Company: MITN
Filing Date: 2025-11-07
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001628280-25-050624
Chunk: 201

Company: AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-11-07
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 1
Chunk 201
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 is highly sensitive to many factors, including governmental monetary, fiscal and tax policies, domestic and international economic and political considerations and other factors beyond our control. We are subject to interest rate risk in connection with both our investments and the financing under our financing arrangements. We generally seek to manage this risk by monitoring the reset index and the interest rate related to our investment portfolio and our financings; by structuring our financing arrangements to have a range of maturity terms, amortizations and interest rate adjustment periods; and by using derivative instruments to adjust interest rate sensitivity of our investment portfolio and borrowings. Our hedging techniques can be highly complex, and the value of our investment portfolio and derivatives may be adversely affected as a result of changing interest rates. 

Interest rate effects on net interest income

Our operating results depend in large part upon differences between the yields earned on our investments and our cost of borrowing and upon the effectiveness of our interest rate hedging activities. The majority of our financing arrangements are short term in nature, exclusive of our residential mortgage loans financed through securitized debt. Repurchase agreements financing our securities portfolio or retained interests from our securitizations typically have an initial term between 30 and 90 days while repurchase agreements financing our residential mortgage loans prior to securitization have an initial term of one year. The financing rate on these agreements will generally be determined at the outset of each transaction by reference to prevailing rates plus a spread. As a result, our borrowing costs will tend to increase during periods of rising interest rates as we renew, or "roll", maturing transactions at the higher prevailing rates. When combined with the fact that the income we earn on our fixed interest rate investments will remain substantially unchanged, this will result in a narrowing of the net interest spread between the related assets and borrowings and may even result in losses. 

In an attempt to offset the increase in funding costs related to rising interest rates, our Manager may cause us to enter into hedging transactions structured to provide us with positive cash flow in the event interest rates rise. Our Manager accomplishes this through the use of interest rate derivatives. Some hedging strategies involving the use of derivatives are highly complex, may produce volatile returns and may expose us to increased risks relating to counterparty defaults.

Interest rate effects on fair value

Another component of interest rate risk is the effect that changes in interest rates will have on the fair value of the assets that we acquire.

Generally, in a rising interest rate environment, the fair value of our loan and real estate securities portfolios would be