Walking through my Mistakes with Walker and Dunlop
With the earnings plate of stocks I own full to the brim, it was a bit of a tough week to be away. The consequence was that I was not able to review many of the reports and conference calls until this weekend, and in a few cases the stocks suffered significant drops in the interim.
This was the case for Walker & Dunlop, the commercial mortgage originator that I’ve owned for the last four months. In my original and follow up post on the company I described the investment thesis as being based in part on the continuation of their history of growth as a multi-family lender, and in part based on their relatively recent relationship with Fortress Investment Group, who I expected to open a few new doors for the company.
One door was opened in the first quarter with the initiation of an $850 million bridge lending program aimed at borrowers who would eventually qualify for Fannie, Freddie, CMBS or HUD channels. This is a solid step for the company as it opens up another destination for its originations, but at 8% of loan volumes its not a game changer. Read more
Reminiscences of a Stockblogger 