Good morning and welcome to the AGNC Investment Corp. First Quarter 2026 Shareholder Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Katie Turlington in Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you all for joining A&C Investment Corp's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call and corresponding slide presentation contains statements that, to the extent they are not reputations of historical facts, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are intended to be subject to the safe harbor protection provided by the Reform Act. Actual outcomes and results could differ materially from those forecasts due to the impact of many factors beyond the control of AGMC. All forward-looking statements included in this presentation are made only as of the date of this presentation and are subject to change without notice. Certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements are included in AGMC's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies are available on the SEC's website at sec.gov. We disclaim any obligation to update our forward-looking statements unless required by law. Participants on the call include Peter Federico, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer, Bernie Bell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Reed, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development. With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter Federico.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining our first quarter earnings conference call. Agency MBS performance in the first quarter was driven by two very divergent investment themes. In January and February, the administration's focus on reducing interest rate volatility, maintaining mortgage spread stability, and improving housing affordability drove strong performance across the fixed income markets. Agency MBS performance was particularly strong during this period as President Trump's January 8th directive instructing the GSEs to purchase $200 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities pushed spreads through the lower end of the recent three-year trading range. In March, however, uncertainty associated with the war in Iran and the potential for a more widespread conflict in the Middle East caused interest rate volatility to increase, investor sentiment to turn negative, and agency MBS spreads to widen significantly. As a result, AGNC's economic return in the first quarter was negative 1.6%. Despite the spread widening to swaps quarter over quarter, agency MBS outperformed U.S. Treasuries and investment-grade corporate bonds in the first quarter, again demonstrating the diversification benefits of this unique high-credit-quality fixed-income asset class. At the beginning of the year, I discussed a number of factors that we believe would benefit agency MBS performance in 2026. Among these were low interest rate volatility and an accommodative monetary policy stance. In the first quarter, however, the Middle East conflict caused interest rate volatility to increase and Fed rate cuts to become more uncertain. While the duration and economic implications of the conflict are still unknown, recent developments are encouraging, and these factors could once again be positive catalysts for agency MBS performance. More importantly, many of the other factors that I discussed actually improved in the first quarter and now further strengthened the outlook for agency MBS. Most notably, at current spread levels, the return profile on agency MBS is more attractive. At the time of our fourth quarter earnings conference call, the spread differential between current coupon MBS and a blend of swaps was 135 basis points. Over the last two months, that spread has ranged between 150 and 175 basis points as a result of heightened geopolitical and macroeconomic risks. we believe agency MBS in this spread range represent compelling value on both an absolute and relative basis the supply outlook for agency MBS also improved in the first quarter at the start of the year the net new supply of agency MBS was expected to be approximately 250 billion assuming a mortgage rate of just below six percent with mortgage rates now about 50 basis points higher mbs supply could be 50 to 70 billion dollars lower this year the demand outlook for agency mbs improved in the first quarter as well money manager demand for mbs increased materially in the first quarter as bond fund inflows came in about double the pace of the previous two years U.S. bank regulators also released their proposed bank regulatory capital framework for comment. As expected, the proposal includes lower capital requirements for high-quality mortgage credit. These favorable capital requirements could lead banks to retain a greater share of mortgage credit in whole loan form or to utilize the private label securitization path to a greater extent, thereby reducing the GFC footprint over time finally with mortgage spreads wider and the mortgage rate now in the low to mid 6% range the administration may take further actions to improve housing affordability such actions could include more aggressive GSE purchases or increases in GSE portfolio size limits either or both of these actions would benefit mortgage performance in addition while the funding markets for agency MBS are deep and liquid further actions by the Fed to improve the functionality and accessibility of the standing repo program could also be catalysts for tighter mortgage spreads and lower mortgage rates in summary although the sharp increase in geopolitical and macroeconomic risk creates a more challenging investment environment over the near term the return profile and technical backdrop for agency mortgage backed securities improved in the first quarter in addition actions by the administration to improve housing affordability are more likely as we are continually reminded market conditions change quickly a prompt resolution to the middle east conflict while at times difficult to predict could lead to a substantial reduction in volatility and inflationary pressures collectively these conditions support our favorable outlook for agency mortgage-backed securities moreover agnc remains well positioned to capitalize on these favorable conditions and build upon our lengthy track record of generating strong risk-adjusted returns for our stockholders over a wide range of market cycles. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bernie Bell to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, Peter. For the first quarter, AGNC reported a comprehensive loss of $0.18 per common share. Our economic return on tangible common equity was negative 1.6% for the quarter, consisting of $0.36 of dividends declared per common share and a $0.50 decrease in tangible net book value per share, driven by wider mortgage spreads to benchmark rates. As of late last week, our tangible net book value per common share was up approximately 6% for April, or 5% net of our monthly dividend accrual. With the recovery in April through the end of last week, our tangible net book value has now largely reversed the first quarter decline. We ended the first quarter with leverage of 7.4 times tangible equity, up slightly from 7.2 times as of Q4, while average leverage for the quarter was unchanged at 7.4 times. We also ended the quarter with a significant liquidity position of $7 billion of unencumbered cash and agency MBS representing 60% of tangible equity. Net spread in dollar roll income was $0.42 per common share for the quarter, up $0.07 from the fourth quarter. The increase was largely due to a 25-basis point increase in our net interest spread, which was driven by a combination of a greater allocation of interest rate swaps in our hedge portfolio, lower repo funding costs, more favorable TVA implied financing levels, and a modest increase in the yield on our asset portfolio. Our quarter-over-quarter results also benefited from reduced compensation expense, as our fourth-quarter results included year-end incentive compensation accrual adjustments. The average projected life CPR of our portfolio increased 70 basis points to 10.3% at quarter-end, from 9.6% as of Q4. The increase was largely due to prepayment model updates implemented in the first quarter and portfolio composition changes, partly offset by higher mortgage rates. Actual CPRs averaged 13.2% for the quarter, compared to 9.7% in the prior quarter. Lastly, during the first quarter, we issued $401 million of common equity through our at-the-market offering program at a significant premium to tangible netbook value per share, continuing our active capital management strategy and generating meaningful accretion for our common stockholders. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Peter to discuss our portfolio.

Thank you, Bernie. Agency MBS performance varied meaningfully by coupon and hedge type in the first quarter low coupon MBS meaningfully outperformed high coupon MBS due to heavy index buying from money managers in response to outsized bond fund inflows this variation in performance by coupon was significant with lower coupon MBS tightening about 10 basis points to treasuries during the quarter while higher coupon MBS widened about five basis points on average MBS performance also varied materially by hedge type that swap spreads tightened during the quarter 10-year swap spreads for example tightened by almost 10 basis points as a result an mbs position hedged with a 10-year pay fixed swap versus a 10-year treasury experienced spread widening of about 10 basis points all else equal this tightening in swap spreads was directly related to Middle East uncertainty. The market value of our portfolio totaled $95 billion at quarter end. During the quarter, we purchased $1.7 billion of predominantly low coupon-specified pools. In addition, we rotated a portion of our portfolio down in coupon. Consistent with these changes, the weighted average coupon on our portfolio declined to 4.95% from 5.12% the prior quarter. And the percentage of our assets with favorable prepayment characteristics increased slightly to 77%. The notional balance of our hedge portfolio increased to $64 billion due to the addition of shorter-term pay-fix swaps prior to the sharp sell-off in interest rates in March. We also reduced our exposure to Treasury-based hedges during the quarter. As a result, in duration dollar terms, our swap hedge allocation increased to 78% from 70% the prior quarter. Lastly, in the current environment, we continue to favor operating with a positive duration gap, which we view as additional prepayment protection in a downrate scenario. With that, we'll now open the call up to your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Good morning, Boz. Peter, you mentioned for spreads that you compared the spread level at the earnings call last time with where it is now. But if you compare it from the end of the fourth quarter to where it is now, are the returns, you know, pretty comparable? And what does the ROE, you know, currently imply?

Yeah, thanks for that question, Boz. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. In fact, Bernie mentioned that our year-to-date book value is almost unchanged from the end of the fourth quarter. So when you think back about where mortgage spreads were, again, I always kind of refer to them off the current coupon to the blend of the swap curve. But they were right in that neighborhood of around 150 basis points. And then when we got the announcement on the purchases from the GSEs, It really pushed them, as you recall, about 15, maybe 16 basis points tighter, got us down to the 135 level. And now we're right back to where we were this morning. There were about 151 basis points. And at that level, that's the swap curve. The current coupon to Treasuries is about 120 or so basis points to the curve, not to a specific point on the Treasury curve. But you're looking at, you know, an average spread of somewhere between 140 and 150, depending on what amount of swaps we use. And at that level, I would say returns are kind of broadly in the 15% to 17% range, centered right around 16%, which, you know, aligns pretty well with our total cost of capital.

Okay, great. And then it looks like specialness, you know, improved a little bit. Can you just talk about, you know, that and, you know, how much of a contribution that is now?

Yeah, no, that's a very significant change from what we've really observed over the last couple of years. The TBA position, we've talked about it, our TBA position has not been very significant because the implied financing levels on TBA have really been unattractive, and in fact, for a lot of the last two years, TBA implied financing levels were well through, in some cases the repo levels and that really dates back to the the the regional banking crisis in 2023 where it was the combination of the regional banking crisis it was QT it was regulation it was just a lot of things putting a lot of pressure on balance sheets and that really had an implication for TVA funding what we've seen is a lot of that pressure easing and we really got the benefit of it in the in the fourth quarter obviously the Fed has stopped QT importantly at the end of last year they started reserve management purchases and growing their balance sheet would really eased funding pressures they rebranded the standing repo facility to be the standing repo program and then of course we now as we expected got reform to the original Basel Endgame all those things have been really positive for funding reducing balance sheet constraints and as a result the TBA and five implied financing levels are generally back to through or equal to to repo levels and in fact for several coupons they've actually been been meaningfully better than TBA finances so we were able to take advantage of that in the first quarter with our TV position we actually had both longs and shorts in our TVA position which contributed to the uptick in our dollar roll income so we expect these implied financing levels to sort of remain in this level in this area so it's a new opportunity for us that we haven't had over the last couple years okay great thanks sure the next question comes from Crispin love with

Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Kristen. Thanks, Peter. Good morning. Just on poor earnings, next red dollar roll income, very strong in the first quarter. I think highest since a year ago. Can you just discuss some of the dynamics there, the sustainability? Yields higher, costs are lower. You just did mention some of those financing dynamics. But I think that's even if you're just going a little bit down in coupons. So just as you look forward, would you expect poor earnings to compress a little bit closer to the dividend, just any thoughts there?

Yeah, great question. You're right. When you think about our net spread and dollar roll income and our margin, as Bernie mentioned, it did increase 25 basis points to 206. And if you think about that on a return on equity basis, that's really close to 20%. I would describe that as being above the long-run economics of the current environment but you know if you're looking for sort of a range and we talked about this one when our next friend dollar roll income was down around 35 36 cents we said generally that we thought it was going to move up and so I would say that you know probably a good range of expectation over the relatively near terminus several quarters would be high 30s and low 40s and you know some of the things that we talked about, you know, definitely showed up, particularly, as I just mentioned, the same benefits that we saw in the PBA implied financing levels. Obviously, that's a tailwind now. But just more broadly and more importantly, the easing of repo pressures that we, you know, thanks to the Fed and their activities really made a big difference. If you recall we were seeing real significant month end and quarter end pricing pressure in the repo market that has abated and repo is now trading right where the Fed wants it in the middle of the Fed funds target obviously the timing of capital raises and how we deploy that capital can have a little bit of period the period implications but but generally speaking I I feel like the you know the range that I talked about is probably the right range somewhere in the in the high 30s low 40s in terms of net spread dollar roll income that makes sense and then just on hedging hedge ratio it kicked up a little bit but still fairly

low when you look at historical levels and just in the today's environment the war rate fall the administration being supportive of the housing sectors how comfortable are you with the current levels in that 65 to 75 percent range versus if you're going to go back a little bit, you were in that 90% plus in the past.

Well, it goes back to really what we talked about in the fourth quarter is we were positioned, and we still are positioned. You're right. Our hedge ratio increase, and the hedge ratio that I'd like to look at is the one net of our receiver swaptions, which is about 83%. And that tells you that we are still positioned to benefit from lower short-term rates, meaning that if short-term rates go down, we ultimately could close that hedge ratio. And we did some of that in the first quarter because there was a period of time in the first quarter where, if you recall, the two-year rate and two-year swap spreads really got down into the, I think they dropped down to around 318 maybe, then it was the lowest rate. So, not that far off of where the Fed's neutral target is. Obviously, that's not known right now, but it's probably somewhere in the right around 3% as the Fed's neutral target. So, as short-term rates approach that long-run neutral target, it would make sense for us to close our hedge ratio and move higher, essentially lock in that data funding. Obviously, there's a lot more uncertainty about the direction of short-term rates right now. In fact, during the first quarter, we went from pricing in two eases at least to, in fact, at one point during the quarter when the war got really going, there was expectation of Fed tightening. So we have more uncertainty on that, but still, long run, we think that this ultimately will be resolved and that some of the underlying fundamentals will come back and that the Fed and we'll ultimately adopt a more accommodative monetary policy stance later in the quarter, and we should stand to benefit from that. So I would describe us as sort of as neutral right now in terms of changes to our heads position, but we did close it a little bit when we had the opportunity.

Great. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate you taking my questions.

Yep. The next question comes from Marissa Lobo with UBS. Please go ahead. Good morning, Marissa.

Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. So how do you think about optimal leverage in a policy-supportive environment, but where near-term volatility keeps remaining a recurring feature?

Yeah, certainly an important question in today's environment. I guess I would start by saying, you know, from our perspective, when we think about our leverage, we obviously are thinking about our leverage and setting our leverage according to the spread range that we expect to be operating in, and we saw that really play out really well for us in terms of being well-positioned for the volatility and the spread volatility that we incurred in the first quarter. Obviously, you saw us grow our portfolio, and the key as a levered investor is you want to make sure that you have sufficient excess liquidity to withstand all of the uncertainty and stressful environments that we ultimately encounter on a regular basis and not have to change the asset composition not have to deliver your portfolio and we've been able to successfully do that because we sized our position accordingly and you know during the quarter for example our our leverage sort of stayed right in this range maybe maybe got as low as seven and maybe got as high as seven and a half and so we have to wait and see how the environment unfolds obviously there's a lot that can change a lot that will change over the next quarter or two both with respect to the economic outlook the monetary policy outlook the geopolitical uncertainty that we face and then the administration and what actions that they may take that will ultimately impact housing affordably all those will go to inform us as to what the right the right leverage level is but importantly we are able to operate now in today's environment where spreads are in particularly since spreads have widened with a very reasonable leverage position and still generate excellent returns for shareholders that gives us a lot of ability what we're trying to do is we're trying to generate the best return we can while putting ourselves in a position to preserve book value across a wide range of market conditions so we're always trying to optimize that we will be informed over time whether or not we have to take our leverage up or take our leverage down based on the market conditions and the stability of spreads if we get the war resolved if the inflation pressures come down feds more accommodative and importantly the administration goes back to focusing as they were on interest rate volatility and reducing interest rate quality and importantly reducing agency spread volatility then ultimately it would be a you know a favorable environment we could operate with potentially a leverage profile but we certainly like the leverage profile that we're operating right now thank you for that I'm moving to GFC activity and it's been framed as more opportunistic than programmatic how does that shape your trading strategy and your you know coupon selection yeah that's a great question because it goes back to your previous point about leverage you know one of the things that we did expect and it's very difficult to tell what we kind to realize with the GSEs is while they put out their their portfolio numbers through their monthly volume summaries about a month after the fact I don't believe that those numbers capture their TBA position so it's not quite clear exactly what the growth is of the GSEs quarter over quarter but what I would say and I would fully expect and I believe that they would do this is that they would approach this from a really economic perspective and when mortgage spreads widen particularly like they did in March I would expect the GSEs to take advantage of that they're not only putting on more profitable book of business but importantly they're serving a very important role in the market which is to reduce interest rate volatility not excuse me not interest rate but mortgage spread volatility and that ultimately is beneficial to the mortgage rate so I do think that they they would approach it that way from an opportunistic perspective and ultimately the more that they do that the more other capital gets attracted to the to the system and one of the things that really will benefit mortgage rates and mortgage spreads is having a more diverse investor base and we're starting to see that now we're seeing that on the bank side with the changes in bank capital I do believe that banks will be a bigger buyer we're seeing that with money managers we're seeing foreign investors start to come back into the market and obviously to the extent that mortgage spread volatility comes down in part due to the actions of the GSEs that allows more levered money to come into the system, that's a virtuous cycle that will ultimately lead to lower mortgage rates. So I think that's a critical role that the GSEs do play and can continue to play.

Appreciate all the answers.

Yeah.

The next question comes from Trevor Cranston with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

Good morning Trevor.

Hey, good morning Peter. To follow up on the question you were just talking about with leverage, you know, it looks like you guys didn't really add much to the portfolio during the widening in March, at least based on the quarter end numbers. Can you talk about kind of what you would need to see in future belts of volatility in order to, you know, significantly add to the portfolio? and if, you know, if the GSE is sort of being there as a potential buyer and widening scenarios, sort of gives you any added confidence in potentially adding if spreads are to widening again in the future.

Yeah, see, you're right. Our portfolio growth in the first quarter was, as I mentioned, $1.7 billion. And that was through, obviously, the end of the quarter. Obviously, we have seen more stability in the market since quarter-end, importantly, obviously, given the change in tone and what's happening in the conflict. And so to the extent, as I mentioned that in my prepared remarks, to the extent that we continue to see positive developments that will ultimately change the macroeconomic outlook and particularly the inflationary implications, it would be positive from a growth perspective. So, you know, we do, as I mentioned, I do believe that mortgages in this 150 to 160 range where we've been trading are attractive long run. And I do expect mortgage spreads to tighten over time once we have more resolution and once the monetary policy outlook starts to become more clear. So over time, that can all happen. And I do, as I, again, I do think that the GSEs stepping in and buying mortgages when they cheat, if in fact that's what they have done, I think that would ultimately be positive.

That makes sense. And I think you said with the, you know, for the purchases you guys made during the first quarter, they were in lower coupons. Can you just maybe add some detail around that, kind of where you guys are buying in the coupon stack and finding the most value right now?

Yeah, we did both. Our purchases, even though it was less than $2 billion, our purchases were concentrated in lower coupon-specified pools. And importantly, we also did rotate a portion of our portfolio into lower coupons. And the reason why we did that is because we track on almost a daily basis bond fund inflows, and we did see that bond fund inflows were coming in you know materially faster in the first quarter than the previous couple years so we knew that that would ultimately translate to the outperformance of lower coupons and now that has abated somewhat so we know we are always looking for opportunities to move up and coupon move down and coupon be opportunistic we're able to do that in the first quarter to some extent and you know we'll continue to look for opportunities we have seen bond fund inflows starting to actually slow down quite a bit in fact I think quarter to date they're probably running slower than the pace of the previous two years in the second quarter of the year so we'll watch that we'll watch that closely but there was an opportunity in low coupons so we took advantage of that and you know will continue to be opportunistic any follow-up on that Trevor no that's a very helpful thank you okay and our last question comes from the line of Harsh Mnani with Green Street please go ahead thank you Peter maybe can you talk a little bit about the timing of the equity raises last quarter on the prior earnings call it sounded like it would

be more opportunistic, and given everything that happened with spreads this quarter, you know, could you share some color on timing of those equity raises, and then can we expect the rest of the year to be similarly opportunistic?

Yeah, thank you for that, Harsh. Yeah, I think you characterized at least my expectation from the last call that I did. If I go back to the fourth quarter earnings call, I would say that my expectation for the capital issuance would have been a little slower than what we ultimately did. As Bernie mentioned, it was about 400 million in the first quarter. And the reason why that ended up being a little faster than the pace that I had anticipated was obviously I didn't anticipate all of the volatility that we saw. And so having more capital certainly is beneficial from that perspective. But importantly, when you think about the economic benefit to our existing shareholders of that capital it was significant in the first quarter obviously the capital that we raised was a creative from a book value perspective given the fact that we were traded a premium through book but also it was significantly creative from an earnings perspective because we're able to deploy those proceeds and we haven't deployed them all yet by the way but we have deployed most of them we were able to deploy that at returns call it like as I mentioned in around 16 or so percent and you can compare that to what the dividend yield on the stock is around 13 and a half percent so it's a creative from an earnings perspective it's a creative from a book value perspective and having more capital and times of volatility is certainly beneficial and it gives us the opportunity now to take advantage of that we there's a lot of times when the issuance of the capital does not align perfectly from a timing perspective with the deployment of it part of it is our risk management strategy, part of it is trying to be opportunistic, waiting for the right opportunity to deploy those proceeds and assets at really attractive return levels. And so that's the approach we took in the first quarter, and I feel like we're in a good position as we start the second quarter.

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe you talked early in the call about role specialness improving, and that could lead to more TDA in the portfolio. I guess, How are you comparing those put-and-takes versus maybe capitalizing on the better role specialist versus still seeking some pre-payment protection with specified pools?

Yeah. So a couple points there. One, the role specialist may not necessarily translate into a net TBA position that's materially bigger. For example, our average TBA position in the first quarter was, I think, 10.3 versus 9.6 the previous quarter, yet our income was materially higher. And that is because, as I mentioned, we can't have offsetting positions there that will allow us to take advantage of the TBA specialness. In particular, also, not only did conventional TBA-implied specialness levels improve, But we have, as has been the case for now several quarters, there's significant specialness in the GINY market. So we'll continue to do that. You may not necessarily see, though, an uptick in the aggregate size of our TBA position. To your point about specified pools, we obviously still are in this environment very focused on managing prepayment exposure. We do believe that over time, once this uncertainty abates, that prepayment risk will be, you know, sort of our predominant risk. And as I mentioned, we are operating now with, you know, from a positive prepayment pool characteristic perspective, a significant portion of our portfolio, 75, 77% of our portfolio, for example, has some prepayment characteristic that we deem to be valuable. and we will continue to do that what's important is in this environment because TV implied financing levels are where they are we are able to now deploy capital quickly in TVA not lose carry because of the funding levels it gives us more time to then slowly over time rotate out of TVA's into specified pools when those opportunities exist that has not been the case for the last couple years. To have a TBA position while you holding that, while you wait for the opportunity to rotate into specified pools, actually has cost us, Gary. Today in this environment, that's not the case. It gives us a lot of flexibility to deploy capital and then ultimately rotate into specified pools, but we will continue to operate with a high percent of specified pools in this environment. We also, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, will likely continue to operate with a a positive duration gap. In fact, our duration gap in the first quarter was a little higher than what we've reported for the last couple quarters because we do want to position our portfolio to benefit from that in a lower rate scenario.

Good. Thank you.

We have now completed the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Peter Federico for concluding Well, again, I appreciate everybody joining the call this morning.

We look forward to talking to you again after our second quarter.

Thank you for joining the call. You may now disconnect.