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US presidents, especially Republican ones, like to champion home ownership as an essential component of the American dream. Donald Trump, too, has pushed policies in this vein.
美国总统，尤其是共和党总统，喜欢把拥有住房作为美国梦的重要组成部分。唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)也是本着这一思路推行政策的。
But Trump’s quixotic policymaking — particularly last week’s assault on global trade — seems likely to lead to higher unemployment, higher inflation and generally tougher times for the US consumer. So you might expect the housing market — and the mortgage market that underpins it — to suffer, too.
但特朗普不切实际的政策制定——尤其是上周对全球贸易的攻击——似乎可能导致失业率上升、通货膨胀加剧，以及美国消费者普遍面临更艰难的时期。因此，你可能会认为房地产市场——以及支撑它的抵押贷款市场——也会遭受损失。
In the short term, the opposite may be true. As Trump’s tariffs freak out world leaders and global stock markets, they have triggered a knee-jerk flight to safety, with investors ironically diverting their money into US Treasury bonds, issued by the very government that caused the crisis of confidence. That has lowered US Treasury yields substantially — 10-year bonds are now paying below 4 per cent, down from a 4.8 per cent January high — as well as the mortgage rates that are priced off them.
短期内，情况可能恰恰相反。随着特朗普的关税吓坏了世界各国领导人和全球股市，它们引发了一种下意识的避险行为，投资者将资金转移到了美国国债上，具有讽刺意味的是，美国国债正是由引发信任危机的美国政府发行的。这大大降低了美国国债收益率——10年期债券的收益率目前低于4%，低于1月份的4.8%的高点——以及与之挂钩的抵押贷款利率。
Simultaneously, there is a certain bullishness around some lenders. Appropriately enough perhaps for a group that calls itself “the world’s most optimistic company”, leading lender Rocket last week announced the acquisition of Mr Cooper, a rival, in a $9.4bn deal. US equities overall have traded sharply lower following Trump’s tariff announcements. But Rocket — valued more like a technology company than a traditional lender, thanks to its artificial intelligence-assisted digital platform — has seen its stock jump about 20 per cent since the start of last week.
与此同时，一些贷款机构也出现了某种看涨情绪。领先的贷款公司Rocket上周宣布以94亿美元的价格收购竞争对手Mr. Cooper Group，前者作为一家自称“世界上最乐观的公司”的集团，这也许是恰如其分的。特朗普宣布加征关税后，美国股市整体大幅走低。但Rocket（由于其人工智能辅助数字平台，其估值更像一家科技公司，而非传统贷款公司）的股价自上周开始以来飙升了约20%。
Across the mortgage market, though, there are obvious causes for concern. Combined foreclosure and delinquency rates are edging up. They are still below 2 per cent, far short of the 5 per cent peak of the Covid era and the 10 per cent tally that followed the 2008 global financial crisis. But worsening US economic forecasts bode badly: interest rates may have to rise again to counter higher inflation.
不过，整个抵押贷款市场都有明显的担忧。止赎和拖欠的比率的总和正在逐渐上升。它们仍低于2%，远低于新冠肺炎疫情时期5%的峰值和2008年全球金融危机后10%的峰值。但美国经济预测的恶化预示着糟糕的前景：利率可能不得不再次上升以应对更高的通货膨胀。
Also noteworthy is that most of the big mortgage lenders these days are funded by junk-rated paper. (Rocket’s rating by Fitch was the exception, though that investment-grade rating was put on negative watch as a result of the extra leverage it would inherit via the Mr Cooper deal.) Deposit funding has been gradually discredited by the kind of withdrawal runs seen in 2008 right up to the 2023 demise of Silicon Valley Bank. But if bond market access becomes excessively expensive that could prove just as problematic for a functional mortgage market.
另外值得注意的是，如今大多数大型抵押贷款机构的资金都来自于垃圾级债券。(但惠誉对Rocket的评级是个例外，不过由于收购Mr. Cooper Group的交易会给Rocket带来额外的杠杆作用，该机构的投资级评级已被列入负面观察名单）。从2008年的提款挤兑到2023年硅谷银行的倒闭，存款融资的信誉已逐渐丧失。但是，如果进入债券市场的成本变得过于高昂，那么对于一个正常运作的抵押贷款市场来说，这同样是个问题。
Regulation provides little reassurance. Today’s dominant lenders — from Rocket to United Wholesale Mortgage — are relatively thinly capitalised, benefiting from a light-touch regulatory regime for non-banks compared with tougher post-crisis capital demands on the banking sector.
监管提供的保障有限。如今的主导贷款机构——从Rocket到United Wholesale Mortgage——资本相对薄弱，这受益于对非银行机构的宽松监管制度，而危机后银行业则面临更严格的资本要求。
Yet this is actually a pretty low-risk market. Mortgages, underpinned by the ultimate collateral of bricks and mortar, are normally the safest form of consumer lending. And in the US context, that is all the more true because credit risk is only fleetingly present on lenders’ balance sheets.
然而，这实际上是一个风险相当低的市场。按揭由砖瓦和水泥作为最终抵押品，通常是最安全的消费贷款形式。在美国的背景下，这一点更为明显，因为信用风险仅在贷方的资产负债表上短暂存在。
The vast majority of US mortgage assets are repackaged into mortgage-backed securities. Rocket says its securitisations are particularly rapid, with some loans only staying on its balance sheet for one to two weeks.
绝大多数美国抵押贷款资产被重新包装成抵押贷款支持证券(MBS)。Rocket表示，其证券化速度特别快，一些贷款只在其资产负债表上停留一到两周。
The risk, such as it is, then passes to investors in MBS products, typically the big banks and insurers. But most of these products are derisked, too, thanks to government guarantees on “agency” MBS underpinned by the likes of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae.
这样，风险就转嫁给了MBS产品的投资者，通常是大银行和保险公司。但由于政府为房地美、房利美和金利美等“机构”MBS产品提供担保，这些产品中的大部分也都被化解了风险。
Back in 2008, as investors became drawn to the high returns from securitisations, the market created more and more non-agency higher-yielding MBS products. That fuelled more and more poor-quality mortgage lending to sate investor appetite — right up to the market’s infamous implosion.
早在2008年，随着投资者被证券化带来的高回报所吸引，市场创造了越来越多的非机构高收益MBS产品。这进一步刺激了更多低质量的抵押贷款，以满足投资者的需求，直到市场出现臭名昭著的崩溃。
Today the appeal of higher-risk non-agency MBS seems to be growing again: issuance is at its highest level since 2008, though at 8.4 per cent of the total, compared with a tally of more than 50 per cent in the run-up to the crisis, it remains low.
如今，风险较高的非机构MBS的吸引力似乎又在增加：发行量达到了2008年以来的最高水平，尽管只占总量的8.4%，与危机爆发前超过50%的发行量相比，仍然很低。
In other words, the US government is underpinning, directly or indirectly, more than 90 per cent of mortgage risk. The market structure of the US home loan — that American dream essential — may or may not be imperilled by Trump’s economic iconoclasm. But it’s a long way from the small government to which Republican presidents of all hues have always cleaved.
换句话说，美国政府直接或间接地支撑着逾90%的抵押贷款风险。美国住房贷款的市场结构——这个美国梦的基本要素——可能会受到特朗普经济偶像主义的威胁，也可能不会。但这与历任共和党总统一贯坚持的小政府理念相去甚远。