5. For more information on the conservatorship, see U.S. Treasury Support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mortgage Market Note 10-1.

6. On November 25, 2008, the Federal Reserve announced a program to purchase the direct obligations of housing-related GSEs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank. The debt purchases, in combination with a larger program to purchase agency MBS, were designed to “reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for the purchase of houses.” The purchases of housing-related enterprise direct obligations were intended to narrow the spreads between rates on these direct obligations and U.S. Treasury debt. Purchases were executed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with their primary dealers. The GSE direct obligation purchase program was initially sized at up to $100 billion and was increased up to $200 billion on March 18, 2009. On November 9, 2009 the size was revised down to “about $175 billion” due to the limited availability of agency debt for purchases. During the program, the Federal Reserve purchased fixed-rate, noncallable, senior securities offered through Fannie Mae’s Benchmark Note Program, Freddie Mac’s Reference Note program, and the Federal Home Loan Bank’s Global program. The last Federal Reserve purchase was on March 24, 2010, which brought cumulative purchases to $172 billion.