In addition to focusing on liability management and liquidity, we intend to optimize our investment portfolio, and we will seek opportunities to acquire assets that will improve our returns and liquidity. Finally, to improve our liquidity and better position ourselves for investment opportunities, we have reduced our dividend to a level consistent with what we expect to earn through the end of next year. We believe that it is prudent in this macroeconomic environment and in the best interest of our shareholders over the long term to reset the dividend. Today’s market conditions are challenging, but we remain optimistic about our future. Our portfolio continues its strong performance, both in income generation and credit. Our securitizations continue to deliver with 14 deals callable in 2023, another 4 become callable in 2024 and another 6 in 2025.
We believe that as our financing costs decrease, we expect our economic performance will significantly improve. We believe we’re taking prudent steps which will benefit Chimera’s shareholders over the long term. I’ll now turn the call over to Subra to review our financial results.
Subramaniam Viswanathan: Thank you, Phil. I will review Chimera’s financial highlights for the third quarter 2023. GAAP book value at the end of third quarter was $6.90 per share, and our economic return on GAAP book value was negative 2.9% based on the quarterly change in book value and the third quarter dividend per common share. And for the 9 months year-to-date, our economic return was zero percent based on the change in book value since year-end and the first 3 quarters dividends per common share. GAAP net loss for the third quarter was $16.3 million or $0.07 per share. On an earnings available for distribution basis, net income in the third quarter of approximately $29 million or $0.13 per diluted common share. Our economic net interest income for the third quarter was $66 million.
For the third quarter, the yield on average interest-earning assets was 5.8%, our average cost of funds was 4.5%, and our interest spread was 1.3%. Total leverage for the third quarter was 4.1:1, while recourse leverage ended the quarter at 1:1. For financing and liquidity, the company had $606 million total cash and unencumbered assets at quarter end. We had $1.5 billion of either non or limited mark-to-market features on our outstanding repo arrangements. We had $1.9 billion floating rate exposure on our outstanding repo liabilities. We had $1 billion pay fixed interest rate swap at a rate of 3.26% as a hedge position for our liabilities. And we had $1.5 billion swaptions to pay fixed for 1 year beginning in the second quarter of 2024 at an average rate of 3.56% as a hedge position for liabilities.
For the quarter, our economic net interest income return on equity was 10.4%, and our GAAP return on average equity was 0.3%. And lastly, our third quarter 2023 expenses, excluding servicing fees and transaction expenses, were $12.6 million, modestly lower than the second quarter. That concludes our remarks. We will now open the call for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first questions come from the line of Stephen Laws with Raymond James.
Stephen Laws: Phil, I wanted to follow up on some of your prepared remarks just about — I think you said you kind of remain cautious, mostly on the sidelines. Can you talk about — are you happy with current liquidity position, which seems pretty defensive. How do you think about your appetite for more stock repurchases or possibly something else in your capital stack? And where do you look — where do you see returns kind of on new investments if you decide to deploy the capital offensively?
