BALTIMORE -- The chief executive of Fannie Mae said on Tuesday that he expects no real recovery for the U.S. housing market before 2010.

"We are going to have a period where we move through the trough," Daniel Mudd, Fannie Mae's chief executive officer, told a meeting of business reporters.

This year "is going to be tough" and next year "will be similar," Mudd told the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

"You will start to see some recovery in (2010)," he said.

Fannie Mae is the largest U.S. source of mortgage finance. While the company has made relatively conservative mortgage bets, it has faced multibillion-dollar losses in recent quarters as the number of home foreclosures has soared.

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The company is due to announce first-quarter results on May 6.

"I think that a lot of stability is coming back into the capital markets section of this story," he said, but added that consumer markets will lag financial markets in a future recovery.

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