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Annaly Capital Management Inc.NLYCOMMENTJul 10, 2019Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jun 11, 2026. Market Open.
It is a mortgage REIT making money by borrowing on the short end of the curve and lending on the long end. The portfolio is much larger than the capital they have to play with, so there is volatility. If rates go up next year it creates refinancing risk for them. He is not comfortable with the leverage in the portfolio.
A mortgage REIT. They leverage the slope of the yield curve, to invest in mortgages. Rising rates are not necessarily a good thing for them. It really all revolves around their ability to leverage the spread in the yield curve. There is also some reinvestment risk. If existing pools of mortgages are maturing at higher rates than what you can invest in, that impairs profitability.
With this, you are borrowing on the short end of the curve and lending on the long end, so it is very much a spread business. You are using a lot of leverage when you do that. The rule of thumb is that you typically want to buy them when they are trading at a discount to BV. He doesn’t own any of these, because there is a significant risk if interest rates move up too quickly. There is reinvestment risk and prepayment risks. However, for the most part the dividends are safe and you are getting a good entry point.
A mortgage-backed securities lender in the US. Highly levered. They lend and then get free funding from the Fed and distribute out 100% of their earnings. Because you are getting 13%-14%, all you want it to do is just stay stable. If you think the Fed is going to raise rates, it generally hurts them. On the opposite side, they have the underlying security of US housing improving every day. 2 out of 3 years you will make 14%-15%, but you could be down 20% in one year. You have to be very careful. This probably would not be the greatest timing to get in.
There is a lot of volatility in the sector. He doesn’t own any of the mortgage REITs, although he does think they are starting to represent pretty decent value here. Simple explanation. They borrow on the short end of the curve, lever it up 6 or 7 times and invest it in the long end of the curve in the form of mortgages. You have seen interest rates go down which have increased their reinvestment risk, so the returns they were getting 3 or 4 years ago they were no longer getting, which resulted in dividend cuts. Results have stabilized somewhat. The rule of thumb is that you want to buy these when they are trading at about $.75-$.85 on the dollar in terms of book value. If you own, it is a pretty decent place to get high yield, just recognize that there is going to be a lot of volatility embedded within these.