High yield is either a warning sign of a dividend cut or an irrational price - meaning the price will move up to be more inline with its peers. NLY's peers yield 8-10% typically, so that would put NLY somewhere near $8 to be in line.
Valid point about credit quality in a sense- however, the one point I would make with regard to credit quality is that NLY sold a lot of their non-agency MBS assets recently and is very, very heavily weighted toward agency MBS. Agency MBS meaning all gov't baked MBS (Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie).
IMO rising mortgage / rents are not necessarily a bad thing longer term. they have locked in tons of higher quality assets at low rates recently (obviously) and the spread with higher rates and rents should improve their profitability and economic impact moving forward. Govt entities are less at risk in this thesis.