Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT (NYSE:EARN) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call August 11, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jason Frank - Deputy General Counsel and Secretary

Larry Penn - Chief Executive Officer

Chris Smernoff - Chief Financial Officer

Mark Tecotzky - Co-Chief Investment Officer

Conference Call Participants

Crispin Love - Piper Sandler

Doug Harter - Credit Suisse

Mikhail Goberman - JMP Securities

Eric Hagen - BTIG

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT 2022 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Jason Frank, Deputy General Counsel and Secretary. Sir, you may begin.

Jason Frank

Thank you, and welcome to Ellington Residential's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements are not historical in nature. As described under Item 1A of our annual report on Form 10-K, forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from its beliefs, expectations, estimates and projections.

Consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Statements made during this conference call are made as of the date of this call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Joining me on the call today are Larry Penn, Chief Executive Officer of Ellington Residential; Mark Tecotzky, our Co-Chief Investment Officer; and Chris Smernoff, our Chief Financial Officer.

As described in our earnings press release, our second quarter earnings conference call presentation is available on our website, earnreit.com. Our comments this morning will track the presentation. Please note that any references to figures in this presentation are qualified in their entirety by the end notes at the back of the presentation.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Larry.

Larry Penn

Thanks, Jay, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and interest in Ellington Residential. To begin, please turn to Slide 3. The Federal Reserve's aggressive response to high inflation continued to drive markets in the second quarter. The Fed twice increased its target rate for the federal funds rate, including a 75 basis point hike in June. That was its largest since 1994. And it also finally initiated the runoff of its treasury and MBS balance sheet. Meanwhile, geopolitical unrest and fears of a recession also weighed heavily on markets.