Michael Canter, PhD

Michael Canter, PhD

Director; Chief Investment Officer—Securitized Assets

15 Years at AB
28 Years of experience

Michael Canter is a Senior Vice President and Director of Securitized Assets at AB, heading the portfolio-management and research teams for these strategies. In addition, he is a portfolio manager for multi-sector fixed-income portfolios. Canter’s focus includes his role as the Chief Investment Officer of AB’s Securitized Assets Fund. His team is responsible for AB’s investments in agency mortgage-backed securities, credit risk–transfer securities, non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations and other asset-backed securities. Canter has particularly extensive expertise in residential mortgages. In 2009, AB was selected by the US Department of the Treasury to manage one of nine Legacy Securities Public-Private Investment Program funds; he was the CIO of that AB-managed fund. In addition, Canter was called upon to give expert testimony to the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in 2013 and the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance in 2017 on how US housing policy should be structured going forward. Prior to joining AB in 2007, he was the president of ACE Principal Finance, a division of ACE Limited (now Chubb). There, Canter managed portfolios of credit default swaps, asset-backed securities, mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. He holds a BA in math and economics from Northwestern University and a PhD in finance from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Location: New York

GSE Reform Lumbers Up to the Starting Gate

by Michael S. Canter

Momentum is finally building to do something with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bipartisan Corker-Warner proposal, now making the rounds on Capitol Hill, aims to dissolve the GSEs and start fresh. Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie are testing innovative mortgage-security structures that transfer the risk of borrower defaults to the private sector.

Fixed Income


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US Housing Finance: Our Vision for a Privately Led System

by Douglas J. Peebles, Michael S. Canter, Matthew D. Bass

There’s a growing consensus today that the US government’s huge footprint in the $10.5 trillion mortgage market needs to shrink, with the private sector taking the lead. But there is less agreement on how the transition to a new system should take place. Here’s our perspective as investors in the mortgage market on what is needed to get the ball rolling.

Financial Law and Regulation, Fixed Income


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US Housing Finance: Let's Put Quality Before Quantity

by Douglas J. Peebles, Michael S. Canter, Matthew D. Bass

The US government’s housing finance policies in recent decades can be summarized by one simple phrase: quantity over quality. The implicit goal was to increase the quantity of housing finance by keeping mortgage rates low and promoting wider home ownership. For several decades, the system worked. But if we view the long-term stability of home prices as one measure of the quality of housing finance, those policies now don’t look so successful.

Financial Law and Regulation, Fixed Income


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US Housing Finance: Is Government Involvement Necessary?

by Douglas J. Peebles, Michael S. Canter

A debate is raging about whether the US government’s significant role in housing finance is sustainable. In future articles, I will explain in detail why we believe the private sector needs to play a greater role in the future of housing finance. But for now, let’s take a step back and ask a key question. Is government involvement in the US housing market necessary at all?

Multi-Asset


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