nominal spread curve flattened a little, but remained steep with peak spreads around the 5.5 coupon at quarter end, as you can see in Figure 2. On an OAS basis, the Belly coupons of 4.5s and 5s were the richest part of the coupon stack, with the higher and lower coupons somewhat cheaper.

Speaker 4

The move in rates focused a lot of demand on these coupons from convexity hedgers such as originators and servicers. Please turn to Slide 11 to review our Agency RMBS portfolio. Figure 1 shows the performance of TBAs compared to the specified pools we own throughout this quarter. As I mentioned earlier, hedged mortgage performance varied across the coupon stack, which is evident in this chart. Overall, specified pools outperformed TBAs with better performance from higher coupons as prepayment risks increased.

Speaker 4

We shifted about $3,800,000,000 in TBA exposure from 5.5s through 6.5s into 4.5s and 5s, predominantly to re hedge the MSR exposure as rates rallied. Overall, we continue to like the relative value of specified pools to TBAs, particularly some of the seasoned pools we own. We added about $300,000,000 in loan balance 6.5 pools in the 3rd quarter. Figure 2 on the bottom right shows our specified pool prepayment speeds by coupon. On aggregate, speeds increased to 7.6% from 7.2% CPR in the quarter.

Speaker 4

Primary mortgage rates dropped about 75 basis points to just above 6%, which triggered some mild media effect for high coupon originations from the past 2 years and led to material increases in print prepayment speeds for 6.5 coupons and above. Overall, prepayment rates for 30 year Agency RMBS increased 8% quarter over quarter to 6.5% CPR in the October report, which reflected September activity. Please turn to Slide 12 as we discuss the market for investing in MSR. MSR performed well in the Q3 with strong demand for bulk packages. The volume of MSR sales continued to normalize from the record levels of the past few years.

Speaker 4

This quarter brought approximately $40,000,000,000 UPB of supply, bringing the year to date total to $305,000,000,000 about 70% of the pace of 2023. Traded prices have held steady with the supply being easily absorbed by a deep pool of buyers, including both banks and non banks. The number of banks offering MSR financing has broadened and the increased competition has led to a compression in financing spreads. Additionally, we saw the 1st securitization of MSR financing over the past 2 years as spreads for the securities returned to sub-three hundred basis points to SOFR. Let's look at Figure 1.

Speaker 4

As mortgage rates have dropped, prepayments have begun to display a bifurcated pattern. They are speeding up for newer higher coupon mortgages, but they continue to be very slow for the locked in low coupon COVID era borrowers. This chart compares actual 1 month speeds for 30 or 6.5 versus our MSR population for the past 12 months and then shows projections, the dotted lines for the next several months. As is evident, while the 6.5 have picked up in speed, our MSR portfolio has not noticeably responded to the rally in mortgage rates. The quarterly prepayment speed was unchanged at 5.3% CPR.

Speaker 4

Figure 2 shows the composition of our MSR and where mortgage rates were at quarter end. Assuming a 6.25% mortgage rate on a UPB basis, only 1% of our MSR has a rate refinance incentive of 50 basis points or more. Even if 30 year mortgage rates were to drop to 5%, the number increases to only 7%. Suffice it to say that we have a substantial buffer to further declines in rates before triggering a large scale refi wave for our MSR. Please turn to Slide 13, where we will discuss our MSR portfolio.

Speaker 4

With mortgage rates declining, the price multiple of our MSR decreased slightly to 5.6 times from 5.8 times and 60 plus day delinquencies remained low at under 1%. The portfolio was $203,000,000,000 UPB at September 30, reflecting the net effects of the settlement of the sale of $6,200,000,000 of higher coupon MSR that we announced last quarter, offset by settled purchases of 3,300,000,000 UPB from bulk and flow channels. Post quarter end, we committed to purchase 2,100,000,000 UPB through another bulk acquisition. Finally, please turn to Slide 14, our return potential and outlook slide. The top half of this table is meant to show what returns we believe are available on the assets in our portfolio.

Speaker 4

We estimate that about 65% of our capital is allocated to servicing with a static return projection of 12% to 16%. The remaining capital is allocated to securities with a static return estimate of 12% to 14%. With our portfolio allocation shown in the top half of the table and after expenses, the static return estimate for our portfolio is between 9.5 percent to 12.7 percent before applying any capital structure leverage to the portfolio. After giving effect to our outstanding convertible notes and preferred stock, we believe that the potential static return on common equity falls in the range of 10.5% to 15.6% or a prospective quarterly static return per share of $0.39 to $0.58 As Bill discussed earlier, since quarter end, we have witnessed a large reversal in rates and have been reminded once again how quickly market sentiment can shift and that bouts of high interest rate volatility are not over. Mortgage spreads have widened, erasing much of the spread performance of the Q3.

Speaker 4

In response, we have moved some of our TBA exposure higher and concurrently increased our spread exposure. As noted earlier, we also added 2,100,000,000 UPB of MSR through a bulk purchase. While periods of high market volatility remain a challenge, we are confident in our strategy as evidenced by the attractiveness of our return potential. We continue to favor the long run return and stability of having a majority of our capital invested in low mortgage rate MSR, while still preserving some upside to tighter mortgage spreads and a decline in volatility. Mortgage spread volatility has declined as the Fed has moved to an accommodative stance and the market feels generally balanced with regard to supply and demand.

Speaker 4

Though demand is strong in the MSR market, we have nevertheless continued to find good opportunities to add at attractive levels, leveraging our deep expertise coupled with the benefits of our own in house servicing and recapture operations. Thank you very much for joining us today. And now we will be happy to take any questions you might have.

Operator

The first question comes from Doug Harter with UBS.

Speaker 5

Thanks. I I was hoping you could talk about the move lower in the static return for the securities portfolio. How much of that was a result of kind of the move lower in coupon that you talked about?

Speaker 4

Hey, Doug, this is Nick. Thank you for the question. It was mostly really related to the fact that spreads just got tighter over the quarter. And also, you have to remember that on our return estimate that fully reflects the composition of our portfolio. And as you can see, the amount of servicing we have from as a percentage of capital has gone up a little bit.

Speaker 4

And it's leverage as a total of the portfolio has gone up. And on the other side, the security side leverage goes down a little bit, so that impacts the return potential as well.

Speaker 5

Got it. And obviously, this number moves around, but then I guess how would you think about how the 1, kind of how quarter to date spreads have impacted book value and 2, kind of how that translates to kind of incremental returns today?

Speaker 2

Yes. Good morning, Doug. Thanks for the question. I can take the book value parts. As we said in our prepared remarks and as Doug as Nick mentioned a moment ago, the market in October has been pretty volatile, that expectations have changed, rates have risen, curve has steepened, all of that.

Speaker 2

And so through October 18, we think that our book value was down between 1.5% 3%. And over the week last week, mortgages continue to widen a little bit more. So we're down a couple more on top of that.

Speaker 4

I can address the question. I mean, we've had as everyone knows, we've had a major reversal since the lows in rates that was just prior to the Fed meeting in September. And in fact, since quarter end, we're up about, I don't know, 50 basis points or so and mortgage spreads have really widened out. So all of the things many of the things that happened throughout the Q3 have now been reversed in the short period of time in the Q4. And if you would look at our return potential now, it would surely be shifting back to somewhat of a higher leverage.

Speaker 4

And we have since quarter end, as I mentioned in my comments, we have slid our coupon, our TV exposure back up a little bit and our spread exposure up a little bit. So you would definitely see an uptick in the return potential on the security side compared to what you saw at quarter end.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you, both.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Doug.

Operator

The next question comes from Bose George with KBW.

Speaker 6

Hey guys, good morning. Just a follow-up to Doug's question. In terms of the new target range, I was curious what drove the just the much wider range this quarter?

Speaker 4

On the return potential, Bose?

Speaker 6

Yes, yes, exactly. On the return potential, it's quite a wide range. And maybe just discuss factors that would take it to the high end versus the low end?

Speaker 4

Yes. Well, I know you've asked this question before, and it's a good question. What really drives those the variance in those returns are prepay expectations as well as funding rates. And based on the assumptions that we use for the highs and lows and how they affect those numbers, that is what really drives it. So to the extent that we use a wider like funding rate spread on the security side for repo, that will affect what those ranges are.

Speaker 4

And as we mentioned, there has been a little bit more volatility on the funding rates on the repo side for pools. Our funding for MSRs is predetermined. That's all longer term locked in spreads. But it's really just variations in prepays as well as funding rates.

Speaker 6

Okay, great. Thanks. And then just based on your earlier comment, it sounds like the return profile just since quarter end with the move in rates should be somewhat closer to what it was last quarter. Is that kind of a good way to think about that?

Speaker 4

Yes, that's correct. I mean, I think it would even be wider than that because mortgage spreads where they sit right now, they are they really have widened out to the highest levels of the year depending there are lots of ways to look at spreads as everybody knows. But almost to a one, they are at the highest levels of the year. In fact, where we are where we sit today, they are mortgage spreads are starting to look very attractive.

Speaker 6

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

The next question comes from Jason Stewart with Janney.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Thanks. Could you talk a little bit about your outlooks intermediate term, maybe near term and intermediate term for prepays? How servicing capacity looks for the industry given where current mortgage rates sit?

Speaker 4

Sure. Prepaids, we have seen thus far for this month, we have seen an uptick in prepays. Some of it has to do with day count, some of it has to do with lags of where mortgage rates went in the Q3. Those lags are a little bit hard to gauge these days for various reasons and without getting too deep into that topic. But we do expect prepays to pick up in this next report.

Speaker 4

And then I think you really get into then it will start reflecting the fact that rates have really have reversed and we've done we estimated that mortgage rates were down about 75 basis points in the 3rd quarter and we're up at least that much now in the Q4. So and then we'll also be entering the winter months as we get here. So overall, I think we'll see prepays really start to come back down across the board, reflecting slower turnover rates for the lower coupons and then just much less sensitivity for the hires that we saw, the little bit of as people were saying, we had like a 2 week refi environment for the higher coupons, which is now kind of turned around. I'll let Bill talk about the MSR side.

Speaker 2

Yes. In terms of MSR supply, I think we've said and other people have commented that MSR supply has really reverted back to more historical norms, that the amount of MSR, which has changed hands in 2021 and 2022 were really and 2023 were record levels. And now the amount is really back to historical levels, which is in the $200,000,000,000 kind of range for a year. So we're continuing to see certain amounts of pools trade and we're participating in those markets. As Nick said, we participate in that market.

Speaker 2

We bought some at attractive levels. We're finding opportunities to be situational, right? And we sold a little bit in the previous quarter. We bought some here. So I'd say the market is returning to historical norms, but it remains healthy and well supported.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. Thank you. And then just in terms of transaction activity on the MSR valuation, do you think that has an impact on multiples? Maybe if you could just parse out the delta in the move in the multiple maybe 3Q to where it's going in 4Q in terms of earnings on float income versus prepays and how those two factors are driving MSR transaction multiples?

Speaker 5

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sure. Well, I mean the transaction multiples or the prices of MSR is depends on all of those factors. Forward short term rates, right, to the extent that the Fed has cut rates will decrease float earnings some, which should drive multiples lower, all else being equal. As Nick said, prepayments, long term prepayments are probably back to where they were a quarter ago, right? So that's going to be sort of a wash.

Speaker 2

Where people are pricing recapture is, of course, become a very hot topic of interest for MSR participants. And generally, we have seen what I will call the MSR molt curve that is the prices, the malts of MSR packages ranging from very low WACC like we have of 3.5% up to higher WACC packages 5%, 5.5%, 6% to be as flat as it's been in history, right? And that's really attributable to the value that people are putting on recapture. That said, putting all that together, I think the movements in the short rates are small compared comparatively to where we are. The forward curve is steepened out.

Speaker 2

So that means forward projections of float income is higher than it was when the curve is flat. So I think these will translate to pretty small changes in MSR models.

Speaker 4

Yes. And I'll just add on to that. So your question about float income versus prepays, we've talked in previous calls about the fact that a lot of our price sensitivity on our MSR is really related to float income given how far out of the money our MSR is given its low gross WACC. And although there is always some prepay response as we've gone to some lengths to kind of demonstrate, it's still pretty small, right? So our most of the price sensitivity that our MSR displays is about float rather than prepays.

Speaker 4

I don't think that's changed dramatically in this move. Of course, if you had higher gross WACC MSR alone, then it's prepays and current coupon exposure would have a much bigger impact on the pricing. But most of it is really just interest rate movement related.

Speaker 5

Right. So net neutral on market multiples and bias higher on 2's MSR multiple. And then just a quick question. Is the MSR in your estimate of book value quarter to date, is there any change to the MSR valuation embedded in that?

Speaker 2

Yes. When we said we were down between 1.5% and 3% as of October 18, that incorporates the entire

Speaker 5

portfolio. Okay.

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Speaker 2

So it's a hedge portfolio that right both sides is right all positive duration and negative duration assets are moving around in that and that's the estimate that we think.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Rick Shane with JPMorgan.

Speaker 8

Thanks everybody for taking my question. I'd like to follow-up on Jason's questions related to the MSR. When we look at the sales and bulk purchases, they almost net out. When we look at the gross coupon rate, it ticked down slightly. Can you help us understand a little bit about the characteristics of the purchases you're making?

Speaker 8

I'm assuming that some of this is or a lot of this is seasoned MSR, you're not buying new production, but help us if you could help us understand what's going on here and what the strategy is?

Speaker 4

Hey, Rick, this is Nick. Thank you for that question. As you know, MSR is a nuanced asset. There's all kinds of things that go into its valuation and that old that adage in the bond market, there's no bad bonds, just bad prices. We really look across range of MSRs and each package is unique and it's hard to generalize.

Speaker 4

So we have as you know, we've sold some high gross WACC stuff as we've been engaged in buying some from time to time. We bought sort of intermediate WACC kind of things that are in the 4% to 5% gross WACC range through time. It really varies and it depends on where the value is. But we have bought some high gross WACC stuff too. It doesn't just because it's high gross WACC doesn't mean that it doesn't have good value.

Speaker 4

And as I said, it's a nuanced asset where the deep variables really, really do matter. And we also have some flow and the flow MSR is by definition pretty much current coupon and we have that coming into our portfolio too. So it's a mix of things.

Speaker 5

Got it.

Speaker 8

Okay. And again, when I think a lot it's interesting, I'm looking at your slides, looking at the new logo, looking at the new branding and realizing that this is indicative of the strategic shift that you guys are pointing to. And when we think about how you're approaching the MSR market at this point, we've historically thought of it as a pure hedge against the agency book. But I think what's really happening here is that you're trying to play both sides of the coin that you really want to be in the recapture business. You're competing there as much as you are sort of creating the traditional, I'll call it 2 Harbors book versus the 2 book?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think that's mostly right. What we saw in the last couple of years as rates rose was that the traditional, what I like to call, hedge capacity of the MSR asset declined and the portfolio is the MBS part of the portfolio and the MSR portfolio bifurcated because they didn't really hedge one another necessarily. But we like the attributes and return opportunities of both, right? And in our portfolio, our MSR portfolio today at 3.5 percent gross wack, as we showed on some of the earlier slides, it's prepaying slowly, it's cash flowing well, which is very far out of the money and so forth.

Speaker 2

And so the MBS part and the MSR part don't hedge one another exactly, but they complement one another, right? When we think about the ways to add or augment potential returns to our MSR assets, right, and to improve returns for the company and for shareholders, There's things we can do on the MSR side, that we can't do on the security side. And one of the things that we can do is we can buy a servicer, right? And because we did that, we as I said in my prepared remarks, we're on track to achieve the cost savings that we said just through economies of scale and controlling our own destiny and being able to be more efficient than we were rather than owning subservicing. The recapture effort is a part of that also.

Speaker 2

I think I've talked publicly about being able to hedge faster than expected prepayment speeds, right? When rates move, when rates fall or rise, we have expectations of what we think prepayments will do and therefore we have expectations for what MSR prices will do and we can hedge those with financial instruments. But what we can't do is we can't hedge speeds that are faster than we expect. The origination channel, the direct to consumer channel will help us do that, right? And so that's really the genesis of wanting to embark on that.

Speaker 2

And then once we're here, right, we can do some of these other things, like I mentioned in my prepared remarks in terms of originating or brokering second liens to other people and other such things. So it is a recognition that we're creating this ecosystem around the MSR asset, but it's designed to support, right, and augment the investment portfolio.

Speaker 8

Got it. Hey, Nick, Phil, thank you very much. And Bill, that's very helpful. It's good to get strategic insight and we appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Rick.

Operator

The next question comes from Trevor Cranston with Citizens JMP.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks. Can you talk

Speaker 2

a little bit about your thoughts on swap spreads relative to treasuries, if there's a limit to how low you think those can go and how all that plays into your choice of hedging instruments for the portfolio? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Hey, Trevor, thanks for that question. It's a great question and I will hesitate to stay at a limit on where I think swap spreads can go. We'll say that we use a combination of swaps and treasury futures to hedge our book overall. And it does appear to us as though a lot of the supply concerns about the market are priced into swap spreads right now. We are at extremely tight levels on swaps relative to treasuries.

Speaker 4

But as we've seen this quarter, there continues to be that gap continues to grow. And a lot of it has to do with market directionality, a lot of it has to do with the expectation for budget responsibility of the next and future administrations. But overall, we do think that swap spreads here present a good hedging opportunity and have shifted a little bit or remain reasonably heavily hedged with swaps. Just thinking that they do offer better carry from a hedge perspective and that there are reasons to also believe that swap spreads could widen. And one of them really would be if the Fed were to really stop the QT side.

Speaker 4

And that there's debates about that in the market. There are arguments on both sides, but there's a reasonable chance that that happens as well, which would change the dynamic of that market greatly. But it's a very good question. And it's one in which a lot of it will just depend on what happens from a budgetary perspective for the U. S.

Speaker 4

And what supply looks like. But as I said, on balance, we think that there is a lot of the bad news about the budget is and treasury supply is priced into spreads right now.

Speaker 7

Yes. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Eric Hagen with BTIG.

Speaker 7

Hey, thanks. Good morning. When you say that you raised your spread exposure into October, is that a function of taking your financial leverage higher? Or is your spread exposure also a function of how much TBA you have relative to pools and such?

Speaker 4

Hey, Eric. It's a function of a few things. It's not leverage and that's one thing that we pointed out on the prepared remarks. Leverage is about one measure of risk that we look at and it has to do with some of our spread exposure has to do with how we allow our spread exposure to change with regard to the MSR. When rates go down at the MSR, it becomes it requires, as I mentioned, more mortgages to hedge when rates go back up, less.

Speaker 4

So if you hold essentially the same amount of mortgages, you're going to have more spread exposure as rates go up and less as rates go down. So some of it just has to do with letting that exposure grow as spreads have widened. So that it's really more of a function than that than a leverage. We have really not taken our leverage

Speaker 7

up. Okay, got you. I think there is a follow-up question here on leverage though. I mean, what is the right way to benchmark your leverage relative to the spread environment? Like does your leverage account for the fact that the Fed is expected to cut rates versus last year when spreads were even wider than they are right now, but the benefit from the borrowing cost wasn't really reflected in the spread environment.

Speaker 7

How do you benchmark your leverage against that?

Speaker 4

Honestly, I'm not sure I really understand your question. We look at our portfolio composition and look at the spreads in the market and what kind of returns we think we can generate. And as we said on prior calls, we don't we've kind of given a range of what our overall economic leverage is. I think that's the holds. But it has to do really with where we see spreads are now.

Speaker 4

And we are essentially, I think you're asking us to I think you're asking like, do we are we predicting mortgage performance based on the way the Fed is going to act, but I'm not quite sure what you're asking to be perfectly honest.

Speaker 7

Okay. And you guys have the convertible debt coming up on a current liability in a couple of months. Do you have a sense for how you're thinking about potentially refinancing that into your capital structure?

Speaker 2

The convertible debt is coming due in early 2026. And so that's on our radar and we'll be addressing it before that. One other point if I can just make about your question about leverage and so forth and Nick's answer, I might just elaborate a little bit that leverage is one measure of our risk that we look at, of course, but we have other measures in terms of that we put in the deck also about our mortgage spread exposure and the amount of liquidity we have and so forth. And because the MSR as out of the money as it is, it does still contribute to offsetting some mortgage spread exposure. We think that's important to include in our overall risks as well.

Speaker 2

And so we don't just look at leverage as one measure, although we obviously pay attention to it and respect it. But it's a whole suite of metrics that we look at when we're managing the portfolio exposures.

Speaker 7

Got you. All right. That's really helpful. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Harsh Himnani with Green Street.

Speaker 7

Good morning.

Speaker 9

Hey, thanks for taking my question. So now that Roundpoint is scaled up and operating, I guess could you remind us the recapture rate on a long term basis that you're projecting on the MSRs there?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, as I said, we just finished our Q1 of DTC operations. And as I mentioned, we only had a number of loan officers that can be counted on one hand. And so we're not up to scale yet. As I said, I think what we've done here is a proof of concept and we're bringing the thing to scale.

Speaker 2

And so I think it's too soon to talk about what the recapture rates are in our portfolio. But we do expect that we'll be able to achieve industry level recapture rate on the agency portfolio once we're fully at scale. We are in this weird environment where 1% or less than 1%, especially with the recent movement rates of our portfolio are at the money. And so these are very small numbers of our portfolio that are actually in the money. So it's not a great moment to talk about what the recapture rate is, but we'll have more to say about that in future quarters.

Speaker 9

Okay, that's fair. And then you touched on this a little bit in the prepared remarks and on a few prior questions, but perhaps in the near term, call it next couple of quarters, how are you looking at the relative value across the two strategies, right, where you're seeing the opportunity to invest be better in the securities portfolio, Messars?

Speaker 4

Hey Harsh, thank you for that question. It is mortgage spreads having done what they have done thus far this quarter, the mortgage side at the moment looks quite attractive. How long that lasts, it's hard to say. There's I believe there are a lot of market participants that are holding on for the election to be over because as we know there can be a significant amount of volatility and we have a lot of events coming up in the next few weeks. We have non form payroll, we have the election and then we have the Fed right after that.

Speaker 4

There's a lot of reasons to do nothing and I think that there are a lot of investors right now that are happy to just sit and watch right now. And I think that I believe that explains a lot of the reasons why we've seen mortgage spreads move out as they have. So at the moment, if you ask me right today, if I had money to invest, I would put it into the mortgage side because I think mortgage spreads are very attractive. My sense is that, that won't last for a longer period of time unless we really have a different environment for one reason or another, unless we're again moving back to higher rates or some questioning about whether the Fed is really cutting or not. I think the base case should be that mortgage spreads probably do better once we got through these market events that are coming up.

Speaker 4

But longer term, we still we love our MSR asset. As we say, it's a great risk reward asset. It's fairly easy to hedge and provides a lot of great cash flows and prepays are very stable. So from a longer term perspective, we really do like the MSR.

Speaker 9

Got it. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Harsh.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Greenberg, I will turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. Thank you as always for your interest at Go to.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Two Harbors Investment Q3 2024
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