Patrick Harden

Why I'm Long Mortgage REIT Chimera

I'm not entirely sure that I buy into Annaly's divide and conquer methodology on the distressed debt orgy. First of all, they were way too early in effectively calling the non-agency backed RMBS bottom with the Chimera IPO. On the heels of that disaster, Annaly now has another spinoff for the commercial side of the house in CreXus (how do you even pronounce that?).

I'm not convinced that the Annaly machine has enough experience outside of the agency arena to run either REIT, frankly. Chimera's only defensive strategy during the 2008 crisis was to launch one dilutive secondary after another -- perhaps just throwing good money after bad in an attempt to bury bad paper deep in the portfolio.

I think investors stand a better shot with Redwood Trust (RWT), which has much more relevant experience in non-agency MBS than Chimera & crew. Even one of the newly launched vulture REITs will have a cleaner balance sheet and less share dilution.