New York Mortgage Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the New York Mortgage Trust Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. If you have a question, please press the star followed by 1-1 on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. If you are using speaker equipment, we do ask that you please lift the handset before making your selection. This conference is being recorded on Thursday, November 2, 2023. I would now like to turn the call over to Christy Musalem of Investor Relations.

Good morning and thank you all for joining New York Mortgage Trust third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me on today's call are Jason Serrano, Chief Executive Officer, Nick Ma, President, and Christine Nario, Chief Financial Officer. A press release and supplemental financial presentation with New York Mortgage Trust third quarter 2023 results was released yesterday. Both the press release and supplemental financial presentation are available on the company's website at www.nymtrust.com. Additionally, we are hosting a live webcast of today's call, which you can access in the events and presentation section of the company's website. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during the conference call, which are not historical, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although New York Mortgage Trust believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statement are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, at this time, I would like to introduce Jason Serrano, Chief Executive Officer. Jason, please go ahead.

Thanks, Christy. Good morning. Welcome to New York Mortgage Trust's Third Quarter Earnings Call. We have been discussing a seismic market shift that has been underway since early 2022. The impact is likely to be far-reaching given historic rate moves and curve inversions. In anticipation of heavy Treasury issuance calendar and continued higher for longer narrative from the Fed, The market witnessed record short positions added in the futures and options market by hedge funds, likely causing the curve to flatten in recent weeks. Home affordability is now at the worst point since the 1970s, and yet earlier this week, Case-Shiller's August HPA showed an increase of 1.01% month over month, which is the fifth straight month increase. Low inventory of properties for sale are keeping home value support in the near term. This trend will continue to keep rental demand strong, particularly in the southern markets where migration is still elevated. Mean reversion to long-term housing affordability would require deflating home prices, lowering mortgage rates, and or increasing incomes. Given that we are likely at the end of a growth cycle, a combination of lower home prices and lower mortgage rates are more likely. Hence, we see that growing a credit portfolio by being a liquidity provider in this market seems to be a highly unattractive proposition at this time. Now, to briefly highlight companies' quarterly results, which Christine will cover in detail, The impact of rate volatility has clearly eroded investor confidence in the quarter, and we are not immune to this reaction. Our adjusted book value declined by 9.71% in third quarter as a result of lower asset value and impairments, particularly within our multifamily joint venture equity portfolio. Despite improvements we are seeing to our top line revenue for our multifamily properties on balance sheet today, and generally a large cash forward from buyers in the market, there's little urgency being exhibited to transact at this time. Buyers are waiting for interest rates stability to lock in equity returns. And on the flip side, we don't see any evidence of property sales at the wider cap rates either. Not surprisingly, 2023 property transaction volume is 72% below last year and will likely stay depressed in the near term. With limited recourse leverage we utilize through the year and excess liquidity generated, We were able to safely more than double our agency portfolio in the quarter and take advantage of technical pressure which pushed secondary market agency spreads to one of the widest levels ever. Looking at page eight, our defensive posture is a result of signs that the economy is an inflection point. Recent consumer data shows mounting stress at a time when the economy seems to be functioning well. GDP rose at an annual rate of 4.9% in the third quarter. The increase was driven by strong consumer demand, which accounted for more than half of the GDP increase. Consumer spending, as measured by expenditures, increased 4% in the third quarter from 80 base points in the second quarter. Consumers seemed to enjoy a bit of a spending splurge at the end of the summer with heavy retailer discounts. The outlook for continued consumer growth to support economic expansion looks unlikely. In fact, when digging deeper into the inputs, Q3 GDP had Poor quality results. As you see on page eight, consumer spending was fueled by more debt, which is nearly 1.3 trillion or 20% higher than pre-COVID levels. On this point, for the first time ever, more than 50% of all US credit card holders are rolling debt by making minimum payments rather than paying off balances. And according to Bankrate, this is happening at a time where credit cards APR recently hit a record high of 28.3%. Furthermore, while topping out credit cards, U.S. consumers seem to have burned through excess savings as well. The drawdown of savings as a percentage of disposable income went from 5.3% in May to 3.4% in September. One would have to look back 10 years ago to see such a change. With this low savings rate at 50% of historical average, the ability to use credit to spend is looking more unlikely. Change in credit availability has recently become much harder than any time over the past 20 years. With headwinds, the U.S. consumer, the trend of discretionary spending is likely to contract in Q4. Due to how consumption was generated, we do not find the GDP print to be impressive, which reinforces our portfolio's management strategy. However, third quarter GDP does line up with similar trends related to contraction in the past, as a 5% GDP print is quite common the last two quarters before the onset of a recession historically. We recognize that our previous goal to shrink our credit portfolio and maintain asset acquisitions at a minimal pace brings forth a different set of risks, particularly reinvestment risk to the extent we have misread potential signals for credit contraction. We also recognize we're an outlier for the hybrid credit REITs with this downsizing strategy. We do not have a bunch of company in here. However, if we have read this correctly, and we believe we have, we should begin to see signs of economic contraction in the near term, likely in the first half of 2024. 150 base points decline in the 10-year is the average move after a tightening cycle as a fight to safety trend emerges by investors. From our portfolio management decisions, staying up in quality and not taking on new leverage credit is prudent. In this stage, we will continue to proceed cautiously and focus on investments that will outperform in a downturn. Pointing to our focus with in the non-credit space at this time. On page nine, we explain the objectives that have been consistent for over a year. In the near term, the focus on curbing tail risk with respect to our book value by winding down our short-dated portfolio and picking our spots to sell real property opportunistically. Our goal is to keep liquidity high and patiently wait for a period of sustained market dislocation. We believe strong asset management capability will be required to unlock value. This is our strength. and we're excited to leverage our skill set. On the right side of page nine, we show the company's repositioning timeline. We have well documented this transition of reducing pipelines, downsizing our portfolio by 20% in 2022, and now one billion of credit asset reduction year over year. Recently, we were in a unique position to start rebuilding our agency RMBS portfolio, which we find very creative. At these higher coupons, as we started the year with zero exposure. Nick will provide more color on this important point. We are seeking higher returns from lending opportunities as we are beginning to see special situations to recapitalize assets and to acquire portfolios of deeply discounted senior loans. As discussed last quarter, a consequence of our defensive posture is that we elected not to replace asset coupons that are paying off from our portfolio, thus also reducing company earnings. As clearly shown on the bottom right of page 10, the company's adjusted interest income precipitously declined in the second half of 2022. However, recent allocations to high-coupon agency MDS represented in the legend within our other investments increased adjusted interest income by 15% in the quarter to $59.2 million. We still have more work to do here and are finding large opportunities within the agency market, trading at historical wide levels in the secondary market. With $500 million in dry powder equaling 41% of company market capitalization as of 9-30, we believe we are well positioned for income growth. We're excited about this approach. We can meet our goal to grow income while also staying liquid and protected in the downturn. At this time, I'll pass the call over to Christine to provide more details about our Q3 financial results. Christine?