Annaly Capital Management Inc.

Good day and welcome to the annually first quarter 2020 conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Purvi Kamdar, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to the first quarter 2020 earnings call for Analy Capital Management Inc. Any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including with respect to COVID-19 impacts, which are outlined in the risk factors section in our most recent annual and quarterly SEC filings. Actual events and results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to read the disclaimer in our earnings release in addition to our quarterly and annual filings. Additionally, the content of this conference call may contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date hereof. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise this information. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in our earnings relief. As a reminder, Annaly routinely posts important information for investors on the company's at www.analy.com. Content referenced in today's call can be found in our first quarter 2020 investor presentation and first quarter 2020 financial supplement, both found under the presentation section of our website. Analy intends to use our webpage as a means of disclosing material, non-public information for complying with the company's disclosure obligations under Regulation SP and to post and update investor presentations and similar materials on a regular basis. Annaleigh encourages investors, analysts, the media, and others to monitor the company's website in addition to following Annaleigh's press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, presentations, webcasts, and other information it posts from time to time on its website. Please note this event is being recorded. Participants on this morning's call include David Finkelstein, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, Serena Wolfe, Chief Financial Officer, Mike Fania, , Tim Gallagher , Tim Coffey , and Ilker Ertas . And with that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Porvy, and good morning, everyone. Since we last spoke on our market update call on March 16th, we've seen the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly. We would like to again extend our deepest sympathies to those directly impacted by the virus, and we hope everyone joining us for the call today continues to stay healthy. Keep ourselves, our families, and communities safe. Annaleigh continues to work remotely until it is appropriate for us to return to the office. We are grateful to have had well-established business continuity planning in place prior to this crisis to ensure the well-being of our staff without disruption to our operations. Now, on today's call, I'll briefly provide an update on the market and how we managed our portfolio during the extreme volatility in March. Then leaders of each credit business will go through their respective portfolios. Serena will discuss the financials, and I will follow up with our positioning and outlook going forward. Now, as the COVID-19 outbreak wreaked havoc on financial markets and the economy, we witnessed the Fed and Congress intervene in unprecedented ways. The Fed has enacted policy stimulus at a record pace, announcing larger and broader-based measures than during the 2008 financial crisis. They reduced the policy rate to the zero lower bound, provided ample liquidity in repo and U.S. dollar swap markets, conducted record asset purchases in treasuries and MBS, and established lending facilities to support a broad array of markets. To contextualize the sheer magnitude of the Fed's actions, its balance sheet has grown by more than 50% in the past six weeks. These measures have helped support financial markets and should prove beneficial for the economic recovery once we find ourselves on the other side of the virus.