After some difficult days in equities it looks like markets are ‘digesting’ recent moves–equity indexes are moving in a relatively narrow range–up and down now.
Interest rates are kind of doing the same with not much movement and just hanging in the 4.20% to 4.25% area, although this is a fair amount higher than the low of 4.11% 24 hours ago.
We had the ADP jobs report released this morning at 77,000 new jobs created in February–much weaker than forecast of 140,000. As folks know I concluded long ago that employment was one of the most important indicators of economic strength/weakness. No doubt this is weak and when we see the ‘official’ government numbers on Friday we will have a darned good hint at where this economy is going.
As folks have been noting KKR is selling a mandatory convertible $50 preferred which folks can read about here. I’m not personally fond of convertible issues–for no particular reason-guess I just like plain vanilla preferreds.
Also Highland Opportunities and Income Fund (HFRO) has just completed an exchange offer for a new series of preferred stock. It is a 5.375% coupon–same as their HRFO-A issue which is trading at $16.76 now for a current yield of 8.02%. Folks really hate this closed end fund. The ‘B’ issue will be listed on the NYSE soon.
Well I’ll do nothing investment wise today–boring, but preferable to doing something stupid.