Pulte’s Bag of Tricks

While covering FICO’s FY 3Q’26 earnings, I wrote: “…there is no doubt that Pulte’s FHFA is overtly hostile to FICO and perhaps investors are concerned that Pulte may have more tricks in his bag to truly hurt FICO’s compounding machine.”

On Thursday evening last week, Pulte pulled a few of those tricks out of his bag. For a change, he actually first took aim at the credit bureaus and posted the following on X:

“Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have been overcharging Americans for far too long. This will end soon. We are seriously considering bi-merge, and stronger solutions (SAFER and SOUNDER). We will not allow companies to take advantage of American consumers. No more.”

In case FICO shareholders felt left out, four minutes later Pulte posted a separate rant about FICO:

Since 2020, FICO has increased the price per a person’s credit score by 1,800%. FICO has enjoyed a monopoly. No more.

Fannie and Freddie’s initial rollout of VantageScore has been incredibly successful, with 50 LENDERS DELIVERING LOANS. So, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, I’m instructing Fannie and Freddie to approve ALL lenders to use VantageScore.

Pulte wasn’t done yet. The next morning, he floated the possibility of just one credit report instead of three (the status quo) or even the two he suggested the night before.

FICO stock cratered more than 20% following the series of tweets and despite regaining a bit by the close, the stock is still down ~45% YTD. I will elaborate more about the stock price reaction and some implications for Pulte’s bag of tricks behind the paywall.

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