Still bleeding

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With blood stocks in New York City low, health officials this month issued an emergency appeal for donations. The lifeblood of financial institutions—confidence—is in equally short supply. Five months after the Bear Stearns debacle, and a month after America’s Treasury unveiled unprecedented steps to support the mortgage market, some whose share prices had only recently hinted at recuperation are again looking dangerously anaemic.

At the top of the critical list are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The quasi-private mortgage agencies are in danger of being overwhelmed by losses on their holdings of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Ajay Rajadhyaksha of Barclays Capital estimates that Freddie’s balance-sheet has a negative value of at least $20 billion when marked at market prices; Fannie is $3 billion in the red. Both saw their share prices fall about 44% between August 18th and 20th as it appeared ever more likely that the government would intervene, wiping out existing shareholders. They are caught in a trap: the greater the risk of nationalisation, the harder it will be for the two institutions to persuade investors to provide an estimated $15 billion of new capital that each one needs if nationalisation is not to happen.

Loss of faith in the firms’ equity is one thing, ebbing confidence in their vast pile of debt is altogether scarier. Spreads on the $1.5 trillion of paper issued on their own behalf have widened. A five-year issue by Freddie on August 19th sold for 1.13 percentage points over treasury bonds, the highest spread for at least a decade. As recently as May, Freddie had found takers at 0.69 points over treasuries.

A sudden pullback by overseas investors is largely to blame. Foreigners, mostly Asian central banks and funds, hold 35-40% of the mortgage agencies’ total debt. They continued to be avid buyers this year, but their appetite waned in the first half of August (see chart), and was lower than normal in this week’s Freddie Mac auction. American money managers have taken up the slack, but they too are becoming twitchy about their exposure, according to a market participant.