Andrew F. Jacobs
Analyst · KBW
Well, good morning, and welcome to our earnings call. As usual, I'm joined by Robert Spears, our Portfolio Manager; and Phil Reinsch, our CFO. And they will be available after a few opening remarks by myself. For the quarter, we released yesterday, I guess, after the close. We reported $34.9 million for the quarter, which was $0.31 per diluted common share. Our net interest margin for the quarter were $37.9 million, which was slightly smaller than the previous quarter. And we had a smaller portfolio on balance, so we did have a 2-basis-point improvement in our net financing spread to 115 basis points. Portfolio yields averaged 1.73%, which were 3 basis points lower than the fourth quarter, which reflected lower average coupon. I think an important element of it is the yield adjustments from premium amortization represented about 84 basis points during the first quarter, which was the same as it was in the fourth quarter. And this reflected pretty much relatively stable mortgage prepayments, which our CPR for the quarter was 19.65%. I think the positive thing, I think, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter was our repo rate. We did see some more stability in repo rate. Our borrowing costs, including the effect of swaps, decreased 5 basis points to a total of 58 basis points. As I said, lower prevailing mortgage -- lower prevailing repo rates. And I think very important is that we replaced $1.1 billion in interest rate swaps that had run off. During the first quarter, there were 81 basis points, and they were replaced with 100 -- $1.1 billion in other swaps that the average rate was 50 basis points. So that contributed mightily to the improvement in our borrowing cost for the period. Operating cost as a percent of long-term investment capital declined to 77 basis points from 79 in the previous quarter. Portfolio acquisitions during the quarter totaled about a little over $800 million. That's principal amount, while portfolio runoff totaled $810 million, so pretty much a push from what ran off and what we replaced. For the quarter, we ended the quarter at $13.9 billion portfolio. It was leveraged 8.06:1. Net duration gap was 1 month. And on an overall basis, we think -- as we've discussed in our press release, we think that the prepayment levels from here with what's going on, they will be manageable in coming quarters. And overall, I think as you saw, our book value did improve, albeit slightly, to $13.60 at the end of the quarter. And with that, I will open it up to questions.