Reuters:
The portfolio decreased to $743.7 billion in January from $755.3 billion the previous month, the McLean, Virginia-based company said in its monthly volume summary.

Delinquencies, which increase stress on the company's capital, jumped to 4.03 percent of its book of business in January from 3.87 percent in December. One year earlier the rate was 1.98 percent.

The multifamily delinquency rate was unchanged month-over-month in January, at 0.15 percent, but up from 0.03 percent a year earlier.

Reuters (2/24/2010):
Freedie Mac, the second-largest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funds, on Wednesday said it lost $7.8 billion in the fourth quarter and warned it would need to tap more government funds this quarter as the housing market remains fragile.
 
The government-controlled entity said its loss came as rising defaults kept credit-related expenses elevated at $7.1 billion and as it wrote down the value of low-income tax credit partnership investments.
 
The loss was $6.5 billion before a $1.3 billion dividend payment on senior preferred stock owned by the U.S. Treasury.
 
Freddie Mac has been struggling to contain losses sustained from its massive exposure to the U.S. housing market that is in the throes of its worst downturn since the 1930s. Fearing that losses would harm Freddie Mac's ability to support housing, the government placed the company into conservatorship in September 2008 and recently pledged unlimited financial backing.

Serious delinquencies on mortgages guaranteed by Freddie Mac jumped to 3.87 percent as of December from 3.33 percent in the third quarter, and 1.72 percent at the end of 2008. As in previous periods, Freddie Mac said the delinquencies, and related costs, rose as government and other loss mitigation programs extended the foreclosure process.

Freddie Mac said it made errors in calculating prospective losses, requiring it to revise results for the first three quarters of 2009 and increase its third-quarter credit loss provision by $396 million.

While Freddie has managed three straight quarters without tapping the Treasury credit line, it said changes to accounting rules adopted in 2010 would likely result in another trip to Uncle Sam in the current quarter.

Frank told a U.S. House Financial Services Committee that he

rescheduled the hearing from March 2 to allow for a field hearing on

commercial fishing issues in Massachusetts, and to allow the Obama

administration more time to prepare for the hearing.