FICO's worst day since 1989: the toll got repriced before anyone can count it
Fair Isaac shed 26.5% after Rocket made VantageScore 4.0 its fourth-quarter default and TransUnion locked the rival score at 99 cents through 2028. From 19 October, Fannie Mae starts naming the score behind each loan.
Vincent Jiang · 2 min read
Fair Isaac closed at $617.87 on 29 September, down 26.5%, its worst one-day percentage fall since 1989, after the single pricing grid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will use absorbed its rival and a major lender, Rocket Mortgage, made that rival its default 1. An 18% premarket slide 2 became a 29% intraday rout before the close; the stock is down about 64% for 2026 1.
What got repriced is the Scores line: $458.9 million of revenue in the June quarter, about 68% of the company, with business-to-business Scores up 49% on the year, mostly on higher mortgage-origination score pricing 1. The grip ran three decades 3. A rule built it, and Tuesday moved the rule.
Fair Isaac's two biggest revenue quarters came just before the grid opened
Data
| Revenue | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '24 | $453.81M |
| Q4 '24 | $439.97M |
| Q1 '25 | $498.74M |
| Q2 '25 | $536.42M |
| Q3 '25 | $515.75M |
| Q4 '25 | $511.96M |
| Q1 '26 | $691.68M |
| Q2 '26 | $674.19M |
Rocket turned permission into a default
VantageScore 4.0, built by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, had been open to every Fannie and Freddie lender since 9 September 1. Permission was already the market's old news.
The new fact is adoption. Rocket, roughly 5 to 6 percent of U.S. originations on Deutsche Bank's math, will default to VantageScore 4.0 in the fourth quarter for every eligible loan, Fannie, Freddie and VA deliveries included, after testing both models on 1.4 million credit reports 14. Borrowers who saved averaged about $1,600 at closing 4. United Wholesale Mortgage says a quarter of its borrowers already score better on the rival 5.
The price war is pre-committed
TransUnion, one of the three bureaus behind VantageScore, is holding its standalone mortgage score at $0.99 through December 2028, and throws it in free whenever a lender buys a FICO score 16. Barchart puts the FICO mortgage score near $10 7. The unified grid also erases the 20-point handicap VantageScore carried into GSE pricing 5. More than 1,100 mortgage lenders used the score between January and September, nine of TransUnion's 15 largest mortgage customers among them 6.
19 October starts the count
No implementation date exists for the unified grid 1, so displacement is invisible, for now. From 19 October, Fannie Mae's mortgage-backed securities disclosures will name the credit-score model that priced each loan 8: the first countable adoption line. FHA accepts VantageScore-backed collateral from 1 January 2027 6.
The plaintiffs' bar arrived the same evening
Rosen Law Firm opened a securities investigation on the evening of the crash, alleging materially misleading statements to investors 9. Deutsche Bank kept its buy rating while calling Rocket's move meaningfully negative and consequential 3. TD Cowen counters that securitization still demands FICO scores, which could preserve dual-pull volumes 7. Classic FICO also remains required for manually underwritten GSE loans 5. Tuesday repriced a risk nobody can yet count. From 19 October, the count exists.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
