Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco today sent to Congress a strategic plan for the next phase of the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises). The plan builds on the Acting Director’s February 2010 letter to Congress on the conservatorships and sets forth objectives and steps FHFA is taking or will take to meet FHFA’s obligations as conservator. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorships Sept. 6, 2008 and have since received more than $180 billion in taxpayer support. FHFA identifies three strategic goals for the next phase of the conservatorships:

-Build: Build a new infrastructure for the secondary mortgage market;
-Contract: Gradually contract the Enterprises’ dominant presence in the marketplace while simplifying and shrinking their operations; and
-Maintain: Maintain foreclosure prevention activities and credit availability for new and refinanced mortgages.

(Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers sealed a 130-billion-euro ($172 billion) bailout for Greece Tuesday to avert a chaotic default in March after persuading private bondholders to take greater losses and Athens to commit to deep cuts.

After 13 hours of talks, ministers finalized measures to cut Greece's debt to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, a fraction above the target, to secure its second rescue in less than two years and meet a bond repayment next month.

By agreeing that the European Central Bank would distribute its profits from bond buying and private bondholders would take more losses, the ministers reduced the debt to a point that should secure funding from the International Monetary Fund and help shore up the 17-country currency bloc.

But the austerity measures wrought from Greece are widely unpopular among the population and may hold difficulties for a country which is due to hold an election in April. Further protests could test politicians' commitment to cuts to wages, pensions and jobs.

There has been a lot of "noise" this week concerning various aspects of the Greek bailout, including a motley influx of headlines about an hour ago. The only market mover of the group is the news that the ECB is airlifting itself off the sinking ship, so to speak. Over the weekend, the ECB will swap out their Greek debt in exchange for similarly-termed debt minus the imminent guaranteed loss and implicit involvement in a private sector bond swap expected to follow Monday's approval of the bailout.

Since the ECB bought these bonds at a discount, they'll have some cash left-over as the bonds are being swapped out at face value. That cash goes back to the various Euro zone states from whence it came. Although the party line is that EU states can do whatever they want with the cash, the tacit instruction from the ECB is "Hey you guys... Here's some cash for you to give to Greece." While simply "giving cash to Greece" may be a gross oversimplification, it's not an inaccurate one.

The idea is that this will not only get the ECB out of dodge ahead of Private sector negotiations, but will also help lessen the haircut requirements that seem to have risen almost uncontrollably (from 50, to 60, and now 70 per cent).

That's what's behind bond-market weakness in a nutshell, not the flowery talk of expected approvals of bailout packages. No one really cares what Euro zone officials THINK will happen with the bailout vote. This ECB swap news is something substantive that markets can sink their teeth into. So far those teeth have taken a bite out of MBS prices, along with Treasuries, but those losses seem to have found some support as markets realize that the news is more about "housekeeping" ahead of next week's events than it is some epic shift in the handling of Greece's bailout.