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One of the 1st new issues out of the gate in the last month is a Fixed Rate Reset Issue from Wintrust Financial Corp (WTFC). NOTE that this issue will trade immediately under the OTC Grey Market ticker of WTFNL. The community banker will sell a fairly…

2 of the sickest lodging REITs have had their hands out looking for some bailout money from the FEDs and both were initially successful. Sotherly Hotels (SOHO)–a small lodging REIT which has suspended their common and preferred dividends for the time…

I don’t really have a deal for you, but Consumers Energy, a division of CMS Energy (CMS), is selling a new floating rate first mortgage bond issue that is something to behold. Here are the terms– The issue matures in 2070.Interest will be paid quarter…

With markets partying a little today I took the opportunity to add a couple more percent to my investments. mREIT New Residential Investment Trust (NRZ) had some good news today so I bought some of the New Residential Investment 7.125% FTF preferred (N…

Talking about common stocks it sure looks and feels like we are moving into a Goldilocks phase–with a downward tilt. No one can foresee the future and we don’t have many more ‘bailout’ programs left at this time to ‘juice’ the market. Seems to me that…

Here we go!! Another week of excitement and fear and greed. Last week the S&P500 fell off the tiniest of amounts as it opened the week at 2854 with a weekly low of 2852 and a weekly high of 2954–closing the week at 2831 which is a loss of 6 S&…

Todays near 3% loss on the S&P500 felt pretty darned calm. After opening lower it just kept drifting lower and lower–no panic, just lower. All of our utility and CEF preferreds and baby bonds remained essentially flat today, while almost all of ou…

After opening up about a 1% lower stocks have been pretty much trending water–folks don’t know whether they should be buying or selling. I am just watching–haven’t bought or sold today. Of course the 1st time unemployment claims were terrible–but we…

Today I bought a 1/2 position in the Highland Income Fund 5.375% perpetual preferred (HFRO-A) for $23.67 – current yield 5.70%. This issue is A1 rated by Moodys and since it is a closed end fund it is required to maintain a 200% asset coverage ratio–t…

Utility DTE Energy (DTE) has released very nice earnings. DTE is a Detroit based utility providing electricity and natural gas to parts of Michigan. Now when I say ‘very nice’ I mean, very nice for the times we live in. While earnings were down around…

Watching equity indexes earlier today made me think ‘am I crazy’? I’m looking at not just the current economic conditions, but at what I think is likely a year out. I am super conservative, but I am trying to take the optimistic view of the global econ…

TimH posted that Charles Schwab will be testing the waters today with a new fixed-rate reset perpetual preferred share issue. The preliminary prospectus can be read here. This is a $1,000/share issue and the shares will not be publicly traded. Just the…