NYSE:CIM Chimera Investment Q2 2026 Earnings Report $11.58 -0.18 (-1.53%) Closing price 08/20/2026 03:58 PM EasternExtended Trading$11.60 +0.03 (+0.22%) As of 04:00 AM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Massive. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Chimera Investment EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.46Consensus EPS $0.54Beat/MissMissed by -$0.08One Year Ago EPSN/AChimera Investment Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$94.77 millionExpected Revenue$95.30 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$532.00 thousandYoY Revenue GrowthN/AChimera Investment Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2026Date8/5/2026TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateWednesday, August 5, 2026Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsChimera Investment's Q3 2026 earnings is estimated for Thursday, November 5, 2026, based on past reporting schedules, with a conference call scheduled at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Chimera Investment Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 5, 2026ShareShareShare This ReportLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: Earnings available for distribution were $0.46 per share, covering the $0.45 quarterly dividend. Management reiterated its expectation of at least $1.80 in 2026 EAD, despite ongoing market uncertainty. Negative Sentiment: Book value per share declined 3.2% to $17.75 during the quarter, reflecting higher interest rates and weaker marks on Chimera’s securitized loan portfolio; management said book value was down approximately 1.5% quarter-to-date. Neutral Sentiment: HomeXpress delivered record $1.1 billion loan production, up 30% year over year and 24% sequentially, but earnings growth was modest as competition compressed margins. The company plans to improve profitability through greater scale, operating efficiencies, and disciplined underwriting. Positive Sentiment: Chimera is pivoting toward acquiring and securitizing HomeXpress and third-party mortgage loans, targeting two HomeXpress transactions and one third-party transaction by year-end. Management expects to decide opportunistically whether to retain credit risk for recurring income or distribute transactions and recognize gain-on-sale revenue. Positive Sentiment: The investment portfolio was repositioned toward more liquid, higher-yielding assets, with agency MBS increasing to 26% of invested capital and approximately $656 million of cash and unencumbered assets maintained. Credit performance also improved in re-performing and investor DSCR portfolios, while residential credit financing remained conservatively structured. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallChimera Investment Q2 202600:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings, welcome to the Chimera Investment Corporation second quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tyra Welton, Head of IR. Thank you. You may begin. Tyra WeltonHead of Investor Relations at Chimera Investment00:00:29Thank you, operator, thank you everyone for joining us this morning. I'm Tyra Welton, Head of Investor Relations. This morning, Chimera released its results for the second quarter of 2026. The earnings release and presentation for the quarter are both available on our website at chimerareit.com. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor statement. Today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These events are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, 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 forward-looking statement disclaimers in our earnings release and our quarterly and annual filings. During the call, we may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Tyra WeltonHead of Investor Relations at Chimera Investment00:01:25Please refer to our SEC filings and earnings supplements for reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures. Additionally, the contents of this conference call may contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this earnings call. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise this information. I will now turn the conference over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Phil Kardis. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:01:52Thanks, Tyra. Good morning, welcome to Chimera Investment Corporation's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me on the call are Subra Viswanathan, our Chief Financial Officer, Jack Macdowell, our Chief Investment Officer, and Kyle Walker, the President and CEO of HomeXpress Mortgage. After my remarks, Subra will review the financial results, Jack will review the investment portfolio, Kyle will review HomeXpress's results. It's nearly 3,000 years old, but with a fresh translation by Emily Wilson and a blockbuster movie by Christopher Nolan, a new generation is discovering The Odyssey, and it has much to say about that is relevant to us. During Odysseus's 10-year journey home, we learn that most threats are unpredictable and that risk management matters more than heroics. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:02:41He doesn't know he'll face challenges like the Cyclops and the Sirens, just as we didn't know at the beginning of the year that we would see open conflict in the Gulf or that the rate cuts everyone had penciled in would give way to talks of hikes before year-end. We also learned that Odysseus reaches home by planning for the downside, for example, by plugging his crew's ears and lashing himself to the mast to resist the Sirens rather than to rely on willpower. Likewise, as I noted in the first quarter, we don't try to predict where the market will be. We focus on being prepared for wherever it goes, and we do that by building resiliency through diversified income streams and liquidity. Most importantly, The Odyssey teaches us that we must have a fixed destination but not a fixed route. Odysseus' objective never changes: return home. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:03:31His route, however, is not direct. He must be flexible, creative, know when to wait and when to preserve resources, and when to take calculated risks to make it home. We've been clear about our destination, to build a company that is not dependent on any single market environment and that benefits shareholders through tax-advantaged dividend and enterprise growth. While we have model portfolio-targeted growth plans, like Odysseus, we're not locked into a particular path. We remain flexible and open to change as market conditions change. The second quarter remained much like the first. Volatility and uncertainty persisted. We went about our business much as we did in the first quarter. With respect to the investment portfolio, we continued to reduce our lower-yielding assets and sponsor two re-securitizations, redeploying the proceeds into more liquid and higher-yielding assets. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:04:25Turning to HomeXpress, in the second quarter, loan production grew by 30% compared to the second quarter of 2025 and 24% compared to the prior quarter. Earnings, however, grew only modestly quarter-over-quarter. This result, increased production with essentially flat earnings, was driven primarily by margin compression from increased competition. We'll look to increase HomeXpress's earnings by further scaling production while maintaining our strong credit discipline and by reducing our cost to originate. Increasing our allocation to agency RMBS and third-party sales of HomeXpress loans are not the only ways to grow Chimera's earnings, especially given the current securitization market economics and compressed sale margins. Therefore, we are pivoting to acquire and securitize mortgage loans from both HomeXpress and third parties. Currently, we're targeting two securitization of HomeXpress loans and one of third-party loans by year-end. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:05:24Depending on the relative value between loan sales and securitizations, we may increase the size or frequency of those securitizations. How are we doing? Last quarter, we noted that as we looked out over 2026, we believed we'd be able to generate $1.80 of EAD. We also noted that we expected some volatility in EAD period-to-period, given our operations and the market. We further pointed out that our fourth quarter and first quarter EAD contained several one-time items and that we believed our underlying run rate was closer to $0.47 ±. EAD for the second quarter was $0.46, right on our projected underlying run rate, and once again exceeding our dividend. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:06:08We have $1 of EAD through the first half of the year and still believe EAD for the year will be at least $1.80. In short, we continue to perform as we expected, even though the market environment is significantly different than anticipated at the beginning of the year. What's our outlook for the remainder of the year, and how are we positioned? Like we noted in the first quarter, we expect continued uncertainty, political, geopolitical, and market-driven. Despite the uncertainty, we remain optimistic about the future. We will continue to grow and diversify the portfolio, expand originations, build fee-based income, and opportunistically pursue acquisitions. Staying flexible on the route and clear on our destination. With that, I'll turn it over to Subra to walk you through the financials. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:06:54Thanks, Phil. GAAP net loss for the second quarter was approximately $4 million. Net loss of $13 million from our investment portfolio segment was offset by net income of $9 million from residential origination. We generated approximately $39 million of earnings available for distribution or $0.46 per share. Our EAD was not materially impacted by one-time charges this quarter. As a reminder, our EAD per share of $0.54 in the first quarter included $0.07 of one-time benefits. These non-recurring favorable items resulted from the securitization unwind undertaken as part of our portfolio optimization efforts as well as MSR-related investments. Excluding the impact of those items, EAD in the first quarter would have been $0.47. The quarterly dividend of $0.45 was covered by second quarter earnings. Book value per share declined 3.2% to $17.75. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:07:58Economic return on GAAP book value was -0.8% based on the quarterly change in book value and second-quarter dividend of $0.45 per common share. Annualized EAD return on average common equity was 10.35%. Segment performance for the first quarter was as follows. For the investment portfolio, economic net interest income was $66.3 million, while annualized economic net interest income return on average equity was 12.35%. The yield on average interest-earning assets was 5.9%, our average cost of funds was 4.3%, and the resulting net interest spread was 1.6%. For the residential origination segment, HomeXpress funded $1.1 billion in loans. EBITDA, defined as earnings before taxes, depreciation, and amortization, was $11.8 million, and annualized EBITDA ROE was 17.3%. With respect to leverage and liquidity, our total leverage was 5.6 to 1, while recourse leverage was 3.3-1. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:09:06GAAP leverage increased due to re-securitization activity and increasing allocation to agency RMBS. Growing agency allocation also drove the increase in recourse leverage. We ended the quarter with $656 million in total cash and unencumbered assets, compared to $675 million the last quarter. Total consolidated secured financing outstanding was $7.7 billion. It was comprised of $727 million related to our residential origination warehouse loans, and the remaining approximately $7 billion was for our investment portfolio. Within the investment portfolio, $5.1 billion of secured financing supported the agency positions against which we maintained $4.9 billion in swaps, interest rate caps, and other hedges with varying maturities. $1.9 billion was secured by residential credit assets, of which $1.2 billion or 61% carried non or limited mark-to-market features, and $1.1 billion or 55% of this were floating rate facilities. Finally, on expenses, compensation, G&A, and servicing expenses were lower in the quarter. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:10:17The decrease were offset by higher transaction expenses related to our securitization activity during the second quarter. In summary, though the first quarter results included certain non-recurring benefits, our second quarter results provide a normalized EAD. Taken together, the first half demonstrates continued dividend support, and as we move into the second half, we remain focused on supporting dividend coverage over the full year and driving total shareholder returns over the long term. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jack. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:10:52Thanks, Subra, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter was defined by a sharp repricing of the expected path of monetary policy as persistent inflation and resilient economic activity shifted markets from anticipating rate cuts toward a higher for longer outlook. Volatility increased materially in mid-May, pushing Treasury yields higher and temporarily widening agency MBS and residential credit spreads. Market conditions subsequently improved and spreads across both agency MBS and structured residential credit, including new issue non-QM and RPL securities ended the quarter tighter, supported by strong investor demand. By quarter end, Treasury yields were considerably higher, particularly at the front end, reducing the pronounced bear flattening of the curve. While tighter spreads offset part of the increase in benchmark rates, all in mortgage bond yields still finished the quarter at elevated levels. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:11:49With respect to our investment portfolio activities, we closed out $966 million short TBA positions and further streamlined our agency portfolio by selling some of the non-core legacy CMBS interest only in HECM positions, in addition to trimming our CMO exposure. In total, these sales represented $575 million of notional and generated $19 million in capital for redeployment. Within the agency portfolio, we purchased and settled $967 million of pass-throughs with a focus on coupons in the 5.5-6.5 range, leaving our specified pool portfolio with more than 75% allocated to 5% coupons and above, and increasing our TBA adjusted average coupon by 14 basis points to 5.28%. As Phil mentioned, we completed two re-securitizations backed by $487 million of loans. Of that collateral, $282 million consisted of loans retained from our first quarter loan sale activity, while $205 million came from a securitization we called during the quarter. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:13:01Reallocating the loans sourced from the called securitization across the two new transactions enabled us to increase the advance rate and lower the original issue cost of funds related to the bonds. These deals improved overall financing efficiency and also released approximately $13 million of capital for reinvestment. Palisades Advisory Services was named asset manager on both deals. We continued to shift our capital allocation mix during the quarter, increasing agency MBS by five percentage points to 26% of our invested capital. Conversely, we reduced our allocation to legacy residential credit by 4 percentage points to 61%, while capital invested in MSRs and HomeXpress were roughly flat. We maintained a strong liquidity position with $656 million in cash and unencumbered assets. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:13:54We also continued to manage our residential credit repo financing conservatively with 61%, or $1.2 billion, comprised of limited or non-mark-to-market facility, whose average months to maturity at quarter end was eight months. During the quarter, we adjusted our hedging strategy by replacing a portion of our payer swaps within the money interest rate caps within our agency portfolio and added similar caps to hedge the liabilities in our residential credit sleeve. The caps provide similar protection to swaps in a higher rate environment while also improving the convexity of our portfolio in a sustained rally. Credit performance continued to track our expectations across product sectors in the second quarter. Delinquencies in the legacy re-performing book ended the quarter at 8.8%, down from 9.1% in Q1. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:14:49We saw similar improvements in our investor DSCR loan portfolio, where delinquencies declined from 6.1%-4.7%, driven in large part by early-stage delinquent loans becoming current. We continue to wind down the legacy RTL portfolio, which had 16 loans resolved during the quarter, including 13 payoffs and three workouts. The jumbo loan delinquencies remain stable, while prepays across the portfolio had a moderately to upward-sloping trend typical for the spring season. We made significant progress repositioning the investment portfolio. After multiple refinancings and divestitures over the last 18 months, culminating in the sale of $1.2 billion of loans in the first quarter, we've generated and redeployed nearly $700 million of capital from these portfolio management activities. Through 2025 and into the second quarter of 2026, we redeployed the majority of that capital into liquid agency MBS. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:15:52As noted, we view agencies as an important component to our portfolio construction strategy, providing both a relative value allocation and a liquidity bucket we can draw on to fund other accretive opportunities. That work has laid the foundation for us to build on our expertise in residential whole loan credit. Between our HomeXpress origination platform, Palisades technology and data infrastructure, our loan acquisition partnerships, and a track record spanning whole loan due diligence, credit underwriting, servicer oversight, asset management, and securitization, we have a fully integrated residential credit platform, which we intend to grow. We believe the timing is favorable. Non-QM continues to show secular growth, evident in strong year-over-year increases in origination volume despite elevated rates and subdued housing activity. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:16:48The rise in self-employment and non-traditional income profiles is expanding the pool of borrowers that fall outside conventional government programs, while non-QM has become a key financing source for investors with rental properties. We expect this form of financing to account for a growing share of the overall origination market. We intend to be a consistent value-add partner to our lender and seller network. We're already executing on this. We've identified and retained $301 million of loans to seed our first HomeXpress securitization that remains on track for the third quarter. Since quarter end, we have retained additional loans for a second HomeXpress securitization and committed to purchase loans from third-party sellers for a separate non-QM transaction we intend to bring to market in the second half of the year. The first half was about continuing to reposition the portfolio. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:17:44Despite a volatile backdrop, we exited lower-yielding legacy positions and redeployed capital into opportunities more closely aligned with our long-term strategic objectives in offering better prospective returns, all while maintaining our strong liquidity position. Those actions leave us with a stronger portfolio and the flexibility to lean into our core focus areas, led by residential credit, as opportunities emerge through the balance of the year. With that, I will turn it over to Kyle to discuss residential origination. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:18:15Thank you, Jack. Good morning, everyone. HomeXpress delivered another strong quarter with record loan origination volume of $1.1 billion and $11.8 million in EBITDA. Our loan growth is up 30% from the prior year second quarter and 24% over the first quarter of 2026. Growth in the second quarter was driven by broad-based demand across our core products, as well as increased production through our non-delegated correspondent channel, which now comprises 13% of our production. As Jack noted, while there was market volatility in the second quarter, HomeXpress loan production is less dependent on interest rate levels. In fact, in June, our loan volume increased to reach a monthly record for HomeXpress of $420 million, which is an impressive accomplishment considering the competitiveness of our market. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:19:09Looking ahead at the third quarter, while monthly production may fluctuate due to market and other macro environment volatility, we expect the underlying loan demands remain healthy. We are focused on executing with discipline. As to profitability, HomeXpress EBITDA climbed $11.8 million in the second quarter, driven primarily by the higher loan volume and cost-effectiveness. At the same time, net origination margin in the second quarter expanded to 124 basis points, up 10 basis points from the first quarter of 2026. The net origination margin for the second quarter of 2026 is slightly lower than the level of the second quarter of 2025 due to the increased market competition and tighter pricing. As such, we are focused on controlling the controllables by maintaining credit discipline, optimizing and enhancing our loan products, and keeping a sharp focus on process efficiency as the HomeXpress platform grows. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:20:12In addition, while our loans already perform exceptionally well in the secondary market and are highly valued by investors, we continually seek new investor relationships to further enhance competition, broaden demand, and maximize loan pricing execution. First, on credit, our underwriting standards have not changed. Even with a robust production volume growth, key metrics on our new loan originations, including weighted average FICO and LTV ratios for the quarter, remained in line with historic levels. That combination of higher volume with the same underwriting standards is what we're focused on preserving as we grow the business. Second, we are not trying to win every loan. Instead, we're protecting economics where returns do not justify the risk and choosing to compete in products and channels where the borrower's credit profile, the broker relationship, and our execution capabilities can support attractive returns. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:21:10Third, we remain focused on driving higher efficiency as the platform scales. We recently equipped our brokers with the ability to order appraisals directly through our portal. We also now use SmartFees to automatically populate the data they require to prepare loan disclosures. These technology tools serve to shorten loan processing times and help us support higher volumes more efficiently while improving accuracy. As I mentioned last quarter, we are expanding the share of consumer loans in our production mix. These loans, while typically have higher balances, enable us to generate more funded volume without a proportional increase in loan count and related fixed operating costs. Our average loan size grew to more than $455,000 during the quarter, compared with $410,000 in the first quarter. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:22:03We are actively engaged with our warehouse lenders to continue to improve the financing economics of our business, and we expect our efforts will enable us to increase our float spread. Importantly, we have ample funding to support our expected growth. Our warehouse capacity, which we expanded to $1.5 billion last quarter, has now been increased to $1.65 billion in July, and we are evaluating additional capacity. Our warehouse facilities are distributed across seven facilities with large financial institutions. We're also growing our broker network. We now have more than 6,350 brokers serviced by 145 account executives and related sales staff. Our strong national network remains our driving force, providing us with broad access across our various consumer, non-QM, and investor lending products. Stepping back, the first half of 2026 reflected our ability to execute. It also demonstrates the strength and value of our platform. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:23:08HomeXpress is firmly on track to exceed the $4 billion loan origination volume target for the year, barring market events. It is also contributing meaningful EBITDA while providing Chimera with direct access to quality residential mortgage collateral. As we look towards the second half of 2026 and beyond, our focus is clear. Continue scaling the business in a disciplined and efficient manner with high credit quality, which is the foundation for driving earnings growth over time. With that, I'll turn the call over to Phil. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:23:43Thanks, Kyle. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator00:23:47Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question will come from Bose George with KBW. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:24:20Hey, everyone. Good morning. First, just on book value, can you just talk about the drivers of the change in book value during the second quarter? Where does mark-to-market book value stand quarter to date? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:24:34Yeah, sure. This is Jack. Just on the second quarter book value move, one thing to keep in mind, the vast majority even still today of our GAAP portfolio is comprised of securitized loans. We have about $8 billion of loans on balance sheet against $5.5 billion of securitized debt. Those are in fixed rate, non-marked-to-market term securitizations. We're not hedging the book value there, that's the vast majority of the move in our book value. We had a pretty substantive sell-off in rates during the quarter that drove the value of the loans down, also the sec debt of the loans moved more than the sec debt during this quarter. The one thing to also point out there too is as we've continued to sort of reposition, diversify the portfolio, we now have a quarter of the portfolio in agencies. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:25:29We've got about 10%, 11% of the capital allocated to HomeXpress, both of those things contributed positively to book value. It's just a function of our consolidated GAAP securitizations that's driving that book value change. Just to reiterate, I think we've talked about this in the past. The one reason that we're not looking to hedge that is as the gyrations in interest rates change values on both the asset and liability side there, it really doesn't have any impact on our earnings power or dividend-paying ability. On the residential credit side of the book, what we're hedging is our floating rate liabilities with respect to our repo to ensure that our earnings power remains intact. We take that the book value volatility on that part of the book is going to fluctuate with interest rates. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:26:21Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Just the mark-to-market book value part. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:26:27Yeah. Quarter-to-date, there's been a bit of a sell-off in rates, so we're down about 1.5% quarter-to-date. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:26:34Okay, great. Just actually a follow-up on the book value, just on the securitized portion. Since that doesn't impact your earnings out of that, essentially, your ROE on your remaining capital in debt, does that just go up when those marks happen? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:26:53Yeah. Our GAAP book value will change, certainly. Yeah, I guess from a GAAP ROE standpoint, as the loan value declines, then yeah, our earnings power remains intact, and so our ROE would increase. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:27:07Okay, great. That makes sense. Just on HomeXpress, just based on your guidance, it sounds like the higher rate outlook is not having at least a meaningfully negative impact. Can you just talk about what rates are doing to HomeXpress in the back half of the year? Just talk about the margins in the non-delegated correspondent versus the traditional wholesale. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:27:34We're seeing continued increase in volume on a month-over-month basis. We think the third quarter is going to be an increase over the second quarter. There has been some margin compression. We're very focused on maintaining our underwriting standards, pricing deliberately, and looking for operational efficiencies to try to drive down our cost to origin. As far as the non-delegated correspondent, it is slightly less margin business than our wholesale business. I would say maybe 10-15 basis points less in margin. It appears to be much more efficient in how we can process the loans. I think our cost to originate on that business is slightly less. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:28:24Okay, great. Thank you. Operator00:28:29Our next question will come from Trevor Cranston with JMP Securities. Trevor CranstonAnalyst at JMP Securities00:28:35Hi. Thanks. Good morning. Can you talk a little bit about your outlook for the agency basis after the spread tightening that we saw during the second quarter, and sort of how you compare incremental returns on investing in agency MBS versus new credit opportunities today? Thanks. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:28:56Yeah. That's a good question. On the agency front, we've built up over $600 million of capital allocated to agencies. Spreads have been moving around, but we're still generating something in the low to mid-teens area with respect to the capital allocated there. There's still good demand coming in first half of the year. We obviously had the first quarter demand coming from the GSE. There's technical support with respect to spreads in the agency space. We look at agencies as both a relative value bucket where we can generate returns, but also a source of liquidity that we can draw on for other opportunities. Right now, the bar to draw on that capital is relatively high just given where yields are in the agency space. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:29:51With that being said, we do feel like we are at a bit of an inflection point with respect to the work that we've been putting in over the last year and a half in repositioning the portfolio. I think what you heard from Phil's remarks as well as in my remarks is that the opportunity set for us as we see it on a go-forward basis is really to start leaning into one of our core competencies, which is what the vast majority of our infrastructure is built around, which is residential credit. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:30:22That includes retaining more loans from HomeXpress, buying loans from third parties, securitizing those loans, and really creating optionality with respect to whether or not we want to retain the credit portion of the capital stack for our investment portfolio, where we would be targeting something in the mid-teens area, or we want to distribute the entire structure and turn over that capital and generate gain on sale or capital markets revenue. Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Operator00:31:01Moving next to Marissa Lobo with UBS. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:31:07Good morning, and thank you. For the inaugural HomeXpress securitization, will Chimera retain the residual equity piece? If so, how should we expect that to be reflected in EAD going forward? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:31:23Yeah. Like I was saying, whenever we're looking to do a securitization, whether it's HomeXpress or third-party loans, what our intent is to structure those deals up to the time of distribution, evaluate a variety of factors. One, our capital needs, our portfolio construction objectives, relative value in the market. Based on those factors, we make a determination as to whether or not we would retain the credit portion of the capital stack, which would essentially be investing for long-term earnings over the next several years, or distributing the entire structure and booking the gain on sale, which would go through EAD and earnings, then turning over that capital and rinse and repeating it. Right now, we're still working through those dynamics. We're looking to get that first deal done probably in the latter part of the third quarter. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:32:23As we approach the date of that deal, we'll start honing in on the decision to what we're going to retain. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:32:32Okay. Thank you for that. Could you just update us on third-party advisory? How much AUM are you managing, and how should we think about that revenue stream contributing to EAD going forward? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:32:47Yeah. I guess the way I would think about Palisades Advisory Services is they serve multiple functions. One, they serve third-party clients with respect to helping them with all their residential whole loan servicer oversight and data needs, and that generates revenue from third parties on a fee basis. They're also very instrumental in overseeing the Chimera portfolio and our focus on buying loans from third parties, securitizing them. It's really a function of external versus internal resource allocation. I will say, just on the third-party business, there is competition in that space, and we've also seen somewhat of a reduction in transaction activity from some of our clients. We're seeing a little bit of dilution with respect to third-party fee revenue, but we're actively redeploying those resources to help focus on some of our whole loan needs at the REIT level. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:33:52Also with the HomeXpress securitization and the third-party conduit securitizations, we'll expect to see some fees come. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:34:00Got it. Okay. Appreciate the answers. Operator00:34:07Our next question will come from Doug Harter with BTIG. Doug HarterAnalyst at BTIG00:34:13All right, thanks, and good morning. Can you talk about where you are in terms of redeploying the capital from the call deals in the first quarter and where we are in terms of seeing that earnings? Thank you. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:34:30Yeah. Hey, Doug. When we raised that $195 million from the calls and the sale in late first quarter, we actually had about close to a billion-dollar TBA short just from a risk management perspective that we held into April. We actually closed out of that position. There was some degradation with respect to the negative carry of that short position in April. After that, we were primarily fully deployed, we're realizing the benefits of that $195 million redeployment today and for the better part of the second quarter. The one thing just to highlight and point out, though, this kind of goes back to our consolidated securitizations. We've got $8 billion of loans, $5.5 billion of securitized debt. The way that those deals are structured is that when principal comes in, it de-levers the structures. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:35:31Over time, that's going to dilute our earnings power up until we call the deal, pull the capital out, and then redeploy it once again. Part of the earnings accretion, if you will, from the first quarter activities, we're definitely seeing that, but it's being offset by some of the de-leveraging in other parts of the portfolio. Still, there's a net benefit to it. We're seeing that today and in the back half of Q2. Doug HarterAnalyst at BTIG00:35:59All right. I guess where I'm just struggling is one of the logics of kind of the book value decline that you took from calling those deals was to see earnings accretion from that. X, the one-time items, the earnings seem relatively flat. I understand your point there about replacing some of the degradation, but just was wondering if kind of where we were in seeing that accretion, but appreciate the answer. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:36:32Sure. Operator00:36:38This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Phil Kardis for closing comments. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:36:45Thank you. To our shareholders, thank you for your continued support. Over the past couple of years, we've made a lot of progress towards our destination, and we look forward to updating you again next quarter. Operator00:37:00Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesTyra WeltonHead of Investor RelationsPhil KardisPresident and CEOSubra ViswanathanCFOJack MacdowellCIOAnalystsKyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress MortgageBose GeorgeAnalyst at KBWTrevor CranstonAnalyst at JMP SecuritiesMarissa LoboAnalyst at UBSDoug HarterAnalyst at BTIGPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Chimera Investment Earnings Headlines9% Dividend Yield Looks Great Until You See 10% From ChimeraAugust 18 at 12:00 PM | seekingalpha.comChimera Investment: 15% Yield May Not Be A Red FlagAugust 10, 2026 | seekingalpha.comIran War Shock: What I Was Told In That Private MeetingYou’re Being LIED To About The Iran War Forget EVERYTHING you’ve heard about the Iran war. Especially the reasons why we’re bombing the country. | Banyan Hill Publishing (Ad)Chimera Investment's Q2 earnings trail consensus as provisions jump, shares downAugust 6, 2026 | seekingalpha.comChimera Investment Corporation 2026 Q2 - Results - Earnings Call PresentationAugust 5, 2026 | seekingalpha.comChimera Investment Declares Q3 Dividends on Preferred SharesAugust 5, 2026 | tipranks.comSee More Chimera Investment Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Chimera Investment? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Chimera Investment and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Chimera InvestmentChimera Investment (NYSE:CIM) (NYSE: CIM) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that specializes in investing in residential mortgage assets. The company’s portfolio primarily consists of agency and non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, whole loan residential mortgages and other mortgage-related assets. As a REIT, Chimera Investment aims to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns through its focus on high-quality collateral and disciplined risk management. The firm’s core business activities include identifying and acquiring portfolios of residential mortgage loans and securities from financial institutions and in the secondary market. Chimera Investment employs financing structures such as repurchase agreements to fund its asset purchases, while its investment strategy spans the capital structure—ranging from senior agency tranches to higher-yielding non-agency securities. Through active portfolio management, the company seeks to balance yield enhancement with credit mitigation and duration control. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York, Chimera Investment is externally managed by a team of mortgage finance professionals responsible for sourcing investments, executing financing strategies and maintaining rigorous risk‐control frameworks. Over its history, the company has navigated a variety of market cycles, leveraging dislocations in the U.S. mortgage market to build a diversified book of agency-backed and credit-sensitive mortgage assets. Chimera Investment serves a nationwide footprint, investing across multiple regions of the United States. Its operational platform combines in-house analytics with established servicing relationships to monitor asset performance, respond to market developments and pursue opportunities in residential real estate finance. The company’s governance includes a board and executive leadership with deep expertise in structured finance, portfolio management and regulatory compliance.View Chimera Investment ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Walmart's Post-Earnings Drop Could Be a Buying Opportunity3 Energy Stocks Raising Dividends as the Sector Surges5 Reasons the S&P 500 Could Keep Rallying Through Year-EndSociedad Química y Minera’s Lithium Boom Is Back, But Iodine Steals the ShowNasdaq’s 23-Hour Trading Push Could Turn Global Liquidity Into a Growth EngineForget Chips: These 3 Stocks Are Building the AI Data Center BoomAnalog Devices’ AI Pivot Could Push Shares to Fresh Highs Upcoming Earnings PDD (8/24/2026)Bank Of Montreal (8/25/2026)Bank of Nova Scotia (8/25/2026)Heico (8/25/2026)Intuit (8/25/2026)Salesforce (8/26/2026)CrowdStrike (8/26/2026)NVIDIA (8/26/2026)Synopsys (8/26/2026)Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (8/27/2026) Unlock superior investment research and tools. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings, welcome to the Chimera Investment Corporation second quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tyra Welton, Head of IR. Thank you. You may begin. Tyra WeltonHead of Investor Relations at Chimera Investment00:00:29Thank you, operator, thank you everyone for joining us this morning. I'm Tyra Welton, Head of Investor Relations. This morning, Chimera released its results for the second quarter of 2026. The earnings release and presentation for the quarter are both available on our website at chimerareit.com. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor statement. Today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These events are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, 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 forward-looking statement disclaimers in our earnings release and our quarterly and annual filings. During the call, we may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Tyra WeltonHead of Investor Relations at Chimera Investment00:01:25Please refer to our SEC filings and earnings supplements for reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures. Additionally, the contents of this conference call may contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this earnings call. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise this information. I will now turn the conference over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Phil Kardis. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:01:52Thanks, Tyra. Good morning, welcome to Chimera Investment Corporation's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me on the call are Subra Viswanathan, our Chief Financial Officer, Jack Macdowell, our Chief Investment Officer, and Kyle Walker, the President and CEO of HomeXpress Mortgage. After my remarks, Subra will review the financial results, Jack will review the investment portfolio, Kyle will review HomeXpress's results. It's nearly 3,000 years old, but with a fresh translation by Emily Wilson and a blockbuster movie by Christopher Nolan, a new generation is discovering The Odyssey, and it has much to say about that is relevant to us. During Odysseus's 10-year journey home, we learn that most threats are unpredictable and that risk management matters more than heroics. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:02:41He doesn't know he'll face challenges like the Cyclops and the Sirens, just as we didn't know at the beginning of the year that we would see open conflict in the Gulf or that the rate cuts everyone had penciled in would give way to talks of hikes before year-end. We also learned that Odysseus reaches home by planning for the downside, for example, by plugging his crew's ears and lashing himself to the mast to resist the Sirens rather than to rely on willpower. Likewise, as I noted in the first quarter, we don't try to predict where the market will be. We focus on being prepared for wherever it goes, and we do that by building resiliency through diversified income streams and liquidity. Most importantly, The Odyssey teaches us that we must have a fixed destination but not a fixed route. Odysseus' objective never changes: return home. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:03:31His route, however, is not direct. He must be flexible, creative, know when to wait and when to preserve resources, and when to take calculated risks to make it home. We've been clear about our destination, to build a company that is not dependent on any single market environment and that benefits shareholders through tax-advantaged dividend and enterprise growth. While we have model portfolio-targeted growth plans, like Odysseus, we're not locked into a particular path. We remain flexible and open to change as market conditions change. The second quarter remained much like the first. Volatility and uncertainty persisted. We went about our business much as we did in the first quarter. With respect to the investment portfolio, we continued to reduce our lower-yielding assets and sponsor two re-securitizations, redeploying the proceeds into more liquid and higher-yielding assets. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:04:25Turning to HomeXpress, in the second quarter, loan production grew by 30% compared to the second quarter of 2025 and 24% compared to the prior quarter. Earnings, however, grew only modestly quarter-over-quarter. This result, increased production with essentially flat earnings, was driven primarily by margin compression from increased competition. We'll look to increase HomeXpress's earnings by further scaling production while maintaining our strong credit discipline and by reducing our cost to originate. Increasing our allocation to agency RMBS and third-party sales of HomeXpress loans are not the only ways to grow Chimera's earnings, especially given the current securitization market economics and compressed sale margins. Therefore, we are pivoting to acquire and securitize mortgage loans from both HomeXpress and third parties. Currently, we're targeting two securitization of HomeXpress loans and one of third-party loans by year-end. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:05:24Depending on the relative value between loan sales and securitizations, we may increase the size or frequency of those securitizations. How are we doing? Last quarter, we noted that as we looked out over 2026, we believed we'd be able to generate $1.80 of EAD. We also noted that we expected some volatility in EAD period-to-period, given our operations and the market. We further pointed out that our fourth quarter and first quarter EAD contained several one-time items and that we believed our underlying run rate was closer to $0.47 ±. EAD for the second quarter was $0.46, right on our projected underlying run rate, and once again exceeding our dividend. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:06:08We have $1 of EAD through the first half of the year and still believe EAD for the year will be at least $1.80. In short, we continue to perform as we expected, even though the market environment is significantly different than anticipated at the beginning of the year. What's our outlook for the remainder of the year, and how are we positioned? Like we noted in the first quarter, we expect continued uncertainty, political, geopolitical, and market-driven. Despite the uncertainty, we remain optimistic about the future. We will continue to grow and diversify the portfolio, expand originations, build fee-based income, and opportunistically pursue acquisitions. Staying flexible on the route and clear on our destination. With that, I'll turn it over to Subra to walk you through the financials. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:06:54Thanks, Phil. GAAP net loss for the second quarter was approximately $4 million. Net loss of $13 million from our investment portfolio segment was offset by net income of $9 million from residential origination. We generated approximately $39 million of earnings available for distribution or $0.46 per share. Our EAD was not materially impacted by one-time charges this quarter. As a reminder, our EAD per share of $0.54 in the first quarter included $0.07 of one-time benefits. These non-recurring favorable items resulted from the securitization unwind undertaken as part of our portfolio optimization efforts as well as MSR-related investments. Excluding the impact of those items, EAD in the first quarter would have been $0.47. The quarterly dividend of $0.45 was covered by second quarter earnings. Book value per share declined 3.2% to $17.75. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:07:58Economic return on GAAP book value was -0.8% based on the quarterly change in book value and second-quarter dividend of $0.45 per common share. Annualized EAD return on average common equity was 10.35%. Segment performance for the first quarter was as follows. For the investment portfolio, economic net interest income was $66.3 million, while annualized economic net interest income return on average equity was 12.35%. The yield on average interest-earning assets was 5.9%, our average cost of funds was 4.3%, and the resulting net interest spread was 1.6%. For the residential origination segment, HomeXpress funded $1.1 billion in loans. EBITDA, defined as earnings before taxes, depreciation, and amortization, was $11.8 million, and annualized EBITDA ROE was 17.3%. With respect to leverage and liquidity, our total leverage was 5.6 to 1, while recourse leverage was 3.3-1. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:09:06GAAP leverage increased due to re-securitization activity and increasing allocation to agency RMBS. Growing agency allocation also drove the increase in recourse leverage. We ended the quarter with $656 million in total cash and unencumbered assets, compared to $675 million the last quarter. Total consolidated secured financing outstanding was $7.7 billion. It was comprised of $727 million related to our residential origination warehouse loans, and the remaining approximately $7 billion was for our investment portfolio. Within the investment portfolio, $5.1 billion of secured financing supported the agency positions against which we maintained $4.9 billion in swaps, interest rate caps, and other hedges with varying maturities. $1.9 billion was secured by residential credit assets, of which $1.2 billion or 61% carried non or limited mark-to-market features, and $1.1 billion or 55% of this were floating rate facilities. Finally, on expenses, compensation, G&A, and servicing expenses were lower in the quarter. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:10:17The decrease were offset by higher transaction expenses related to our securitization activity during the second quarter. In summary, though the first quarter results included certain non-recurring benefits, our second quarter results provide a normalized EAD. Taken together, the first half demonstrates continued dividend support, and as we move into the second half, we remain focused on supporting dividend coverage over the full year and driving total shareholder returns over the long term. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jack. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:10:52Thanks, Subra, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter was defined by a sharp repricing of the expected path of monetary policy as persistent inflation and resilient economic activity shifted markets from anticipating rate cuts toward a higher for longer outlook. Volatility increased materially in mid-May, pushing Treasury yields higher and temporarily widening agency MBS and residential credit spreads. Market conditions subsequently improved and spreads across both agency MBS and structured residential credit, including new issue non-QM and RPL securities ended the quarter tighter, supported by strong investor demand. By quarter end, Treasury yields were considerably higher, particularly at the front end, reducing the pronounced bear flattening of the curve. While tighter spreads offset part of the increase in benchmark rates, all in mortgage bond yields still finished the quarter at elevated levels. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:11:49With respect to our investment portfolio activities, we closed out $966 million short TBA positions and further streamlined our agency portfolio by selling some of the non-core legacy CMBS interest only in HECM positions, in addition to trimming our CMO exposure. In total, these sales represented $575 million of notional and generated $19 million in capital for redeployment. Within the agency portfolio, we purchased and settled $967 million of pass-throughs with a focus on coupons in the 5.5-6.5 range, leaving our specified pool portfolio with more than 75% allocated to 5% coupons and above, and increasing our TBA adjusted average coupon by 14 basis points to 5.28%. As Phil mentioned, we completed two re-securitizations backed by $487 million of loans. Of that collateral, $282 million consisted of loans retained from our first quarter loan sale activity, while $205 million came from a securitization we called during the quarter. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:13:01Reallocating the loans sourced from the called securitization across the two new transactions enabled us to increase the advance rate and lower the original issue cost of funds related to the bonds. These deals improved overall financing efficiency and also released approximately $13 million of capital for reinvestment. Palisades Advisory Services was named asset manager on both deals. We continued to shift our capital allocation mix during the quarter, increasing agency MBS by five percentage points to 26% of our invested capital. Conversely, we reduced our allocation to legacy residential credit by 4 percentage points to 61%, while capital invested in MSRs and HomeXpress were roughly flat. We maintained a strong liquidity position with $656 million in cash and unencumbered assets. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:13:54We also continued to manage our residential credit repo financing conservatively with 61%, or $1.2 billion, comprised of limited or non-mark-to-market facility, whose average months to maturity at quarter end was eight months. During the quarter, we adjusted our hedging strategy by replacing a portion of our payer swaps within the money interest rate caps within our agency portfolio and added similar caps to hedge the liabilities in our residential credit sleeve. The caps provide similar protection to swaps in a higher rate environment while also improving the convexity of our portfolio in a sustained rally. Credit performance continued to track our expectations across product sectors in the second quarter. Delinquencies in the legacy re-performing book ended the quarter at 8.8%, down from 9.1% in Q1. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:14:49We saw similar improvements in our investor DSCR loan portfolio, where delinquencies declined from 6.1%-4.7%, driven in large part by early-stage delinquent loans becoming current. We continue to wind down the legacy RTL portfolio, which had 16 loans resolved during the quarter, including 13 payoffs and three workouts. The jumbo loan delinquencies remain stable, while prepays across the portfolio had a moderately to upward-sloping trend typical for the spring season. We made significant progress repositioning the investment portfolio. After multiple refinancings and divestitures over the last 18 months, culminating in the sale of $1.2 billion of loans in the first quarter, we've generated and redeployed nearly $700 million of capital from these portfolio management activities. Through 2025 and into the second quarter of 2026, we redeployed the majority of that capital into liquid agency MBS. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:15:52As noted, we view agencies as an important component to our portfolio construction strategy, providing both a relative value allocation and a liquidity bucket we can draw on to fund other accretive opportunities. That work has laid the foundation for us to build on our expertise in residential whole loan credit. Between our HomeXpress origination platform, Palisades technology and data infrastructure, our loan acquisition partnerships, and a track record spanning whole loan due diligence, credit underwriting, servicer oversight, asset management, and securitization, we have a fully integrated residential credit platform, which we intend to grow. We believe the timing is favorable. Non-QM continues to show secular growth, evident in strong year-over-year increases in origination volume despite elevated rates and subdued housing activity. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:16:48The rise in self-employment and non-traditional income profiles is expanding the pool of borrowers that fall outside conventional government programs, while non-QM has become a key financing source for investors with rental properties. We expect this form of financing to account for a growing share of the overall origination market. We intend to be a consistent value-add partner to our lender and seller network. We're already executing on this. We've identified and retained $301 million of loans to seed our first HomeXpress securitization that remains on track for the third quarter. Since quarter end, we have retained additional loans for a second HomeXpress securitization and committed to purchase loans from third-party sellers for a separate non-QM transaction we intend to bring to market in the second half of the year. The first half was about continuing to reposition the portfolio. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:17:44Despite a volatile backdrop, we exited lower-yielding legacy positions and redeployed capital into opportunities more closely aligned with our long-term strategic objectives in offering better prospective returns, all while maintaining our strong liquidity position. Those actions leave us with a stronger portfolio and the flexibility to lean into our core focus areas, led by residential credit, as opportunities emerge through the balance of the year. With that, I will turn it over to Kyle to discuss residential origination. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:18:15Thank you, Jack. Good morning, everyone. HomeXpress delivered another strong quarter with record loan origination volume of $1.1 billion and $11.8 million in EBITDA. Our loan growth is up 30% from the prior year second quarter and 24% over the first quarter of 2026. Growth in the second quarter was driven by broad-based demand across our core products, as well as increased production through our non-delegated correspondent channel, which now comprises 13% of our production. As Jack noted, while there was market volatility in the second quarter, HomeXpress loan production is less dependent on interest rate levels. In fact, in June, our loan volume increased to reach a monthly record for HomeXpress of $420 million, which is an impressive accomplishment considering the competitiveness of our market. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:19:09Looking ahead at the third quarter, while monthly production may fluctuate due to market and other macro environment volatility, we expect the underlying loan demands remain healthy. We are focused on executing with discipline. As to profitability, HomeXpress EBITDA climbed $11.8 million in the second quarter, driven primarily by the higher loan volume and cost-effectiveness. At the same time, net origination margin in the second quarter expanded to 124 basis points, up 10 basis points from the first quarter of 2026. The net origination margin for the second quarter of 2026 is slightly lower than the level of the second quarter of 2025 due to the increased market competition and tighter pricing. As such, we are focused on controlling the controllables by maintaining credit discipline, optimizing and enhancing our loan products, and keeping a sharp focus on process efficiency as the HomeXpress platform grows. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:20:12In addition, while our loans already perform exceptionally well in the secondary market and are highly valued by investors, we continually seek new investor relationships to further enhance competition, broaden demand, and maximize loan pricing execution. First, on credit, our underwriting standards have not changed. Even with a robust production volume growth, key metrics on our new loan originations, including weighted average FICO and LTV ratios for the quarter, remained in line with historic levels. That combination of higher volume with the same underwriting standards is what we're focused on preserving as we grow the business. Second, we are not trying to win every loan. Instead, we're protecting economics where returns do not justify the risk and choosing to compete in products and channels where the borrower's credit profile, the broker relationship, and our execution capabilities can support attractive returns. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:21:10Third, we remain focused on driving higher efficiency as the platform scales. We recently equipped our brokers with the ability to order appraisals directly through our portal. We also now use SmartFees to automatically populate the data they require to prepare loan disclosures. These technology tools serve to shorten loan processing times and help us support higher volumes more efficiently while improving accuracy. As I mentioned last quarter, we are expanding the share of consumer loans in our production mix. These loans, while typically have higher balances, enable us to generate more funded volume without a proportional increase in loan count and related fixed operating costs. Our average loan size grew to more than $455,000 during the quarter, compared with $410,000 in the first quarter. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:22:03We are actively engaged with our warehouse lenders to continue to improve the financing economics of our business, and we expect our efforts will enable us to increase our float spread. Importantly, we have ample funding to support our expected growth. Our warehouse capacity, which we expanded to $1.5 billion last quarter, has now been increased to $1.65 billion in July, and we are evaluating additional capacity. Our warehouse facilities are distributed across seven facilities with large financial institutions. We're also growing our broker network. We now have more than 6,350 brokers serviced by 145 account executives and related sales staff. Our strong national network remains our driving force, providing us with broad access across our various consumer, non-QM, and investor lending products. Stepping back, the first half of 2026 reflected our ability to execute. It also demonstrates the strength and value of our platform. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:23:08HomeXpress is firmly on track to exceed the $4 billion loan origination volume target for the year, barring market events. It is also contributing meaningful EBITDA while providing Chimera with direct access to quality residential mortgage collateral. As we look towards the second half of 2026 and beyond, our focus is clear. Continue scaling the business in a disciplined and efficient manner with high credit quality, which is the foundation for driving earnings growth over time. With that, I'll turn the call over to Phil. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:23:43Thanks, Kyle. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator00:23:47Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question will come from Bose George with KBW. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:24:20Hey, everyone. Good morning. First, just on book value, can you just talk about the drivers of the change in book value during the second quarter? Where does mark-to-market book value stand quarter to date? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:24:34Yeah, sure. This is Jack. Just on the second quarter book value move, one thing to keep in mind, the vast majority even still today of our GAAP portfolio is comprised of securitized loans. We have about $8 billion of loans on balance sheet against $5.5 billion of securitized debt. Those are in fixed rate, non-marked-to-market term securitizations. We're not hedging the book value there, that's the vast majority of the move in our book value. We had a pretty substantive sell-off in rates during the quarter that drove the value of the loans down, also the sec debt of the loans moved more than the sec debt during this quarter. The one thing to also point out there too is as we've continued to sort of reposition, diversify the portfolio, we now have a quarter of the portfolio in agencies. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:25:29We've got about 10%, 11% of the capital allocated to HomeXpress, both of those things contributed positively to book value. It's just a function of our consolidated GAAP securitizations that's driving that book value change. Just to reiterate, I think we've talked about this in the past. The one reason that we're not looking to hedge that is as the gyrations in interest rates change values on both the asset and liability side there, it really doesn't have any impact on our earnings power or dividend-paying ability. On the residential credit side of the book, what we're hedging is our floating rate liabilities with respect to our repo to ensure that our earnings power remains intact. We take that the book value volatility on that part of the book is going to fluctuate with interest rates. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:26:21Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Just the mark-to-market book value part. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:26:27Yeah. Quarter-to-date, there's been a bit of a sell-off in rates, so we're down about 1.5% quarter-to-date. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:26:34Okay, great. Just actually a follow-up on the book value, just on the securitized portion. Since that doesn't impact your earnings out of that, essentially, your ROE on your remaining capital in debt, does that just go up when those marks happen? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:26:53Yeah. Our GAAP book value will change, certainly. Yeah, I guess from a GAAP ROE standpoint, as the loan value declines, then yeah, our earnings power remains intact, and so our ROE would increase. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:27:07Okay, great. That makes sense. Just on HomeXpress, just based on your guidance, it sounds like the higher rate outlook is not having at least a meaningfully negative impact. Can you just talk about what rates are doing to HomeXpress in the back half of the year? Just talk about the margins in the non-delegated correspondent versus the traditional wholesale. Kyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress Mortgage00:27:34We're seeing continued increase in volume on a month-over-month basis. We think the third quarter is going to be an increase over the second quarter. There has been some margin compression. We're very focused on maintaining our underwriting standards, pricing deliberately, and looking for operational efficiencies to try to drive down our cost to origin. As far as the non-delegated correspondent, it is slightly less margin business than our wholesale business. I would say maybe 10-15 basis points less in margin. It appears to be much more efficient in how we can process the loans. I think our cost to originate on that business is slightly less. Bose GeorgeAnalyst at KBW00:28:24Okay, great. Thank you. Operator00:28:29Our next question will come from Trevor Cranston with JMP Securities. Trevor CranstonAnalyst at JMP Securities00:28:35Hi. Thanks. Good morning. Can you talk a little bit about your outlook for the agency basis after the spread tightening that we saw during the second quarter, and sort of how you compare incremental returns on investing in agency MBS versus new credit opportunities today? Thanks. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:28:56Yeah. That's a good question. On the agency front, we've built up over $600 million of capital allocated to agencies. Spreads have been moving around, but we're still generating something in the low to mid-teens area with respect to the capital allocated there. There's still good demand coming in first half of the year. We obviously had the first quarter demand coming from the GSE. There's technical support with respect to spreads in the agency space. We look at agencies as both a relative value bucket where we can generate returns, but also a source of liquidity that we can draw on for other opportunities. Right now, the bar to draw on that capital is relatively high just given where yields are in the agency space. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:29:51With that being said, we do feel like we are at a bit of an inflection point with respect to the work that we've been putting in over the last year and a half in repositioning the portfolio. I think what you heard from Phil's remarks as well as in my remarks is that the opportunity set for us as we see it on a go-forward basis is really to start leaning into one of our core competencies, which is what the vast majority of our infrastructure is built around, which is residential credit. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:30:22That includes retaining more loans from HomeXpress, buying loans from third parties, securitizing those loans, and really creating optionality with respect to whether or not we want to retain the credit portion of the capital stack for our investment portfolio, where we would be targeting something in the mid-teens area, or we want to distribute the entire structure and turn over that capital and generate gain on sale or capital markets revenue. Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Operator00:31:01Moving next to Marissa Lobo with UBS. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:31:07Good morning, and thank you. For the inaugural HomeXpress securitization, will Chimera retain the residual equity piece? If so, how should we expect that to be reflected in EAD going forward? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:31:23Yeah. Like I was saying, whenever we're looking to do a securitization, whether it's HomeXpress or third-party loans, what our intent is to structure those deals up to the time of distribution, evaluate a variety of factors. One, our capital needs, our portfolio construction objectives, relative value in the market. Based on those factors, we make a determination as to whether or not we would retain the credit portion of the capital stack, which would essentially be investing for long-term earnings over the next several years, or distributing the entire structure and booking the gain on sale, which would go through EAD and earnings, then turning over that capital and rinse and repeating it. Right now, we're still working through those dynamics. We're looking to get that first deal done probably in the latter part of the third quarter. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:32:23As we approach the date of that deal, we'll start honing in on the decision to what we're going to retain. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:32:32Okay. Thank you for that. Could you just update us on third-party advisory? How much AUM are you managing, and how should we think about that revenue stream contributing to EAD going forward? Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:32:47Yeah. I guess the way I would think about Palisades Advisory Services is they serve multiple functions. One, they serve third-party clients with respect to helping them with all their residential whole loan servicer oversight and data needs, and that generates revenue from third parties on a fee basis. They're also very instrumental in overseeing the Chimera portfolio and our focus on buying loans from third parties, securitizing them. It's really a function of external versus internal resource allocation. I will say, just on the third-party business, there is competition in that space, and we've also seen somewhat of a reduction in transaction activity from some of our clients. We're seeing a little bit of dilution with respect to third-party fee revenue, but we're actively redeploying those resources to help focus on some of our whole loan needs at the REIT level. Subra ViswanathanCFO at Chimera Investment00:33:52Also with the HomeXpress securitization and the third-party conduit securitizations, we'll expect to see some fees come. Marissa LoboAnalyst at UBS00:34:00Got it. Okay. Appreciate the answers. Operator00:34:07Our next question will come from Doug Harter with BTIG. Doug HarterAnalyst at BTIG00:34:13All right, thanks, and good morning. Can you talk about where you are in terms of redeploying the capital from the call deals in the first quarter and where we are in terms of seeing that earnings? Thank you. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:34:30Yeah. Hey, Doug. When we raised that $195 million from the calls and the sale in late first quarter, we actually had about close to a billion-dollar TBA short just from a risk management perspective that we held into April. We actually closed out of that position. There was some degradation with respect to the negative carry of that short position in April. After that, we were primarily fully deployed, we're realizing the benefits of that $195 million redeployment today and for the better part of the second quarter. The one thing just to highlight and point out, though, this kind of goes back to our consolidated securitizations. We've got $8 billion of loans, $5.5 billion of securitized debt. The way that those deals are structured is that when principal comes in, it de-levers the structures. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:35:31Over time, that's going to dilute our earnings power up until we call the deal, pull the capital out, and then redeploy it once again. Part of the earnings accretion, if you will, from the first quarter activities, we're definitely seeing that, but it's being offset by some of the de-leveraging in other parts of the portfolio. Still, there's a net benefit to it. We're seeing that today and in the back half of Q2. Doug HarterAnalyst at BTIG00:35:59All right. I guess where I'm just struggling is one of the logics of kind of the book value decline that you took from calling those deals was to see earnings accretion from that. X, the one-time items, the earnings seem relatively flat. I understand your point there about replacing some of the degradation, but just was wondering if kind of where we were in seeing that accretion, but appreciate the answer. Jack MacdowellCIO at Chimera Investment00:36:32Sure. Operator00:36:38This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Phil Kardis for closing comments. Phil KardisPresident and CEO at Chimera Investment00:36:45Thank you. To our shareholders, thank you for your continued support. Over the past couple of years, we've made a lot of progress towards our destination, and we look forward to updating you again next quarter. Operator00:37:00Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesTyra WeltonHead of Investor RelationsPhil KardisPresident and CEOSubra ViswanathanCFOJack MacdowellCIOAnalystsKyle WalkerPresident and CEO at HomeXpress MortgageBose GeorgeAnalyst at KBWTrevor CranstonAnalyst at JMP SecuritiesMarissa LoboAnalyst at UBSDoug HarterAnalyst at BTIGPowered by