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spk01: As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the call over to Greg Seals in Investor Relations. Mr. Seals, you may begin the call.
spk04: Thank you, Operator, and to all of you joining us on Investor Mortgage Capital's quarterly earnings call. In addition to today's press release, we have provided a presentation that covers the topics we plan to address today. The press release and presentation are available on our website, investormortgagecapital.com. This information can be found by going to the Investor Relations section of the website. Our presentation today will include forward-looking statements and certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please review the disclosures on slide two of the presentation regarding the statements and measures as well as the appendix for the appropriate reconciliations to GAAP. Finally, Investor Mortgage Capital is not responsible for and does not edit or guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. The only authorized webcasts are located on our website. Again, welcome and thank you for joining us today. I'll now turn the call over to John Anzolam. John? Good morning and welcome
spk05: to Investor Mortgage Capital's fourth quarter earnings call. I will give some brief comments before turning the call over to our Chief Investment Officer Brian Norris to discuss the portfolio in more detail. Also joining us on the call are our President Kevin Collins and our COO Dave Lyle. As we enter the fourth quarter, interest rate volatility accelerated as changes in investor expectations for the supply of U.S. Treasuries and the path of monetary policy led to substantial adjustments to both the level of interest rates and the shape of the EO curve. The heightened volatility drove notable underperformance in agency mortgages as investors reduced exposure to the asset class. During this period, we sought to maintain appropriate levels of cash from the member assets, reducing risk by decreasing leverage as volatility increased. As market sentiment improved, bolstered by incoming data supporting a soft landing narrative and market expectations for quicker pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, we returned to our target range. Despite the volatility we experienced during the quarter, our book value for common share ended the quarter at $10, representing an increase of .7% from September 30th. When combined with our 40 cent common stock dividend, this produced an economic return of .7% for the quarter. Our debt to equity ratio ended the quarter at 5.7 times, down from 6.4 as of September 30th. As of the end of the quarter, nearly all of our $5.1 billion investment portfolio was invested in agency mortgages and we maintained a sizable balance of underscripting cash and an unencumbered investments totaling $422 million. Burdens available for distribution for the period benefited from attractive interest rate interest income on our target assets, favorable funding, and low-cost pay-fix swaps. For the quarter, EAD for common share was 95 cents compared to $1.51 for the third quarter, reflecting declines in interest income on investments and interest rate swaps in connection with our reduction in leverage and adjustments to our swap portfolio. Over the first six weeks of 2024, mortgage valuations have been challenged with lower coupons underperforming higher coupons. As of February 16th, our book value for common share is down moderately, estimated to be between $9.50 and $9.88. As we enter 2024, both the FOMC and the federal funds futures markets forecast the next policy move by the FOMC will be a rate cut, although they had differing expectations regarding the quantity of these cuts. While evolving expectations around the timing of changes in monetary policy may bring challenges in the coming months, we believe that a potential reduction in interest rate volatility combined with compelling valuations and favorable funding additions will support an attractive investment environment for agency mortgages in 2024. I'll stop here, Brian, we'll go through the portfolio.
spk06: Thanks, John, and good morning to everyone listening to the call. I'll begin on slide four, which provides an overview of the interest rates in agency mortgage markets since the beginning of last year. As shown on the chart in the upper left, U.S. Treasury yields fell sharply across the yield curve in a parallel fashion during the fourth quarter. Yields on maturities from two years to 30 years declined between 65 and 80 basis points as the disinflationary trend in economic data persisted while estimates of future Treasury funding needs declined. By the end of the fourth quarter, pricing in the Fed funds futures market reflected expectations for a 25 basis point cut in the target rate in the first quarter of 2024 and nearly seven cuts in total by the end of January 2025. Despite further runoff of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet during the quarter, the decline in interest rate volatility and expectations for the easing of monetary policy led to an improvement in domestic bank holdings of agency mortgages for the first time in nearly two years. Slide five provides more detail on the agency mortgage market. In the upper left chart, we show 30-year current coupon performance versus U.S. Treasuries over the course of 2023, highlighting the fourth quarter in gray. Despite notable underperformance at the start of the quarter, production coupon agency mortgage valuations rebounded into year end as interest rates and interest rate volatility declined. Ultimately, current coupons outperformed Treasuries during the quarter, with nominal spreads tightening approximately 30 basis points. In addition, specified pool payouts improved as interest rates fell, as illustrated in the chart on the top right. As shown in the lower right chart, the dollar roll market for TVA securities remained unattractive, as more recent issuance with higher loan balances have a worse prepayment profile and the lack of consistent bank demand has negatively impacted technicals. Slide six provides detail on our agency mortgage investments and summarizes changes during the quarter. Our portfolio decreased by 7% quarter over quarter, as the sharp increase in interest rate volatility in October warranted a reduction in risk. We net sold approximately $1.7 billion of specified pools in October across our coupon holdings to reduce the risk of further declines in book value before adding nearly $1.2 billion of exposure, predominantly in 30% or 6% specified pools in November and December as interest rate volatility declined.
spk07: We
spk06: remained focused in more attractively priced higher coupons, which are largely insulated from direct exposure to assets held by commercial banks and on the Federal Reserve's loan balance sheet. In addition, we remain exclusively invested in specified pools, which means we have no exposure to the deterioration in the dollar roll market for TVA securities. We focused our specified pool allocation on prepayment characteristics that are expected to perform well in both premium and discount environments and modestly improved the quality of our specified pool holdings by increasing our allocation to lower loan balance stories. Although we anticipate interest rate volatility to remain moderately elevated in the near term, we believe current valuations on production coupon agency mortgages largely price in this risk and represent attractive investment opportunities with current gross ROEs in the mid to high teens. Our agency CMO allocation is detailed alongside our remaining credit investments on slide 7. Our allocation to agency interest-only securities remain largely unchanged, pulling $75 million a quarter in. A modest decline from $78 million at the end of the third quarter to $75 million this quarter, primarily due to paydowns and a modest decline in the weighted average dollar price given the rally and interest rates during the quarter. Our credit allocation declined during the quarter to $19 million as a result of paydowns. Our credit investments remain high quality with 68% rated AA or higher. Although we anticipate limited near-term price appreciation in our credit and agency I.O. investments, we believe these assets provide attractive yields for unlevered holdings. Slide 8 details our funding and hedge book at quarter ends. Repurchase agreements collateralized by agency RMDS declined from $5 billion to $4.5 billion, and our net notional of pay fixed interest rate swaps declined from $5 billion to $4.1 billion, both commensurate with our reduction in specified pool holdings during the quarter. We continue to reposition the hedge book, unwinding our remaining received fixed interest rate swaps and a portion of our legacy pay fixed swaps as a reduction in leverage during October warranted a proportionate decline in hedges. As we added specified pool exposure back to the portfolio in November and December, we also added new pay fixed swaps to hedge the additional borrowings. We ended the quarter with a hedge ratio of 91%. These changes resulted in a modest increase in the weighted average coupon on our pay fixed swaps, which negatively impacted earnings available for distribution. Positively, we retained much of the benefit of our low cost pay fixed swaps with an attractive weighted average coupon on our hedging portfolio of .1% and weighted average maturity of 6.6 years. Leveraged end of the quarter at 5.7 times debt to equity, down from 6.4 times at the end of September, given the net sales and specified pools and modest improvement in book value. Wide 9 provides further detail on our asset yields and funding costs. Interest rates on our repurchase agreements increased modestly from .4% to .5% at quarter end, largely offset by a similar increase in the receive rate on our interest rate swaps. Yields on our agency RMDS portfolio increased approximately 20 basis points to 5.3%, while the pay rate on our interest rate swaps increased 30 basis points to 1.1%. Overall, our effective interest rate margin remains very attractive at just over 5%, which includes the benefit of our remaining legacy swap portfolio. To conclude our prepared remarks, the fourth quarter of 2023 began as another very challenging quarter for agency RMDS investors, as uncertainty regarding the path of monetary policy led to another sharp increase in interest rate volatility. Valuations rebounded, however, as the disinflationary trend persisted despite the notable strength in the economy, resulting in an inhibit for expectations of monetary policy from further tightening, potential easing in the first half of 2024. Despite significant tightening of spreads in the asset class in the fourth quarter, we believe agency RMDS valuations remain attractive for long-term investors, given our expectation for the potential reduction in interest rate volatility over the course of 2024 as easing monetary policy likely results in a steeper yield curve. Our preference for higher coupon specified pools should perform well in that environment. Further, our liquidity position remains robust. As a result, we believe IVR is well positioned to navigate future mortgage market volatility and selectively capitalize on historically wide agency RMDS spreads, which provides a supportive backdrop for long-term investment. Thank you for your continued support for Investco Mortgage Capital, and now we will open the line for Q&A.
spk01: Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our first question comes from Trevor Cranston with JMP Securities. Your line is open.
spk02: Hey, thanks. Good morning. Question on the hedging side. It looks like the net swap portfolio declined by more than the MBS portfolio did on the quarter. I guess, can you elaborate a little bit on if you guys have made any changes to serve your net duration exposure along any part of the yield curve given the shifting outlook for what the Fed is going to be doing going forward and just generally how you're approaching hedging across the yield curve right now? Thanks.
spk06: Yeah. Hey, good morning, Trevor. It's Brian. Yeah, we haven't really made any significant changes to our yield curve exposures. We're positioned slightly for a steeper curve, given our expectations for Fed policy in 2024. The sharp rally that we saw in interest rates during the fourth quarter didn't shorten our mortgage investments, so you saw the shortening in our hedges as well. But really, the changes that we made to the swap portfolio were pretty consistent across the curve, so there weren't any significant changes. As far as our duration gap goes, we're still just modestly positive, but very slight.
spk02: Okay, got it. Appreciate the comments. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Weaver with Jones Trading. Your line is open.
spk07: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I have sort of a two-parter here. I've seen over the last three, four quarters you've been migrating higher in the coupon stack. Obviously, that's in response to the available ROE in the market, but what do you think of the convexity profile here, given your remarks on the timing of monetary easing? I assume you're still migrating up to quarter to date.
spk06: Yeah. Hey, Jason. It's Brian. Good morning. Good to hear from you. Yeah, we have moved slightly up in coupon. Obviously, we did buy some sixes in the board quarter that do have slightly worse convexity profile. But just given our expectations for interest rate volatility, we don't exactly mind taking a little bit of additional convexity risk from that perspective. And given our continued holdings in fours through five and a half that are still at decent discounts, we certainly have a fair amount of protection from that perspective as well.
spk07: And on that subject, to the new high coupons and the sixes, what is the typical type of specified pool those guys are in?
spk06: Yeah, it's pretty consistent with the rest of our portfolio, leaning a little bit heavier into balance, but also higher loan balance cuts call on 225, 250K, but also a fair amount in the lower pay up stories like LTV and FICO NGO stories.
spk07: Got it. All right. That's helpful. And finally, I see cash right now at around 77 million. I know you have some unencumbered as well for enhanced liquidity, but does that imply you're inclined to raise leverage going forward?
spk06: I wouldn't necessarily say we're inclined to raise leverage. We do have the ability to do that if the market volatility declines and we see improvement in valuations. But I wouldn't say we're necessarily inclined to do that in the near term. I think we still, certainly there's still some uncertainty about the timing of said policy. And we would expect there to continue to some rate ball around that until that kind of comes to fruition. So, you know, at the moment, I think we're pretty comfortable with where we are, but we do have the ability to increase leverage if conditions warrant that.
spk07: All right. Thank you for that color. And congrats,
spk06: guys.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Doug Harder with UBS. Your line is open. Thanks.
spk08: I was hoping to get your thoughts around the dividend. If you look at it relative to the common book value, it kind of screens higher. But if you look at it relative to total equity, factoring in the preferreds, it seems kind of more in line. Just curious as to how you're thinking about the dividend.
spk05: Yeah. Say hey, Doug. It's John. Yeah. I mean, as always, the dividend is turned by the board. So, that's the first thing. But I think given where EAD, even though it's trended lower with the adjustments in the swap book, EAD supports the level of dividend pretty comfortably at this point. So, we do look, you know, if our level of dividend is really an outlier versus peers, that's one consideration we think about. The other consideration is really where we see cash flows and where we see EAD. We're forecasting that over the next several quarters. So, from that perspective, you know, it's been well supported. So, you know, I think as long as things stay relatively around here, you know, I don't see any catalyst since the changes. But then again, it's pretty early. So, yeah, that's what I say.
spk08: Thanks, John. And then around the capital structure, you know, I guess how are you thinking about, you know, kind of plan to kind of bring the those lines, you know, how do you think about, do you think about leverage as more leverage to common or leverage to total equity?
spk05: We look at it both ways, you know, in terms of leverage, how we think about it. You know, leverage to common equity is probably the way we think about risk, you know, more often. So, that's how we think about it. And, you know, as far as capital structure, you know, we've been buying back for preferring to the open market. It's been, you know, a very slow process given just given the amount of activity in those issues out there. You know, I think the, you know, we have two two prefers out there are series B is callable at the end of this year. So, we have a decision to make come fourth quarter. And, you know, we're looking, you know, we'll be starting and are starting to look at options around, you know, whether we call that or not, and, you know, how we kind of handle handle that coming, that coming event. So, you know, but we do continue to attempt to buy preferring back. And then, you know, when the market is, you know, willing, when market conditions are appropriate, we are also looking to raise money through the ATM, which would also help balance the capital structure. So, both those two things we're throughout the year.
spk08: Great. Appreciate that.
spk01: Thank you. And if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from Eric Hagan with BTIG. Your line is open.
spk03: Hey, good morning. How are we doing? Hey, on the specified pools, can you give a sense for how much payoffs are right now for the bonds that you're focused on buying, you know, relative to where those payoffs have been historically? And do you feel like there's a good way to think about how much relative strength those bonds can show in different interest rate rallies?
spk06: Hey, Eric. Good to hear from you. It's Brian. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, specified pools, as I mentioned, the payoffs did improve in the fourth quarter, given what we saw happen in the rates market. You know, those have come off a little bit in so far in the first quarter. You know, we have rates are now up 45 to 50 basis points since you're in. So you'd expect some softening and payoffs. And so we've seen that. But, you know, our weighted average payoff, I think is what 0.4 points. So, you know, I think, you know, our exposure to those changes is fairly limited. You know, I think the FICO and LTV stories and even the GEO stories are, you know, pretty low payoffs. And so there's not a lot of change goes on in those. It's really kind of driven by the changes in loan bail that are a little bit higher payoffs. So call it, you know, half a point to three quarters of a point. So, you know, those will change as the interest rate markets kind of adjust around that. But we're still, you know, it hasn't changed kind of what we're targeting as far as, you know, attractive additions at this point. You know, we still think that the TBA market will continue to have, you know, issues and the implied financing will continue to be higher there than it is in special stock pools. So, you know, to the extent that we are looking to add, you know, at this point, it would certainly be
spk03: in special stock pools. Do you feel like there's anything that would catalyze dollar roll specialness aside from the Fed shutting off QT or making adjustments to QT?
spk06: Yeah, I think, you know, if we were to see a significant return from banks, you know, we have seen some encouraging signs from them over the last few months and they've, you know, at least stopped running off their portfolio as significantly as they had been. But I do think that, you know, banks are really the primary driver of demand for, you know, those generic type securities. And so, you know, that TBA market is really driven by supply and demand dynamics. And until that starts to improve, you know, it's hard to envision the dollar roll market improving all that much because, you know, quite frankly, the other aspect of that is, you know, the convexity profile of the deliverables. And that is not appearing to any better as loan balances continue to
spk03: increase. Right. Hey, that was helpful. The book value range that you gave quarter to date, is that inclusive of the accrued dividend or are you netting out the accrued dividend? That net to alpha dividend. It net to that. Okay. Thank you guys so much. Yep.
spk01: Thank you. And at this time, we have no further questions. Greg, I'll hand it back to you.
spk04: Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone for your participation and look forward to speaking to you next quarter.
spk01: Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.
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