Warnings from AG Mortgage, Colony's Barrack chill mREIT sector
23/03/2020 17:39
(Updates. Adds Thomas Barrack commentary, stock activity of
peers)
** AG Mortgage Investment Trust Inc MITT.N plunging ~33%
after co warns it doesn't expect to be able to satisfy
anticipated volume of future margin calls and says in talks with
counterparties over forbearance agreements urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nBw5xx1Cwa
** On Sun, Thomas Barrack, executive chairman of Colony
Capital CLNY.N , said the U.S. commercial real estate mortgage
market "stands on the brink of collapse", and predicted "domino
effect" of catastrophic consequences if banks and the government
didn't take immediate action to weather the COVID-19 crisis
** In statement https://medium.com/@tombarrackjr/preventing-covid-19-from-infecting-the-commercial-mortgage-market-e7444701745e,
the billionaire investor said banks, publicly traded mortgage
REITs and other non-bank lenders are now "at a precarious
juncture"
** Early Mon, the Fed announced new steps, including buying
an unlimited amount of treasury and mortgage-backed securities,
to combat coronavirus hit to the economy urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nN9N28J00Y
urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2BG0ED
** Biggest mREIT losers Mon: Granite Point Mortgage GPMT.N
and Anworth Mortgage Asset Corp ANH.N both down >20%. MFA
Financial MFA.N and Blackstone Mortgage Trust BXNT.N down
16-19%
** Annaly Capital Management NLY.N down 7% and Invesco
Mortgage Capital IVR.N off ~1%
** On flip side, AGNC Investment Corp AGNC.O up 8% and
Western Asset Mortgage WMC.N up 5%
** The Dow Jones Mortgage REIT index .DJUSMR and the
iShares Mortgage Real Estate ETF REM.N both off 8% Mon. DJUSMR
and REM have both more than halved in Mar
(Reporting by Lance Tupper)
((lance.tupper.tr.com@reuters.net
lance.tupper@tr.com 646-223-5017))