By Isobel Kennedy

NEW YORK (MNI) – The New York Federal Reserve Thursday said it
bought $4.2 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities in the
week-ended January 4.

The largest purchases in the latest week were in Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac 30-year “to-be-announced” TBA securities with 3.50% coupons
for February delivery. Those buys totalled $2.1 billion.

The next largest purchases were $750 million Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac 30-year TBAs with 4.00% coupon for February delivery.

The pace of the Fed buying over the last two weeks has been smaller
due to early and full closes surrounding the Christmas and New Year’s
Day holidays. The pace will pick up in the weeks ahead. In this latest
week the NY Fed did not make any purchases or sales of the TBA dollar
rolls.

There is no doubt that the Federal Reserve’s ongoing plan to
reinvest the mortgage prepayment proceeds from its agency
mortgage-backed portfolio back into agency MBS on a monthly basis has
been a boon for the mortgage market. The program was announced on
September 21.

But there are many other positives for the mortgage market and
since last week the agency mortgage market has been well bid with any
selling due to profit taking supported by demand from real and fast
money accounts and street trading positions.

The following factors are widely accepted as market supportive
factors:

1) Supply and demand technicals have been supportive for some time
and are expected to remain so for some time;

2) The prepayment outlook also remains positive and market sources
generally downplay any real worries about HARP 2.0 causing prepayments
to spike;

3) The homeowner remains under constraints for a wide variety of
well publicized reasons like negative home equity and extremely tight
lending standards. In addition, market analysts say constraints in
capacity at mortgage originators will also keep new supply light and
prepayments relatively low;

4) Given the fact that the Federal Reserve has said it will keep
rates low until June 2013, many domestic investors continue to stretch
for yield. Corporate bonds and MBS fit this bill perfectly;

5) The situation in Europe is the wildcard for the financial
markets and the global economy. Provided policymakers abroad continue to
make slow but steady progress on the crisis, market sources expect U.S,
10-year Treasury notes to remain in very tight range like 1.75% to
2.25%. Lack of volatility on rates also constructive for MBS;

6) In the worst case scenario, the Federal Reserve might have to
provide more stimulus in the form of quantitative easing. Market sources
feel fairly confident that MBS buying would play a role in a new plan.

** Market News International New York Newsroom: 212-669-6430 **

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