There is no way in hell there is a settlement before the election. The optics look horrific, especially with the yellow press about Freddie and the Kushner multifamily loans.
I would also be very surprised if there is a PSPA amendment pre-election, for the same reasons. The reason being it's too to cast as a windfall for security holders. B/c make no mistake, GSE securities would fly on either (some chance the common could decline on a PSPA amendment but why chance it).
Meanwhile, there is still work to be done. The capital rule has to be finalized. Maybe the Freddie stuff is what Calabria means about being bad corporate citizens.
Besides, Mnuchin is basically running the government. Congress, China, stimulus, the economy, he's doing it all. Where is the facetime for FHFA and settlement and all the provisions that would probably accompany a PSPA amendment?
Post election, different story. There is still a month between the election and the Court. That's plenty of time to settle and in fact the government has settled other cases in the weeks before oral argument, so it wouldn't be unprecedented either. Then nobody cares about the optics.
If they had led with courage they'd likely be monetizing warrants at this moment to pay for a politically beneficial program of their preference.
Rather mnuchin hid behind lawyers the past 20months post-watt and fought to further legitimize the illegal and/or unethical NWS.
Could cost them the election when combined with the housing stimulus a semi-capitalized FnF would have provided in 2020.
