AGNC Investment Q1 2025 Earnings Report

AGNC Investment EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.44
• Consensus EPS: $0.41
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.58

AGNC Investment Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $846.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $436.71 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$409.29 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

AGNC Investment Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 4/21/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

AGNC Investment (NASDAQ:AGNC), formerly American Capital Agency Corp., is a real estate investment trust. The Company invests in agency residential mortgage-backed securities on a leveraged basis. Its investments consist of residential mortgage pass-through securities and collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) for which the principal and interest payments are guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise, such as the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), or by the United States Government agency, such as the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) (collectively, GSEs). Its agency securities include agency residential mortgage-backed securities (Agency RMBS) and to-be-announced forward contracts (TBAs). Its Non-Agency Securities include credit risk transfer securities (CRT), non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (Non-Agency RMBS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS).

AGNC Investment Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• AGNC delivered an economic return of 2.4% in Q1 and a 7.8% total shareholder return (with dividends reinvested), underscoring resilient performance amid market volatility.
• Net spread and dollar roll income rose to $0.44 per share, and the net interest rate spread widened by 21 bps to 2.12%, driven by higher asset yields and lower funding costs.
• Quarter-end leverage increased to 7.5× tangible equity (from 7.2×), supported by a strong liquidity cushion of $6 billion in cash and unencumbered agency MBS (63% of tangible equity).
• Agency MBS spreads widened to around 220 bps versus swaps, causing a mark-to-market decline but boosting go-forward expected returns to the low-20% range.
• AGNC raised $9 billion of common equity through its ATM program at a significant premium to book value, generating meaningful accretion for existing shareholders.

Presentation

[Operator]

Morning, and welcome to the AGNC Investment Corp. First Quarter twenty twenty five Shareholder Call. All participants will be in the listen only mode. 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.

[Operator]

To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Katie Derlington in Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Katherine Turlington, Investor Relations at AGNC Investment]

Thank you all for joining AGNC Investment Corp. First quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to review the safe harbor statement. This conference call and corresponding slide presentation contains statements that, to the extent they are not recitations of historical fact, constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward looking statements are intended to be subject to the Safe Harbor protection provided by the Reform Act.

[Katherine Turlington, Investor Relations at AGNC Investment]

Actual outcomes and results could differ materially from those forecasts due to the impact of many factors beyond the control of AGNC. All forward looking statements included in this presentation are made only as of the date of this presentation and are subject to change without notice. Certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward looking statements are included in AGNC's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies are available on the SEC's website at sec.gov. We disclaim any obligation to update our forward looking statements unless required by law.

[Katherine Turlington, Investor Relations at AGNC Investment]

Participants on the call include Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer Bernie Bell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Sean Reed, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development. With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter Federico.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Good morning, and thank you all for joining our first quarter conference call. Government policy actions and their potentially adverse effects on economic growth and inflation caused investor sentiment to turn decidedly more cautious in the first quarter. This elevated macroeconomic and monetary policy uncertainty led investors to initially seek the safety of high quality assets like U. S. Treasuries, agency mortgage backed securities and cash over higher risk assets like equities and corporate debt.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Driven by our attractive monthly dividend, AGNC generated an economic return of 2.4% in the first quarter. AGNC's total stock return with dividends reinvested for the quarter was positive 7.8%. The tariff policy announcement at the April, however, caused volatility to increase significantly across all financial markets. With the breadth and magnitude of the tariffs being greater than anticipated, recession fears increased materially. Equity prices in turn fell further from their February peak and into bear market territory.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Interest rate volatility also increased substantially. Over the first nine trading days of April, the yield on the ten year treasury moved initially sharply lower and then sharply higher. In total over this short period of time, the yield on the ten year treasury fluctuated by more than 100 basis points. This interest rate volatility and broad macroeconomic uncertainty caused normal financial market correlations to break down, liquidity to become constrained and investor sentiment to turn negative. The agency MBS market was not immune to these adverse conditions and also came under significant pressure in early April.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

In spread terms, the current coupon spread to a blend of five and ten year treasury rates widened to 160 basis points, the top of the trading range over the last five quarters. The performance of Agency MBS relative to swaps was substantially worse given the unprecedented narrowing of swap spreads that occurred during the height of the market turmoil. As a result, the current coupon spread to a blend of swap rates reached an intraday peak of two thirty basis points. For comparison, the widest level reached during the height of the COVID pandemic was two thirty five basis points for this measure. As of yesterday, this spread was about two twenty basis points, still very elevated but off the wides.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

AGNC was well prepared for the recent market volatility and navigated it without issue. While AGNC's net asset value was negatively impacted by the mortgage spread widening, the expected return on our portfolio is also now higher as it reflects these wider spread levels. Moreover, at current valuation levels, we believe Agency MBS provide investors with a compelling return opportunity on both a levered and unlevered basis. Recent trading history is supportive of this value proposition as well as spreads historically have not remained at these levels for an extended period of time. Agency MBS also offer investors an attractive fixed income alternative to corporate debt and other credit sensitive instruments, especially in light of the deteriorating economic outlook.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

For these reasons and despite the fact that the macroeconomic uncertainty is likely to remain elevated over the near term, our outlook for Agency MBS continues to be very favorable. With that, I will now turn the call over to Bernie Bell to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

[Bernice Bell, Executive VP & CFO at AGNC Investment]

Thank you, Peter. For the first quarter, AGNC reported total comprehensive income of $0.12 per common share. Our economic return on tangible common equity was 2.4% consisting of $0.36 in dividends declared per common share and a $0.16 decline in tangible net book value per share due to modest spread widening during the quarter. Quarter end leverage increased to 7.5 times tangible equity, up from 7.2 times at year end, driven by the decline in tangible net book value per share and the deployment of recently issued equity capital. Average leverage was 7.3 times for Q1, up slightly from 7.2 times in the fourth quarter.

[Bernice Bell, Executive VP & CFO at AGNC Investment]

We ended the first quarter with a strong liquidity position consisting of $6,000,000,000 in cash and unencumbered agency MBS, representing 63% of tangible equity. During the quarter, we raised $5.00 $9,000,000 of common equity through our At the Market Offering program at a material premium to tangible net book value, generating meaningful accretion for common stockholders. Net spread and dollar roll income increased $07 to $0.44 per common share for the quarter, driven by a higher net interest rate spread and larger asset base. Our net interest rate spread rose 21 basis points to 2.12%. This improvement was driven by higher asset yields, a greater proportion of swap based hedges and lower funding cost as our repo positions fully reset to prevailing short term rate levels during the first quarter.

[Bernice Bell, Executive VP & CFO at AGNC Investment]

Our treasury based hedges generated additional net spread income of approximately $02 per share for the first quarter, which is not reflected in our reported net spread and dollar roll income. Lastly, the average projected life CPR in our portfolio increased to 8.3% at quarter end from 7.7% at year end, consistent with lower rates. Actual CPRs averaged 7% for the quarter, down from 9.6% in the fourth quarter. And with that, I'll now turn the call back over to Peter.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Thank you, Bernie. Before opening the call up to your questions, I want to provide a brief update on our portfolio as of quarter end and discuss in greater detail our outlook for agency mortgage backed securities. As I already mentioned, slower economic growth expectations pushed equity prices meaningfully lower during the quarter. In contrast, fixed income returns as reflected by the major Bloomberg indices were positive with Agency MBS being the best performing fixed income asset class in the first quarter with a total return of 3.1%, followed by U. S.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Treasuries at 2.9% and corporate debt at 2.3%. On a hedge basis, however, the performance of Agency MBS was more mixed with spreads to treasuries generally widening during the quarter, particularly in the low and middle coupon segments of the market. The current coupon spread to the blended five and ten year treasury rate widened eight basis points during the quarter. Our asset portfolio totaled $79,000,000,000 at quarter end, up about $5,000,000,000 from the prior quarter. The mortgages that we added were largely high quality specified pools and pools with other favorable prepayment characteristics.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

As a result, the percentage of our assets with favorable prepayment characteristics increased to 77%. The weighted average coupon of our portfolio meanwhile remained steady at just over 5%. Our aggregate TBA position was relatively stable during the quarter, although the composition shifted to include a combination of Ginnie Mae and conventional UMBS in response to changing implied financing levels and delivery profile characteristics. Consistent with the growth in our asset portfolio, the notional balance of our hedge portfolio increased to $64,000,000,000 at quarter end. In duration dollar terms, our hedge portfolio composition was about 40% treasury based hedges and 60% swap based hedges at quarter end.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Despite the recent financial market volatility, our outlook for Agency MBS remains positive. On the demand side of the equation, we continue to believe that regulatory relief will eventually lead to greater demand for Agency MBS from banks. We also believe more favorable bank capital requirements are forthcoming, which could benefit the treasury and swap markets. Another noteworthy development in the first quarter relates to the future of the GSEs. The rapid recapitalize and release narrative that garnered significant attention at the end of last year and that was a source of uncertainty for investors seems to have quieted somewhat.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Importantly, many key decision makers have expressed the desire for lower mortgage rates, improved housing affordability, and for the preservation of the many positive attributes that characterize today's housing finance system. There also appears to be a greater appreciation for the very complex and interconnected nature of our $14,000,000,000,000 housing finance system. The cornerstone of which is the GSE conventional mortgage market. This most recent episode of financial market volatility is a good reminder that uncertainty related to the housing finance system can quickly lead to meaningfully higher mortgage rates. In our opinion, the best way to improve housing affordability is to clarify and importantly, make permanent the role of the government in the housing finance system as it exists today.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

If the government were to do so, the demand for agency mortgage backed securities would increase. The capital requirement for these securities could be reduced to be consistent with Ginnie Mae securities. And lastly, mortgage rates and housing affordability would improve. Also noteworthy, taking this action would not preclude the government from choosing a different capital structure for the GSEs at some point in the future. With that, we'll now open the call up to your questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, Go ahead.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Hey, everyone. Good morning. Actually, you give an update on your book value? You gave the April 9 number with the prerelease, but, you know, how does it look since then?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. Thank you for the question, Bose. Yeah. Bernie did not include that in the prepared remarks, but mortgage spreads did widen a little bit further from our prerelease number. I would have put our book value down at the end of last week somewhere in the range of 7.5% to 8% range.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Oh, okay. Great. And then, I mean, yesterday's spread widening, you know, would that suggest it's a little bit lower since then as well?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. Yesterday was a a difficult day in all the markets. Mortgage spreads widened both relative to swaps and relative to treasuries. The the number I quoted was 220 basis points was sort of back to the the wides we saw. But, you know, it's gonna be volatile.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

This is the kind of conditions we are. I would also point out yesterday that while mortgage spreads did underperform considerably, again, it's there's not a lot of trading volume. I don't I don't believe it's indicative of of any forced selling. I believe it's just indicative of really, really bad investor sentiment. And we also saw again yesterday weakness, if you will, or narrowing of swap spreads, continues to be a challenge.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And that's what's making mortgage performance relative to swap so difficult. It's not so much what's happening with mortgages to an extent, but it's what's happening with the swap market and swap spreads narrowing like they have. There's really been unprecedented kind of moves, which I think are indicative of these currency flows and the balance sheet constraints and just lack of correlations that's going on right now.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Great. That's helpful. And then can you just talk about the comfort level with the dividend, just given where the mark to market book value is, if you can just sort of walk through the ROE math that you guys have done in the past?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yes. Well, let me start with benchmark, if you will, is our total cost of capital. We talk about that all the time. At the end of the first quarter, our total cost of capital and the way we're calculating our total cost of capital is the dividends that we pay both on our common and preferred stock plus all of our operating expenses divided by our total tangible capital, which at the end of the first quarter was about $9,500,000,000 And by that measure, it would say that the breakeven return on our portfolio to sustain all of those costs was 16.7%. Now given the update I just gave you, you could do that calculation and that number, obviously, that total cost of capital now based off last week's book value is probably closer to 18%.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So the question is, what how does that compare to the economic return on our portfolio being a fully mark to market portfolio? Our returns now on a go forward basis reflect current market valuations, both relative mortgages relative to swaps and treasuries. And when you look at it from that perspective, these are really particularly in in in mortgages versus swaps, sort of unprecedented level. So I would say on a go forward return basis, at today's valuation levels, mortgages versus swaps, mortgages versus treasuries, the way our portfolio is constructed, I would say expected returns are somewhere between nineteen and twenty or 22. If you looked at mortgages relative to just swaps today, and I I gave you a blend of mortgages versus this blended swap curve, which I like to use just to give you a full picture of two year, five year and ten year swaps.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

That spread, it closed yesterday, was two twenty basis points. So a portfolio of swaps levered the way we levered them would generate a return of low 20% returns. Those are historically high levels. So but from you know, going back to your question, the point of all that is that, yes, our total cost of capital has increased with this mortgage spread widening decline in our book value, but the go forward returns still align very well with that total cost of capital.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Great. That's helpful. Thanks.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Sure.

[Operator]

Thank you. We have the next question from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just going back to a few weeks ago, can you discuss how you were able to manage the extreme rate volatility where ten year yields went from about 4% on April 4 to four fifty plus over the course of the next few days? Just based on the book value updates, you seem to have managed it pretty well. But can you detail how you were able to just based on positioning going into as well as active management during the volatility?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. Great question. And one of the reasons why I included a line in my prepared remarks that we were able to navigate that without issue, it really goes to having the discipline to go into the environment with a really strong position. And we ended the quarter at 7.5, thereabouts leverage, you know, rounded to 7.5. So it was maybe two tenths of a turn higher than what we had been operating prior to first quarter.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Importantly, as Bernie mentioned, we spend an extraordinary amount of time being as efficient as we can with our capital. So we have a really strong unencumbered cash and liquidity position. At the end of the first quarter, it was $6,000,000,000 But importantly, in percentage of equity terms, it was 63% of our equity. That's an extraordinary amount of excess capacity. And we operate with that sort of efficiency and hold that capital unencumbered to be able to withstand these sorts of periods of volatility without having to, importantly to your question, change our asset composition or delever the portfolio.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So we know exactly what we had going into it. We had plenty of capacity to withstand this sort of spread widening. When we shock our portfolio, we always think about the adverse effect on our portfolio and what it'll do to our unencumbered liquidity position, what it'll do to our leverage. We shock interest rates. We shocks we shock interest rates.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And importantly, we never assume that there's gonna be positive or offsetting correlations when we do those calculations. And that's exactly what we saw this this episode. It's one of the things that made it really challenging for all market participants is we saw a breakdown in correlations. At first, we had a flight to quality rally, which made sense that investors wanted to basically reduce equity positions given weaker growth outlook and favored fixed income. And Agency MBS as an asset class, as I mentioned, really benefited from that initial move in the first quarter.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

But those correlations broke down because we had this sort of this sentiment shift away from all dollar denominated assets. But we were able to navigate that by basically just doing nothing and allowing the market to to sort of go through what it had to go through. And, yes, spreads have widened further, but markets have been orderly, generally speaking, for the last, you know, two weeks. And I I take that as a positive sign. I don't I have not seen, importantly, you know, distressed selling per se.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

I think we saw some position liquidations, importantly, in the swap market, particularly early on that caused a lot of unwinding of swap positions versus treasury position. But subsequent, I think we've just seen the market sort of fall out of favor, but we haven't seen a lot of volume behind this repricing, which maybe is a silver lining. So I'll pause there and let you ask a follow-up.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Thanks, Peter. That's all helpful. And you, in the beginning of that answer, did mention leverage. But can you just share your go forward outlook on leverage and the hedge ratio? You've said that you expect more volatility.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

And in recent years, you've kept leverage pretty well contained. So are you comfortable with the recent levels you've had? Or could you take it down even further just given wider spreads so returns could be protected even if you bring it down a bit, but just leverage in the hedge ratio?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. That's that's that's that's exactly right. I mean, certainly, spreads at this level give us the ability and all other, you know, things equal to be able to generate really attractive returns without taking, you know, excessive levels of of leverage. So that is something, obviously, over time, we'll evaluate. And it's one of the reasons why we went into this episode with lower leverage sort of than our historical norms because we were able to operate with leverage in the low sevens and still generate really attractive returns.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So that certainly could be the case going forward. All that said, I would not expect these spread levels to hold. So if if they do gonna go forward basis, certainly, then then we would evaluate that. But from everything that, you know, we've seen so far, I don't believe that when you look at mortgages versus swaps in particular, that these are sustainable spread levels. I think when you look at take, for example, current coupon mortgage today backed by the by the support of the US government from a credit perspective against the backdrop of a worsening economic outlook and compare that to ten year swap rates and have that spread be about 200 basis points, that's an extraordinary amount of excess return.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

A 65 basis points of excess return of mortgages versus take, for example, ten year treasuries. That's a lot of excess marginal return in a 5% or 6% world. I don't think those spreads are sustainable. But it doesn't mean that we don't stay here for a little while. It doesn't mean that we might not go wider given all of this macroeconomic uncertainty and government policy uncertainty.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

But we'll certainly evaluate that on a go forward basis.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Thank you, Peter. Appreciate you taking my questions.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Doug Harter with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Douglas Harter, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Good morning, Doug. Thanks. Good morning, Peter. In the past, you've talked about, you know, kind of, you know, leverage levels and and kind of being confident in in kind of ranges holding.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah.

[Douglas Harter, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

You know, I know you just mentioned that, you know, spreads at current levels aren't sustainable. How do you think about the risk that could spread levels could kind of gap out further given this uncertainty before they kind of normalize and kind of how you think about managing that that potential scenario.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Well, we certainly have to be prepared for it. That's and, you know, that's that's what we do every day is we we come in and we evaluate those risks and reassess those risks and and plan for those sorts of scenarios. And it is absolutely right. I mean, there there's there's no doubt that spreads can move wider. It again, it's important to sort of look at the difference in mortgage performance.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

I think this is particularly important in this environment, mortgages versus treasuries and mortgages versus swaps. In my prepared remarks, I mentioned, take for example, mortgages versus treasuries, five and ten year treasuries at 165 basis points. That is a level that we've seen on a number of occasions over the last five quarters, not particularly distressed. I I talked about that being the upper end of this this sort of narrow trading range. And now yesterday, we sort of broke through that and got to a 65 basis points.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Just to put that in context, though, in September of twenty twenty three, when interest rates went to 5% and there was a lot of uncertainty about government issuance, that spread was closer to a 90 basis points. That was the old range. So mortgages versus treasuries are wide to the more recent range, but still within the the the the wider band, if you will. Mortgages versus swaps is telling a different story, And the story there is not driven by people concerned about mortgages per se. It's simply this technical that happened in the swap market where swap spreads move so dramatically.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

They take, for example, in the first quarter, at one point, the expectation was that swap spreads were going to widen as the government reduced regulation and particularly related to the supplemental leverage ratio, and a lot of people put trades on betting on that occurrence. At one point in the first quarter, I think ten year swap spreads got to negative 35 or so basis points. Well, we had almost a 30 basis point move wider or narrower, excuse me, more negative. And that really is the driver of the mortgage performance. It's not people particularly concerned about mortgages.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

They're not. There's nothing technically or fundamentally wrong with the agency mortgage market. And eventually, people will look at that value from a fixed income perspective and say, even on an unlevered basis, you can buy a current coupon mortgage close to a 6% return, great credit profile, great return relative to treasuries, great return relative to swaps, I think money will flow to this asset class, particularly out of corporates and into this asset class. So that's one of the reasons that I'm confident that eventually, people will look at this and say these valuation levels are unsustainable. But you're right.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

We have to we have to prepare for more widening and and more distress, and and we do and we are, and we'll just, you know, wait it out. Part of the reason that we're able to navigate this most recent period is having a really diversified portfolio. So, you know, different coupons, different mix of assets, high pay ups, low pay ups, generic pools, TBA. You have to have all that in order to navigate that, and you have to have a really strong cash and unencumbered liquidity position, and we have all that.

[Douglas Harter, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

And I guess just following up on that, Peter, given the move, the volatility and swap spreads, have you or are you considering kind of changing some of the makeup of your hedge portfolio?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. That's a great question. And I put in my prepared remarks, it's about 60% from a duration dollar perspective. So when you think about it from a market value perspective, it's important to think about the mix of your hedges on a duration dollar basis. And, yes, we have a little bit higher weight now to swaps.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

I do think that over time that a, you know, sort of a base case may be that, you know, a fifty fifty mix may be the best mix on a go forward basis as a starting point. And I say that because it's important we are seeing in the marketplace to have great diversification, and that also applies from the asset portfolio as well as the hedge portfolio. Because we see all these sorts of temporary dislocations that have occurred and they, you know, they they happen from time to time and they happen for reasons that nobody anticipated like like the tariffs. The same applies for having great diversification in your hedge portfolio. And I think that's the sort of the base case for us is that we wanna have a mix on a go forward basis that gives us the best diversification.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So the starting point may be having that having hedges across the curve for sure, but also having a mix of both treasury and swap based hedges so that we're able to withstand these periods as best we can. And and that served us well this this time. So I think you're right to some extent that the mix may come down on a go forward basis.

[Douglas Harter, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Great. Appreciate it, Peter. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Trevor Cranston with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Good morning, Trevor.

[Trevor Cranston, Managing Director at JMP Securities LLC]

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Actually, follow-up question on your choice of hedge instruments and swap spreads. You mentioned sort of the unwinding of trades betting on a widening of spreads in the earlier part of this year. Can you maybe just share your thoughts on kinda where we where you think we are in that process and kinda what your, you know, general outlook is for for swap spreads going forward from here? Thanks.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. So I I think from a although yesterday's spread move was substantial, it was about a three basis point narrowing in swap spreads in the ten year part of the curve yesterday, which was a little surprising given that I felt like after the initial period, which is, call it, the April 6 through the the tenth period, I felt like a lot of volume had been unwound on that on that on that trade. I I think what we're seeing in the swap market right now is indicative of a couple things. I think it's indicative of just generally there being some balance sheet constraints at financial intermediaries that we have come to understand. And if if you listen to banks CEOs last week, they all point out that they have balance sheet constraints due to regulatory requirements, and they're asking for relief on that because they feel like they can do more.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So I think that's that's part of what's happening. And I think also it's just indicative of this pessimistic outlook for US dollar denominated assets, period. And it's causing people to to to not wanna hold hard US dollar assets and prefer to hold that asset in derivative form, and that's causing swap spreads to be as narrow as they are. What I would say is that it's also very clear to us, this is well telegraphed, that I do expect a change from a regulatory perspective with respect to the supplemental leverage ratio. The Fed has talked about it.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

The Treasury Secretary has talked about it. I think everybody agrees that they will ultimately get rid of that supplemental leverage ratio, which would benefit the treasury market, and I think that would drive swap spreads wider. The issue with that is that it's taken longer than the market anticipated. And part of the reason why it's taken so long, just from the Fed's own words, is they did not wanna make a a regulatory change of significance without having the head of bank supervision, Michelle Bowman, confirmed and in that position. And she just went through the nomination process a week ago.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Confirmation is expected in a couple weeks. I expect that to be a catalyst at some point going forward for some normalization in the swap market.

[Trevor Cranston, Managing Director at JMP Securities LLC]

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then on the on the capital side of things, obviously, you guys have been, you know, utilizing the ATM program over the last several quarters. Can you just give an update on kinda how you guys are thinking about that, you know, after after the sell off over the last few weeks? Thanks.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Sure. We certainly have used that as opportunistically as possible. First quarter is another good example of that. We're able to raise capital very accretively from a book value perspective. As I mentioned, that went to support the growth of our portfolio.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

It's why we grew $5,000,000,000 And so from an existing shareholder accretion perspective, I think that was a really good example of our existing shareholders benefiting from a book value perspective and then also from a long run from an earnings perspective. I think at all, that same approach still holds today at these valuation levels. Certainly, as I mentioned, good time to deploy capital. So we're going to continue to approach that very opportunistically.

[Trevor Cranston, Managing Director at JMP Securities LLC]

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Matthew Erdner with Jones Trading. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Erdner, Director at Jones Trading]

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. Kind of as a follow-up to the ATM, could you talk about kind of the pace deployment throughout the quarter? And it looks like you guys kind of invested in that 5.5 coupon there. And as a follow-up to that, you know, where do you guys think is the best opportunity in the the coupon stack right now? Thank you.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. If you go back to my comments on the fourth quarter call in January, I mentioned that we had been slow to deploy capital that we raised in the fourth quarter because we were waiting for a better investment opportunity. And that at that time, I felt like the opportunities were emerging and we had begun to deploy that capital sort of around that time of that earnings call, which was January. So that gives you some perspective as to when we deployed that. And you're right, our weighted average coupon on our portfolio did not change hardly at all, maybe one basis point.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

I think it was 5.03 for the quarter, which tells you that the mortgages that we added were all concentrated around that coupon. So in the five and five and a half area. We like that part of the curve. As I mentioned, the pools that we bought had either high quality characteristics or some form of prepayment characteristics that we viewed as favorable. About a billion of that growth came in the form of TBAs.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And on that point, this gets to sort of our view of value going forward. I I I would say that we are seeing improvement in the dollar roll carry implied financing levels, particularly in conventionals today going forward relative to where conventionals were rolling last year, really unattractive in the dollar roll market, better to finance those positions on balance sheet. That has sort of gradually improved over the course of the first quarter. It's one of the reasons why we moved some of our TBA position from Jenny May's to UMBS in the first quarter. And on a go forward basis, if that continues, I would expect us to hold perhaps more TBAs because of the pickup in implied financing levels.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

From a a pool perspective, we continue to like the intermediate part of the of the coupon stack because it gives us, you know, some prepayment protection naturally given mortgage rates now are back close to 7%. They're not there this morning, but they're, you know, 6.8, six point nine percent. So we like that intermediate part of the curve. We still have good carry there. And to the extent that we buy higher coupons and we do still like higher coupons, we would look to buy those with some sort of prepayment protection.

[Matthew Erdner, Director at Jones Trading]

Got it. That's very helpful. I appreciate all the color to that.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Sure.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Jason Stewart with Janney Montgomery. Please go ahead.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Good morning, Jason.

[Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott]

Hey. Good morning, Peter. Thanks for all the color and the comments. A couple of quick follow ups. You've talked a lot about conceptually changing the swap portfolio, the hedge portfolio going forward. Were there any meaningful changes to date post quarter end that we can incorporate for modeling purposes?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

There have not. We have not really had any substantial portfolio changes.

[Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott]

Okay. Thanks. And then just clarifications. Your seven and a half to 8% down on book was since 03/31, not the prerelease date. Right?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott]

Gotcha. Okay. And then you mentioned a greater appreciation

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

by the way.

[Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott]

Yeah. No problem. The you mentioned greater appreciation for complexity of the housing finance system. You know, is that comment tied to, the SLR change that you're expecting, or is there something more specific to housing that you see as a catalyst to kinda get some clarity in the market?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. I I went into those that that sort of explanation of the GSEs because, you know, I really do think that one of the things that is emerging, I think this is an important when you think about the outlook for agency MBS, I think this is you know, we're in an environment where spreads are really historically cheap. It's a great buying opportunity, but there's a lot of uncertainty around that, a lot of volatility, and a lot of unknowns because of the macro backdrop. There's there's no doubt about about that. But on the on the GSE front, I think it is important to recognize that while there was a lot of noise, if you will, for lack of better term, about the future of the GSEs, I think what is clear from some of the comments, particularly take for example, the treasury secretary where he mentioned the importance of lower mortgage rates and the importance of housing, improving housing affordability.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Interestingly, he even mentioned early on after he got confirmed, he even mentioned where mortgage spreads were trading in a particular day, which I thought was indicative of his awareness and the importance of that issue to the administration. So while there may be ongoing debate about the GSEs and the ultimate capital structure, my point was that the the the system, the housing finance system, and the and the key part of it is the conventional mortgage market created by the GSEs, it is functioning extraordinarily well. And I think there's an appreciation that you can't simply just make, you know, a change that on its face looks like it's not a complicated change, but it does have far reaching implications. Take for example, the TBA market. The TBA market is what it is today because it trades without credit risk.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And $300,000,000,000 of TBAs trade in every single day. That's an incredibly liquid market that is the underpinning of all of our housing finance system. It's critical to originations. It's critical to servicing. It's critical to homeowners being able to lock in a mortgage rate thirty or sixty or ninety days forward.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

I think there's a greater appreciation of all of that interconnectedness today. And so while we can debate about what ultimate structure the GSEs may take, I think it's also clear that the GSEs do an incredible amount of good for our housing finance system. And that if we want housing affordability to improve, and I think we certainly do given where mortgage rates are, then we have to approach this issue really thoughtfully, really cautiously. And I think that sentiment was expressed clearly by the treasury secretary. So that's sort of our view is, look, at the end of the day, the PSPAs and the structure today with the GSEs operating with a strong capital position, the preferred stock agreement being outstanding, given additional support to the GSEs, GSEs making a payment to the government.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

All that is working extraordinarily well. So you can still make changes going forward, but you have to preserve that core. I'll pause there.

[Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott]

Got it. No. That makes sense. Thanks, Peter.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Sure.

[Operator]

Next question comes from the line of Eric Hagen with BTIG. Please go ahead.

[Eric Hagen, Managing Director at BTIG]

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Want to take your temperature on the prepayment environment and maybe how you'd characterize the level of convexity risk that you see in the market generally and how you maybe compare the level of convexity risk that we're taking in the portfolio with spreads at these levels versus the nature of the level of prepayment risk in the portfolio the last time spreads were near these levels.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Sure. Thank you, Phil. I'll get to that one second. I just want to go back just to just go back to that last question about making sure people understand our book value update. That book value update obviously was through the end of last week from the thirty first.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

It also includes our dividend accrual, so I just wanna make sure that people understood that. On the prepayment outlook, I'll add a couple of things there, and then we can talk about it in greater detail. Obviously, one thing that has occurred is the Rocket Mr. Cooper merger. So that although the things equal, that's going to make the universe a little bit more negatively convexed given the the speed and their their refinance efficiency.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

But just to put it in context, for example, I think from an origination perspective, they that new entity will represent something like 10 of originations and 15% of servicing volume. And all other all other, you know, things equal, Rocket probably is maybe 10 to 20% faster than than the universe in terms of refinance ability. So there was a little more convexity coming. But overall, where the mortgage market is today, prepayment risk is a risk, and certainly our portfolio has more call risk than extension risk. You could see that in our sensitivity.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

We're still a really long way away from having any significant amount of refinance risk in the system as a whole. For example, with the mortgage rate prevailing mortgage rate being at 6%, and for context, it's six eighty or so this morning. Only 15% of the universe would have a 50 basis point refinance incentive. If the mortgage rate dropped to 5%, so almost 200 basis points lower than today, the amount in the universe that would have a 50 basis point incentive is is 25%. So we have a long way to go.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And if anything right now, given what's happened in the market and the way the yield curve is steepening, it's actually particularly 10 rates, twenty year rates, thirty year rates, it's actually pushing the mortgage rate even higher. So there's a scenario where prepayments become an issue, but it it would take a a really significant rally. From our perspective, and this is one of the reasons why I mentioned this number. In our tables, we typically only have disclosed our high quality pool characteristics, were 42% in the one table in our presentation. But I often I often reference the other characteristics that we have in our portfolio that we that we value from a prepayment perspective, whether they be other geographies or other loan balances or other FICO or characteristics or LTVs.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And that number, as I mentioned, is up around 75, a little more than 75%. So from our perspective, particularly in our higher coupon holdings, and this is really important, whether our six percent holdings or our 6.5% holdings, those positions in pool form have something in the neighborhood of around 95% of those positions have some sort of embedded prepayment protection that we value. It's not to say that they're never going to prepay, but there are characteristics that we really value. So the way we're managing that prepayment risk in this environment is really looking at those underlying characteristics in a much greater detail than just, for example, a high quality loan balance perspective and making sure that we have significant protection on our entire portfolio. So I'll pause there and let you ask a question.

[Eric Hagen, Managing Director at BTIG]

That's great stuff. I appreciate the detail. I want to ask maybe a more general question related to the mortgage market the sensitivity that you guys see to margin calls with respect to levered investors like mortgage REITs potentially being forced to sell assets or raise liquidity in certain shock scenarios and whether you think that could reverberate or contribute to wider mortgage spreads and how meaningful you guys think that risk is in the market right now.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Well, I don't think any of that had anything to do with the existing repricing in the mortgage market. Absolutely do not. I did not see any of that. Haven't heard about anything like that. What we did see, and this is often the case, and this is this is this is sort of the world that we live in.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

We know that the the predominant flow in the in the in the mortgage market in particularly is passive money. Right? And that's both good and bad in that when fixed income flows are increased or, you know, picking up, we're seeing demand from money managers to buy mortgages. And conversely, when all the markets all when I talk about all the markets, when I talk about the bond market and the equity markets, everybody moved to cash or wanting to take risk off the table. What we saw early in April is bond fund redemptions.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

And so the predominant flow that we observed that did have an impact on mortgage valuations was money flowing out of bond funds, where they're just simply raising liquidity for anticipated redemptions or actual redemptions. That quieted down from what we've observed. The market, for example, last week came under a little bit of pressure on Thursday because we had a long holiday weekend, and we had a relatively high origination volume day ahead of the long weekend. So little things like that have pushed the market. That's not unusual.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

But overall, I have not seen anything about forced deleveraging, particularly when you look at the REIT community. And, you know, you can look at all of the disclosures. All the REITs are in really strong position. And you look at their liquidity positions, you look at their leverage positions, you look at their portfolio. So I don't anticipate that being an issue.

[Eric Hagen, Managing Director at BTIG]

Got you. Thank you. We appreciate you guys.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Richard Shane, Analyst at JP Morgan]

Hey, Peter. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Actually, Jason asked the question I wanted to ask, and he asked it far more articulately than I would have. So thank you.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

All right. Thank you. We have one more question. Yes.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Harsh Shemnani from Green Street. Please go ahead. Good morning, Harsh.

[Harsh Hemnani, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Hey. Good morning. So, you know, you sort of touched on swap spreads to mortgages widening a lot more than spreads to treasuries. And maybe on the flip side of that, if I heard you correctly, I think you mentioned that the swap based hedges might come down or or that's what you're planning to do. Can you talk through that decision on how you're weighing on the one hand sort of playing offense because these spreads look Yeah.

[Harsh Hemnani, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Unsustainably high versus, on the other hand, being more diversified and and more defensive. So could you walk through your thoughts on the decision making there?

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Yeah. No. You you're you're right. I went so I mentioned both those factors. And I also mentioned that we have not made any change to our swap portfolio.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

So important from that perspective. So that would be something when I answered that question, I was more referring to over the long run, that may be something that we factor into our overall risk management strategy is sort of from a base case that desire to have a more balanced position between swaps and treasuries. But we'll have to wait and ultimately have the market settled, volatility to come down and and and make that determination. But in the short run, you're a % correct that there is much better carry on mortgages versus swaps, and we'll try to take advantage of that.

[Harsh Hemnani, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Right. That's helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Sure. Thank you. We have now completed the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Peter Federico for concluding remarks.

[Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer at AGNC Investment]

Well, again, thank you, everyone, for participating on the call. Thank you for the questions. Although the market is volatile, as I mentioned, our long run view continues to be very positive for Agency MBS as an asset class, and we look forward to talking to you again at the end of the second quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you. Thank you for joining the call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Katherine Turlington, Investor Relations
• Peter Federico, Director, President, CEO & Chief Investment Officer
• Bernice Bell, Executive VP & CFO

Analysts

• Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)
• Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies
• Douglas Harter, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group
• Trevor Cranston, Managing Director at JMP Securities LLC
• Matthew Erdner, Director at Jones Trading
• Jason Stewart, Director - Mortgage Finance at Janney Montgomery Scott
• Eric Hagen, Managing Director at BTIG
• Richard Shane, Analyst at JP Morgan
• Harsh Hemnani, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC