Business is booming at government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae, even as its issue of securities tumbled in July, the company said in its latest monthly report. The GSE said its business grew at an annual rate of 10.1 percent in July, and its loan-purchase commitments leapt 42 percent to $103.6 billion, possible reflecting the recent upswing in residential purchases across the country. Though Fannie did not report the number of mortgage refinances that accounted for its volume, its federal conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Authority, confirmed that the company bought 254,317 refinancings in July. However, the news wasn’t all good at the GSEs last week. Fannie said its portfolio’s total value was still 20 percent below its purchase value. The firm also revealed it had issued $79.7 billion in mortgage-backed securities on the month — down 39 percent from its $130 billion total for June, a possible sign that investors are not yet fully sold on the soundness of the firm’s offerings.

Mortgage purchaser Freddie Mac, too, bore some tough news, disclosing last Tuesday that its portfolio had dropped at an annual rate of almost 45 percent in July, and delinquency rates were on the rise. The firms’ reports came on the heels of big gains for both their stocks in August. As DS news previously reported, the GSEs saw their shares increase roughly 300 percent in value on the New York Stock Exchange since the month’s start, puzzling analysts who believe their debt obligations to the federal government make the stocks’ effective values close to zero. “It’s very hard to come up with scenarios where they’re worth any money,” Bose George, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, told the Washington Post.