AGNC Investment (NASDAQ:AGNC) reported second-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
AGNC Investment Corp reported a strong economic return of 6.7% for Q2 2026, driven by a stable dividend and an increase in tangible book value per share.
The company highlighted the outperformance of agency MBS against U.S. Treasuries for the fifth consecutive quarter, attributing it to improved technical factors and reduced net new supply.
AGNC's strategic focus remains on disciplined risk management and capital allocation, with a cautious approach to capital raising amidst market volatility.
The company maintains a positive outlook on agency MBS, expecting favorable supply and demand dynamics to enhance performance in the second half of the year.
Management noted the impact of geopolitical uncertainties and potential Fed rate hikes on the investment environment but remains optimistic about the underlying fundamentals of the mortgage market.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning and welcome to the AGNC Investment Corp. second quarter 2026 shareholder call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, 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. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Katie Turlington in Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Katie Turlington, Investor Relations
Thank you all for joining AGNC Investment Corp's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call and corresponding slide presentation contain 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.
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. Participants on the call: Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer; Bernie Bell, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Sean Reid, Executive Vice President - Strategy and Corporate Development. With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter Federico.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Good morning and thank you all for joining our second quarter earnings conference call. The investment environment in the second quarter continued to be challenging as escalating rhetoric and hostilities between the United States and Iran largely dictated financial market performance. With ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz severely constrained, elevated energy prices and supply chain disruptions were the dominant macroeconomic concerns for the quarter.
These concerns caused Treasury yields to increase, the yield curve to flatten and the market's outlook for monetary policy to pivot from rate cuts to rate hikes by year end. Despite the elevated geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty and the bearish shift in fixed income sentiment during the quarter, AGNC generated a strong economic return of 6.7% comprised of our attractive monthly dividend and improvement in our tangible book value per common share.
Also notable, the monthly common stock dividend that we paid at the beginning of this month marked the 75th consecutive monthly dividend payment of $0.12 per share, a track record of performance that we believe illustrates the value of AGNC's disciplined approach to risk management and portfolio construction over a wide range of investment environments. The improvement in our tangible book value was driven by the solid performance of agency MBS, which generated a positive excess return to U.S. Treasuries for the fifth consecutive quarter. This five-quarter track record of outperformance is unusual and particularly noteworthy. And given the similar credit quality of these two asset classes, the catalyst for the favorable performance of agency MBS was improving technical factors. With the primary mortgage rate continuing to be above 6.5%, the net new supply of agency MBS this year will likely drop to about 150 billion, materially lower than the supply estimates at the beginning of the year.
Elevated mortgage rates have also caused prepayment speeds to slow. As a result, MBS runoff from the Fed's portfolio will be lower than expected this year. Against the backdrop of falling supply, the demand for agency mortgage-backed securities has remained strong through the first six months of the year. Bond fund inflows have totaled more than $400 billion and are running about double the pace of last year. A significant portion of these inflows get invested in agency mortgage-backed securities and are an important source of demand.
Banks, foreign investors and REITs should also all continue to be net purchasers of agency MBS over the remainder of the year. Lastly, with the outlook for private credit deteriorating and equity valuations stretched by many measures, the demand for high-quality fixed income assets should remain strong or perhaps even increase over the near term. We expect these favorable supply and demand dynamics to become more apparent over time and to benefit agency MBS performance in the second half of the year.
Another important consideration that shapes the outlook for agency MBS is the compelling value that this asset class offers relative to corporate bonds. In the second quarter, corporate bonds were the best-performing fixed income sector by a wide margin, significantly outperforming both U.S. Treasuries and agency MBS. The Bloomberg Investment Grade Corporate Index and the Bloomberg U.S. High Yield Index ended the second quarter as spreads to U.S. Treasuries of 75 and 290 basis points, respectively, levels that were among the lowest on record. Surprisingly, these historically tight spread levels come at a time when corporate issuance this year is expected to exceed 1.1 trillion, making 2026 the largest corporate debt issuance year. In light of the improved technical backdrop and despite elevated geopolitical risk, our outlook for agency MBS remains encouraging. Agency MBS spreads have moved little this year and continue to be wide by historical standards despite supply being lower than expected and demand being greater than expected.
Corporate spreads, on the other hand, have narrowed through the first half of the year and are tight by historical standards despite record issuance and rising credit concerns. Once the current elevated level of geopolitical and monetary policy uncertainty subsides, we believe these constructive dynamics will become more apparent and over time drive favorable agency MBS performance. Moreover, we believe AGNC is well positioned to continue to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders in this environment.
With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bernie Bell, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our financial results in greater detail.
Bernie Bell, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Peter. For the second quarter, AGNC reported comprehensive income of $0.52 per common share. Our economic return on tangible common equity was 6.7% for the quarter, consisting of 36 cents of dividends declared per common share and a 20 cent increase in tangible net book value per share due to mortgage outperformance relative to our interest rate hedges. Our total stock return for the quarter was even more favorable at 12.3% with dividends reinvested, which brings our one-year total stock return to 36.1%.
As of late last week, our tangible net book value per common share was down about 1% or a little less than 2% net of our monthly dividend accrual for July. Both ending and average leverage were unchanged at 7.4 times tangible equity for the quarter and we ended the period with $7.5 billion of unencumbered cash and agency MBS representing 62% of tangible equity. Net spread and dollar roll income totaled $0.40 per common share for the quarter, down $0.02 from the first quarter.
The decrease primarily reflects a 6 basis point decline in our net interest spread driven by lower asset yields from portfolio repositioning, partly offset by modestly lower funding cost. The average projected life CPR of our portfolio decreased by 170 basis points to 8.6% at quarter end due to coupon and TBA versus specified pool repositioning. Actual CPRs were largely unchanged at 13% for the quarter. Lastly, during the second quarter we continued to actively manage our capital for the benefit of existing stockholders, issuing $167 million of common equity through our at-the-market offering program at a significant premium to tangible net book value per share while maintaining a disciplined and opportunistic approach to capital issuance. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Peter to discuss our portfolio in greater detail.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Thank you, Bernie. In aggregate, agency MBS in the second quarter outperformed both Treasury and swap-based hedges, but the magnitude of the outperformance did vary considerably by coupon. Higher coupon and production coupon MBS experienced the greatest outperformance as the increase in interest rates curtailed both supply and prepayment concerns. The outperformance of higher coupons relative to lower coupons was also a reversal of the coupon performance in the first quarter.
With swap spreads widening in the second quarter, MBS hedged with swaps also performed better than MBS hedged with Treasury securities. At quarter end, the spread differential between a current coupon mortgage-backed security and a blend of hedges across the swap curve was about 145 basis points. At this spread level, agency MBS are trading near the middle of our expected range of 120 to 160 basis points. At quarter end, the market value of our asset portfolio totaled $97 billion.
During the quarter, we purchased $2.2 billion of primarily intermediate coupon specified pools early in the quarter. We also sold some lower coupon MBS and bought higher coupon MBS to lock in gains from the strong performance of low coupons in the first quarter and to capture the yield benefit associated with higher coupons given the expectations for a more benign prepayment environment. As a result, the weighted average coupon on our portfolio increased to 5.04%.
The percentage of assets with favorable prepayment characteristics also increased slightly to 79%. The notional balance of our hedge portfolio totaled $66 billion at quarter end, up slightly from the prior quarter due to the addition of intermediate and longer-term Treasury-based hedges. With the maturity of $3 billion of swap hedges and the additional Treasury-based hedges, our overall portfolio allocation to swap-based hedges declined to 66% at quarter end.
Lastly, we ended the quarter with a duration gap of 0.7 years, unchanged from the prior quarter. We continue to favor operating with a positive duration gap given the current level of interest rates, the convexity profile of our portfolio, and the expected correlation between mortgage spreads and interest rates. 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 touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Doug Carter with BTIG. Please go ahead.
Doug Carter, Analyst
Hoping you could talk about where you're seeing returns today on incremental investments to kind of the current spread levels and, you know, how the ability to raise capital at your current valuation, how that impacts how you think about returns.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Sure. Good morning, Doug, and welcome back. Yeah, first off, in terms of marginal returns on new investment opportunities, as I mentioned, we ended the quarter with spreads. I like to look at them relative to the blend of the swap curve. I think that's an important comparison over time. I mentioned at 145 basis points, they're actually probably closer to 150 basis points this morning. To Treasuries, they're probably in the 120 basis point range. So the returns will obviously depend on what combination of hedges we use in the current environment.
Given the fact that our swap-based hedges are now a little bit lower back toward 65%, marginal investments going forward will likely be hedged more with swaps. So from that perspective, if you look at returns in the, say, 130 to 150 basis point range, you're getting ROEs, when you leverage them the way we leverage them at seven or seven and a half times, probably in the 15 to 17% range. So that aligns really well with the economics of our dividend.
And from a capital perspective, you'll notice that our capital activity was a little lighter this last in the second quarter relative to some previous quarters. And as I mentioned before, that's not unexpected. We take a very disciplined, opportunistic approach to capital raising. It is not on any preset course, and we'll let the economics of the market and the environment drive our decision. In the second quarter, we felt like our stock was trading a little bit heavy.
And obviously shareholder experience matters a lot to us. We don't want our ATM activity to interfere with the way our stock trades. And in fact, Bernie mentioned in the second quarter our total stock return at a little over 12%, I think is evidence that a lighter touch in the second quarter was appropriate. And going forward, we'll just take that same opportunistic approach. Returns are good in the market. We do have some volatility that we still have to contend with, which is always a negative.
But the underlying fundamentals look good from our perspective. And certainly if we can continue to raise capital in a way that is beneficial to our existing shareholders, we will do that. But at the same time, we already have great size and scale and liquidity, and so we're very happy with where we are and we're happy to be in a position where we continue to use capital activities as a way to generate incremental value for our shareholders.
Doug Carter, Analyst
Great. I appreciate that answer, Peter, thank you very much.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Sure. Thanks, Doug.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Crispin Love, Analyst at Piper Sandler
Thank you. Good morning, Peter, appreciate you taking the question. And in your remarks, you discussed how the investment environment has been challenging. There's plenty of macro uncertainty, but results have been solid. The technicals for agency MBS are good. So with that in mind, can you speak to just today's outlook with the landscape? Because a few things that we could see could see elevated rate vol with Warsh's Fed chair, another added layer of uncertainty.
The curve is flat and could see some rate hikes. So curious what you think about how those factors could impact the outlook in the second half.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, there's no doubt that, in fact, if you go back to some of the comments I made at the beginning of the year, there's reasons to be optimistic and there's challenges in the market. And the two challenges actually sort of, in my opinion, deteriorated. And the two challenges are in the second quarter, it deteriorated. The two challenges are we do have elevated geopolitical risk, which is causing volatility in the market, all financial markets. And that's always a negative from a mortgage market perspective.
The second, which I also believe sort of deteriorated, is the outlook for monetary policy. And it deteriorated in the second quarter because we clearly have more inflation concerns to price in, if you will, to deal with in the market with respect to energy prices related to the war and how that may feed into the Fed's monetary policy. But we also now know that we have a new Fed chairman who's taken a different approach and certainly communicated a much hawker message initially than I think the market had anticipated.
So putting all that together, we had monetary policy moving from two eases to two tightenings, 100 basis point move in monetary policy expectations, pretty dramatic in one quarter. Those are the negatives, and those negatives are still with us for some period of time. But as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, I think when you look beyond those negatives, and I think the market is doing a really good job of looking beyond those, particularly as it relates to inflation and the war.
And you could see that because rates are higher, but not materially higher, and equity prices are still very elevated, all those things are positive. The market's looking beyond it. The underlying fundamentals for the mortgage market have actually continued to improve sequentially through the first two quarters. And it's more pronounced today than it has been, particularly because the supply outlook, as I talked about, is materially lower. We're talking about maybe $100 to $150 billion less supply of mortgages this year.
And I don't see any reason to think that demand is going to tail off in the second half of the year. I think demand will actually remain high. And now when you look at agency MBS relative to corporates, it's a pretty compelling backdrop. It just takes time to work through those. In addition, in the second quarter, the second quarter tends to be sort of the worst seasonal for mortgage activities, the highest mortgage activity quarter. So the seasonal should improve later in the year.
Hopefully those two negatives that I mentioned that you point out will ultimately quiet down. And once that happens, I think people will realize that the underlying fundamentals for mortgages are really attractive. And I think that will ultimately lead to tighter mortgage spreads. So I'll pause there and let you ask a follow up.
Crispin Love, Analyst at Piper Sandler
Great. No, thank you. Appreciate that. And then just wanted to dig a little bit more into the stock issuance activity you covered in the prior question. In your words, you had a little bit of a lighter touch in the quarter. Was that based more on not seeing the right investment opportunities or not wanting to disrupt the stock? And just on that, does that change the strategy at all in capital raising over the intermediate term? Because I think this prior quarter had the least amount of issuance versus the last few years on any quarterly level.
And the reaction was pretty good. So just curious if that changes anything going forward.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Well, it wasn't a change in our behavior. We always look at those factors and we always look at how our stock is trading. And we want our ATM activity, our capital raising activities to be complementary to what's happening with the stock. So if we see a lot of reverse inquiry for our stock, if we see volumes trading really high, really strong at the same time when mortgage investments are attractive, then that's sort of like the perfect environment to be able to issue without disrupting the way your stock is trading, be able to get capital, deploy it quickly at attractive levels.
Those are the kind of things that we always look at and we will continue to look at. We just didn't feel like in the second quarter they kind of. They kind of lined up as well as we wanted.
Crispin Love, Analyst at Piper Sandler
Great. Thanks, Peter. Appreciate taking the question.
OPERATOR
Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Marissa Lobo with UBS. Please go ahead.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Good morning, Marissa.
Marissa Lobo, Analyst at UBS
Thank you. Thanks. Good morning. Just looking at TBA income came in better than expected. Can you speak to how that's changing the hurdle rate for owning specified pools in this rate environment?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, yeah, I talked about that last quarter and it continues to be the case. TBA specialness has definitively improved this year relative to the last couple years. The TBA specialness over the last couple years at times has been a negative and it's been more favorable to own pools on balance sheet than in TBA. We have continued to see specialness in particularly related to Ginnie pools, and I think that will continue, and that's a good opportunity for us in the TBA market.
This last quarter, our overall dollar roll income was, on a percentage basis, if you will, a little less than the previous quarter because of some long and short positions we had in the first quarter. But I do expect, generally speaking, going forward, I do expect TBA specialness to remain attractive relative to repo funding, perhaps more in line with, on average, more in line with the long-term averages of maybe 10 to 20 basis points specialness generally for TBA.
So it's an opportunity for us going forward for sure.
Marissa Lobo, Analyst at UBS
Okay, thank you. And just going back to the outlook for agency spreads, you talked about strong supply and demand driving a lot of that outlook. How much of that depends on GSE purchases, and could spreads widen if GSE activity remains below market expectations?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, that's a really good question. And that's important because if you look at what happened to mortgage spreads, obviously mortgage spreads did tighten in the second quarter and, as I mentioned, in particular the greatest tightening, the greatest outperformance, which I think made it a little more challenging of a quarter to evaluate mortgage performance. The higher coupons, they'll call it, the 5 and 6% coupons really performed really well. If you look at them, relatively excess return on the Bloomberg index, it was somewhere close to 70 or 80 basis points.
Whereas the lowest coupons, the 2 to 4% coupons, they only had 10 to 20 basis points of outperformance. So overall that will continue to be the biggest driver. Ask me that. Tell me that question again because I just got a little distracted. Where were you going with that? With the—
Marissa Lobo, Analyst at UBS
It's mostly to talk about GSE activity. How much does your outlook depend on—
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Thank you for that. So what's important in the second quarter with the GSEs is the GSE purchases in the first two months of the quarter were only actually very slightly positive from what we know from the first two months. So in the second quarter, mortgage spreads overall tightened, but the GSE purchase activity was actually relatively low. And that's really important because I think that tells you that GSEs are responding to markets like we collectively, I think, would want them to, which is when markets get disrupted and spreads get wide, they step in and they buy at a more aggressive pace.
And when they don't, like in the second quarter, they actually take a much lighter touch to the market. Going forward, what we know, I believe the GSEs still have about $120 billion of purchase activity. So I think they have dry powder going forward, which, as you point out, coupled with the underlying technicals, I think sets up a nice backdrop for mortgages.
Marissa Lobo, Analyst at UBS
Thank you for the answer, Peter.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Jason Weaver with Jones Trading. Please go ahead.
Jason Weaver, Analyst at JonesTrading
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Hey, Peter. So on the same point you just made on the prior question, Marissa's, with what we've seen about the GSEs effectively using the purchase program to sort of cap spreads here, does that change you or maybe some of the other peers' process in assessing what the appropriate amount of leverage is? If there's limited risk to downside of prices, can you effectively support a higher level for some short period of time?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, that's a great question and it's something we've talked about a lot. When you're thinking about leverage, what you're really—the key driver of your leverage profile has to be your assessment of where mortgage spreads are and what the range of mortgage spreads are. We talk about that all the time. And to the extent that there are forces in the market, whether it be government-related or GSE or actions from the Treasury that reduce spread volatility and limit the upside on spreads, all other things equal, that should bring more capital into the market and allow people to operate with greater leverage.
So lower spread volatility, for whatever the reason, is a positive, which would allow us and just generally the market to operate with greater leverage, all other things equal. The challenge that we have, as you point out, is there are those forces in place that are reducing spread volatility. We do have to contend with the uncertainty of the macroeconomic environment, though, that is actually increasing volatility, both interest rates and spreads.
But you're right, all other things equal, lower spread volatility would allow us to operate with greater leverage and would attract more private capital to the mortgage market. No, from what we understand on the SLR, I don't think there's any other changes than what have already been proposed. I think that issue sort of is closed. With respect to the Basel and the new capital regs that have come out for proposal, from what we're hearing, the final rule will likely look very much like the proposed rule, which is good for mortgages. As I mentioned this last quarter, I think when you look at the new proposed rule, it is positive for mortgage credit.
It should allow banks to hold more mortgage credit at a lower capital requirement, which would be positive. It could be in various forms—it could be in full loan form, it could be in private-label securities. Either of those still are beneficial to the agency mortgage market because what it likely means is that higher-quality mortgage credit can now be held by banks in those two forms at a lower capital requirement than the previous capital rules.
And that is net-net positive for the mortgage market. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.
Bose George, Analyst at KBW
Hey guys. Good morning. Boze, just one more on the GSEs. I think the market expectation earlier was that they would hit those caps by year-end, or just given the slower pace, what's your latest thought on when they get there?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
I think, Bose, it's going to be driven by mortgage spreads and mortgage spread volatility. If we have a backup in mortgage spreads—if something happens and mortgage spreads get, let's say they're at 150, and if they get to 160 or 170 basis points for the swap curve or the comparable spread versus the Treasuries—I think you'll see the GSEs step in and buy them at a faster pace. And if they don't, then I think you'll see them maintaining their discipline and keeping their powder dry, which I think is just really positive for the market.
I mean, it's exactly what the market would want out of that activity. And it ultimately is just good because it helps attract a more diversified bid to the mortgage market, which from the administration's perspective is the endgame. You want their activity to be complementary, not squeezing out. And that's what it is. It's complementary. It's really helpful to mortgage affordability. Mortgage rates would be higher than they otherwise would be absent their behavior.
So it's really positive and I expect that to continue. And they have the ability to now still have a lot of capacity. They also—it's not clear that TBAs count toward their portfolio limits. So they may have even greater flexibility than the market maybe understands based on whether they hold mortgages in loan form or in TBA form. So those are all positives.
Bose George, Analyst at KBW
Okay, great. That's all for me, thanks.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Trevor Cranston with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.
Trevor Cranston, Analyst at Citizens JMP
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Good morning, Trevor. Question on the hedge book. Given the flattening of the yield curve and the prospects for potential Fed hikes later on this year, you know, it looks like the net duration exposure was pretty constant, quarter over quarter. But have you guys made any changes to kind of your exposure to curve steepening or flattening, or how are you approaching that given the prospects of potential Fed hikes? Thanks.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, we really haven't responded to this flattening. And the flattening was substantial—obviously in the second quarter, twos to tens flattened about 25 basis points or close to it. So it was a really substantial move. And as we have talked about in prior quarters and continues to be the case, we obviously hedge across the yield curve. We hedge with a mix of hedges, so we don't have a lot of curve exposure. To the extent that we position our hedges sometimes more toward longer-dated hedges and less shorter-dated hedges in an environment where the yield curve will steepen, we do that with some intent to hedge our overall portfolio profile.
We have not changed that sort of view. And the reason why we haven't changed it is even though the market is now pricing in tightening, from our perspective we look at those and say maybe the market has overpriced the current environment. I think it's going to be difficult for the Fed to raise interest rates, particularly in light of the fact that the Chairman has now announced these five task forces, and the work of those task forces, as he said, largely won't be done until probably the end of the year.
There's some really meaningful work that will be done related to how the Fed measures its performance relative to its inflation objectives. In addition, obviously, the last inflation readings that we just got really give the Fed room, I believe, to certainly hold steady for some period of time. And I think that the Fed would want to see the work of that committee before it made any decision on monetary policy. So our view is that once the war outlook stabilizes and inflation and energy prices stabilize, the flattening of the yield curve that occurred in the second quarter will likely not continue and likely revert to a steeper yield curve.
Trevor Cranston, Analyst at Citizens JMP
Got it. Okay, that's helpful.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Rick Shane with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hong Zheng, Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Hi, this is Hong Zheng on for Rick. I guess with the housing bill now passed and all the macro challenges that you cited, do you see an environment where housing demand could pick up by the end of the year? And if so, how do you think that could happen?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Oh, you know, that's a hard question. It does not, from our perspective, feel that way. When we look at sort of the economy and we look at where mortgage rates are—six and a half or a little higher than that—it does not feel like the second half of the year will see an uptick in demand. In fact, from a seasonal perspective, we would expect a sort of a downtick in demand through the remainder of the year. So that would sort of be our core view right now.
Hong Zheng, Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Got it. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Sure. Thank you. The next question comes from Harsh Hemnani with Green Street. Please go ahead.
Harsh Hemnani, Analyst at Green Street
Thank you. So you mentioned the task forces that the Fed has now put in place. One of them is on the balance sheet makeup of the Fed. What changes, if any, are you expecting to see out of that task force in terms of the Fed's MBS holdings and how you would think that would impact the mortgage market?
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, thank you for that question, Harsh. That's related to the Fed's balance sheet. And you're right, there is a task force on that. I think that's one of the two really interesting task forces. I think the one related to how they measure inflation and performance, that's obviously a really critical one to monetary policy. And then, obviously from our perspective, the task force on the balance sheet. So just what I would say largely is that when you think about the balance sheet, the balance sheet peaked at $8.4 trillion and today it's a little under $6.4 trillion.
And the Fed now is growing their balance sheet again. And what's important, and I think this is—you can understand if I'm listening to Chairman Warsh—is there's two reasons why the Fed grows its balance sheet. One is to respond to market instability. And they did that through all their QE, and that's why they got to $8.4 trillion. And then once they reduced it down to about the current level, the purpose of the balance sheet shifted from monetary policy stimulation to reserve management.
And what they're using their balance sheet for now—and they're growing their balance sheet at $10 billion a month in Treasury bills—in order to maintain the right amount of reserves in the system. Bank reserves are at like $3 trillion and they have now a $6.4 trillion balance sheet. What they're doing is they're making sure that there are, quote, ample reserves in the system to allow for the funding markets to remain stable. And really, when I talk funding markets, I'm talking the repo market for U.S. Treasuries and agency MBS, and making sure that that rate stays essentially within the fed funds range. They want that repo rate to be right in the middle of their fed funds target. Just last quarter, for example, for mortgages it was a little elevated. For us, I think it was 3.74%. So you would expect the repo rate to be somewhere right around 3.65%, 3.68%. That's what the Fed wants. And so they're using their balance sheet to maintain that stability.
In order for them to reduce their balance sheet going forward—and they have talked about this—the first thing they would have to do is they have to reduce the amount of bank reserves required in the system. So like our previous question, they could change the bank requirements that would allow banks to hold less than $3 trillion of bank reserves, and that would allow them to reduce their balance sheet further. That would be important. The other thing that they could do, and this is really important from our perspective, is that rather than providing this excess liquidity to the market through their balance sheet like they are today, they could, in a sense, use their funding capabilities to provide liquidity in an alternative form. Like, for example, rather than just buying mortgage securities and Treasury securities and putting cash into the system, they could expand their repo facilities and allow greater access to those repo facilities, and the market could gain its funding from those facilities rather than the sort of permanent injection of liquidity through their balance sheet. They could do open market operations.
They could do that. That would allow—that would be really positive for the funding markets for U.S. Treasuries and agency MBS—and allow the Fed to have a lower balance sheet. So those would be really important. The last point would be that what will be interesting is what the Fed will decide about the long-term composition of their assets in their portfolio. And right now we know, and the market is pricing, the expectation that the Fed will gradually allow their balances of mortgage-backed securities to decline organically, which is fine, and the market's priced that in, and that's not an issue for the market.
But they could also conclude that it would be valuable to own some portion of mortgages in their portfolio, sort of indefinitely, because that would allow them to maintain the constant presence and keep all the sort of processes up and running, which they will need at some point, perhaps in the future, because the Fed will continue to use its balance sheet for market stabilization if it needs it. And so it's always worthwhile, I think, having those processes up and functioning.
So perhaps there's a scenario where they own mortgages, at least in some portion of their portfolio, going forward. But I think the key is making sure that on the liquidity side, if they make changes to the liquidity market, that would allow them to have a lower balance sheet and not have any negative impact on the financial markets for the funding of both agency MBS and U.S. Treasuries, and that would be a really great outcome.
Harsh Hemnani, Analyst at Green Street
Got it. That's really helpful.
Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you very much. 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, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Again, thank you everybody for participating on our second quarter earnings call. We're really happy with the quarter and we look forward to speaking to you again at the end of the third quarter.
OPERATOR
Thank you for joining the call. You may now disconnect.
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