As 2025 kicks off, DoubleLine presents its assessment of the Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market and provides an update on where the asset class has been and where it could be headed. As DoubleLine has highlighted in the past (in May 2023 and October 2023 pieces) the Agency MBS market has experienced elevated spreads relative to history over the past few years. While excess returns of Agency MBS have been strong since the last updates – 163 basis points (bps) from May 2023 through December 2024 and 174 bps from October 2023 through December 2024 – there is more room for mortgages to rally.
Mr. Patel joined DoubleLine in 2016 as a Mortgage Trader specializing in Agency RMBS and was later promoted to Portfolio Manager in 2021. Prior to DoubleLine, he worked as a Managing Director responsible for CMO and specified pool trading at Cantor Fitzgerald. Previous to Cantor, Mr. Patel worked as a CMO, ARMs and Specified Pool Trader and Deal Structurer at Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and RBS Greenwich Capital. He holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University and is a CFA® charterholder.
Mr. Shvartser joined DoubleLine in 2020 as an Analyst on the Agency RMBS Team. Prior to DoubleLine, he was with TCW as a Senior Vice President, Investment Analytics. Previous to TCW, Mr. Shvartser was a Quantitative Analyst, focused on portfolio and risk management infrastructure at ICE Canyon. Prior to ICE Canyon, he was Vice President at BlackRock in the Financial Modeling Group, focused on quantitative corporate credit and commercial mortgage backed securities modeling. Mr. Shvartser holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology and a MS in Mathematics in Finance from New York University.
