Welcome to The S-Curve
Now you will be able to receive the latest announcements, product updates, and our insights on the mortgage market in real time.
The name of the blog, the S-Curve, is a reflection of our logo and the central feature of our prepayment model. S-curves are seen in nature in many phenomenon, from population growth to prepayment and default models. Our first S-curve, in the early 1990s, used the arctangent function, then piece-wise linear functions, and evolved over time to be more complex and vary by FICO, loan size and LTV. This evolution encapsulates both the timeless nature of fundamental relationships and constant innovation to describe them better over time.
We hope you find the information useful and we look forward to your feedback.
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AD&Conversations: CIS Pilot ProjectPodcastTune in to our fourth episode of AD&Conversations with Kevin Lin and Eknath Belbase, our product lead for our Climate model. In this episode, they discuss the new Climate Impact Suite (CIS) pilot project, and Belbase outlines several challenges the team is navigating, including:
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Helping users become familiar with climate-related casualty data
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Identifying the most suitable scenarios to use
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Determining the best way to visualize the results
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Andrew Davidson Guest Speaker on Equifax's Market Pulse PodcastPodcast
Andrew Davidson was invited to speak on Equifax's Market Pulse Podcast titled, "Driving Efficiency and Resilience in the Mortgage Industry" live at the 2025 MBA Annual Convention in Las Vegas.
Andy explains how variations in data files can distort risk assessment, creating a dual risk for lenders: extending credit to borrowers more likely to default while overcharging customers whose risk is overstated.
Click here to learn more.
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Policy Perspectives - Housing Market Dynamics and Mortgage RiskThoughtsOur latest Policy Perspective written by Richard Cooperstein offers an analysis of the U.S. housing and mortgage finance markets, focusing on key trends and forward-looking risks. While housing markets are not fully efficient, they do respond to economic imbalances which create opportunities and vulnerabilities. This article explores how demographic shifts, credit access, interest rates, and climate risks shape both housing demand and supply.
Key findings include:
- Weak demand fundamentals, especially among new homeowners
- Easing supply shortages and slowing price growth
- Elevated risk of broader housing price declines amid rising recession concerns
- Notable exposure of higher-coupon mortgages and servicing rights to interest rate and credit risks
Cooperstein also assess the resilience of mortgage-related assets under current and projected conditions.
Click here to read now!
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AD&Conversations: Exploring KineticsPodcastJoin Kevin Lin in a conversation with Richard Cooperstein as they dive into Kinetics, AD&Co's modular platform designed to deliver the full power of our models and analytics; with the flexibility to license only the tools you need. In this interview, they unpack insights from Eric Limjoco's recent Pipeline article, "Driving Sharper Insights with the Kinetics Reporting Engine," and share a sneak peek into what's coming with the Kinetics 2.0 release.
As a seasoned internal power user, Richard shares why this upgrade is an innovative enhancement for delivering comprehensive solutions across the mortgage space.
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Policy Perspectives - Competing Claims In Privatization Of Fannie Mae And Freddie MacThoughtsThe latest Policy Perspectives paper “Competing Claims in Privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” is now available!
Nearly 20 years ago, on September 6, 2008, the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entered conservatorship. Since that time there have been many proposals to restructure, eliminate or release the GSEs. Once again there is talk about the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Privatization faces many hurdles both political and financial. In his article, Andrew Davidson looks at some of the financial considerations and shows that any solution will require a compromise between competing financial claims.
Click here to read now!
The S-Curve Archives
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News
We’re excited to announce a major addition to the Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) team. Industry leaders Kelli Sayres and Gene Park, known for building and scaling leading fixed-income analytics platforms, have joined AD&Co’s Business Development team.
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ThoughtsBuilding on our earlier research on expanded consumer attributes, AD&Co continues to explore how credit data contributes to modeling delinquency and prepayment risk, which are key drivers of mortgage servicing rights cash flows and valuation.
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EventsAndrew Davidson recently joined NFM Lending’s Greg Sher on the One On One podcast to discuss our recent white paper, “The Impact of Moving Away From the Tri-Merge Standard.”
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EventsAD&Co recently sponsored and attended SFVegas 2026 and Optimal Blue Summit 2026. This post shares the AD&Co team's unique perspectives and key takeaways from attending both conferences.
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NewsAD&Co US Mortgage High Yield Indices
The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) portal, housed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has been publishing AD&Co’s CRT indices since 2019. These series posted under the overall name of “US Mortgage High-Yield” include total return rates and credit and option-adjusted spreads (crOAS) – a projected return’s spread over Treasury (in the past, Libor). These series are available going back to 2014-end and tiered by CRT initial supports.
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ThoughtsIn July 2025, the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the government-sponsored entities (the Enterprises or GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would permit lenders to choose between Classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0 credit score models for loans sold to the GSEs. FHFA also stated in a social media post that the tri-merge standard would be maintained for mortgage underwriting. Nevertheless, some mortgage industry stakeholders recommend moving away from the tri-merge standard for GSE mortgages in favor of a single or bi-merge report standard.
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News
As housing faces more climate threats that result in more losses, the insurance program that it sits on is teetering on the brink of collapse. Yet, the home insurance market has three distinct stakeholders that have competing priorities, and today, there is no motivation for a collaborative solution.
Understanding how to strengthen and protect the current structure requires looking at the cost burdens along with the risk for each of those parties.
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ThoughtsThere has been a flurry of activity in the mortgage markets since the 2018 passage of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. This act requires the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA, now known as US Federal Housing) to validate and modernize the credit score models used in the housing finance system. It should be noted that so far, the discourse has been around mortgages sold to the Enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Ginnie Mae has not provided any guidance on their plans to start using new credit score models.
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EventsAndrew Davidson & Co., Inc (AD&Co) proudly sponsored IMN’s 11th Annual Mortgage Servicing Rights (MSR) Forum by Informa at the New York Hilton Midtown. Senior modeler Daniel Swanson joined the “Managing Delinquencies & Forbearance Value” panel in discussing how servicers are adapting to today’s market and the evolving delinquency trends.
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PodcastTune in to our fourth episode of AD&Conversations with Kevin Lin and Eknath Belbase, our product lead for our Climate model. In this episode, they discuss the new Climate Impact Suite (CIS) pilot project, and Belbase outlines several challenges the team is navigating, including: