Author: Tim McPartland

I’m writing this more for newer investors that might be on the site rather than for those that are well seasoned in preferred stocks and baby bonds.

“Steak Dinners” is referring to quick, but modest profits, that some of us take from time to time.

THIS IS NOT encouragement to newer folks to employ these methods, but I know that throughout the website there are comments on what people are doing investment wise. There is nothing that is right or wrong–just what works for you.

Most times when I employ these methods of making a few extra bucks it is with issues I don’t really want to hold long term. I own mostly term preferred stocks and baby bonds with maturity dates in the next 2-10 years, but almost always have a decent chunk of cash in our accounts which I can use for “flipping” or “capturing” dividends. This is NOT true investing as most of us would define investing–but it works for me–mostly.

In my case if I see an issue drop based on news of some sort, I might take a position after the fall, expecting a bounce back at which point I would sell. Normally I am looking for 1% to 2% gains (25 or 50 cents on a $25/share).

Other times I may simply see an issue that is trending toward the lower part of the issue trading band and pick up shares looking to exit if a 1%-2% gain is realized.

Other times I may see an issue that is currently redeemable that is trading around $25 and I may buy it expecting the shares to move higher as dividends (or interest) are accrued–if it moves higher quickly I will sell the shares–otherwise I will hold until at least ex dividend date there by capturing a dividend.

Needless to say these techniques do not always work profitably, although the last couple of years have been a good period for most of my trades–although some have taken longer to “pan out” than was hoped when the position was initiated.

Here are a couple trades lately–I will walk through my thoughts and results.

On October 16th, 2019 Investcorp Credit Management (ICMB) announced that they were selling 600,000 shares of their 6.125% baby bond (CMFNL).

Being a ‘news’ event I thought there was a possibility for a quick profit–a week or maybe a month to play out.

Shares had been trading in the $25.50-$25.75 area prior to the announcement. Shares fell as far as $24.30 before bouncing back on the day (10/16) of the announcement and I bought 500 shares at $24.81. Unfortunately it traded in the $24.60 area a number of times over the next couple of weeks. I simply continued to hold the issue looking for my best exit. Fortunately it finally began to climb into the ex-dividend date (12/12) and reached $25.10. I held through ex-dividend, thus locking in the dividend, and I sold yesterday for $24.90.

On the CMFNL issue above the interest is a little above 38 cents quarterly and I got a measly 9 cent capital gain on the shares–for a total of 47 cents. I had hoped to ‘flip’ the shares originally for a 1-2% quick “steak dinner” trade in a month. Instead it took a full 2 months, but I did get near 2% so I am happy.

On November 22, 2019 Chicken Soup for the Soul (CSSE) 9.75% preferred was trading at $25.17 and I purchased 500 shares.

These shares trade somewhat erratically, but it had just come down from the $25.80 area so it looked ripe for a quick profit. I purchased my shares on 11/22 for $25.17. Shares were going ex-dividend for 20.3 cents on 11/29 (it is a monthly payor) so at a minimum I was going to grab 1 dividend.

Ex dividend date arrived and I held through the date thereby capturing the dividend and was able to sell for $25.21 on 12/2.

In this case I captured 20.3 cents on the dividend and 4 cents on a capital gain–a total of just under 1% in 10 days.

Since I had a plan I stuck to it–but this is one of those cases where one wishes they would have held on because the shares kept climbing and are in the $25.55 area.

Chicken Soup for the Soul is a newer company and while revenues are growing nicely, there is not much chance of a profit anytime soon and I didn’t want to stick around too long.

These are a couple recent trades and I have a couple others currently “in process”, but I am generally unable to do more than a couple of these each month as I don’t have time to ferret out the good candidates.

I’m really pleased with the number of folks reviewing, and I think copying the spreadsheet I posted last Friday (I have no way of knowing how many copies are made).

So far, while my instructions on copying and renaming the spreadsheet, are NOT being followed by many I think it is most likely that some do not understand the in’s and out’s of working with Google Sheets. I will publish a new set of instructions soon so that maybe more folks will be able to understand them.

Also there have lots of comments–too many for me to respond to all of them, but I am going to read them closer and see what “tips” are there for me to utilize.

I know for sure that a couple folks offered formulas for the Yield to Worst column. The formula I use doesn’t factor in the “accrued” dividends or interest and thus makes the number a little worse than it really is. I will be working on this in the week ahead.

Also some others have offered suggestions which I will be looking at.

Don’t forget that while a sortable sheet is nice all the issues are sorted in various manners on this page here.

Below you will find a link to a Google Sheet.

We have added cumulative/non cumulative as well as qualified/non-qualified to the sheet since we last gave you a peek at this sheet.

We are calling this sheet Version 12132019–obviously because that is todays date. There are 672 issues on the sheet and should include most all $25/share preferreds and baby bonds as well as some miscellaneous. There are some convertibles not here, nor illiquids as we can’t get reliable quotes on some of these issues.

TO USE THIS SHEET YOU NEED TO HAVE A GOOGLE ACCOUNT SO THAT WHEN YOU OPEN THE LINK BELOW IT WILL TRANSFER TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

YOU MUST THEN RENAME THE SHEET.

IF YOU DO NOT COPY AND RENAME YOU WILL BE USING THE MAIN MASTER SHEET. UNFORTUNATELY IF A BUNCH OF FOLKS DO THIS YOU WILL FIGHTING EACH OTHER (I.E. YOU DO A SORT–THEN SOMEONE ELSE DOES A DIFFERENT SORT–THEN A 3RD PERSON DOES ANOTHER–ALL AT THE SAME TIME–YOU WILL BE SEEING RESULTS OF OTHER FOLKS).

I am already working on the next VERSION, which I should have in a month. This means that a few new issues will be missing as I add a number of them every week (and I delete called issues).

Be aware that this spreadsheet has 3 separate sheets. I have ‘hidden’ 2 of them. The one showing is where you do the filtering parameters. If you want to make your own changes, after you copy the sheet, you can do so by going to View, Hidden Sheets, Alpha. The Alpha page is where you can make changes. I would strongly suggest not changing the sheet titled ‘list’.

If you try to make changes on the filter sheet it will break–just ‘undo’ to fix it.

Unless you are familiar with scripting etc and you fool around and break it bad–no problem, just come back and get a new copy.

Here is the sheet. Have fun.

As some of you may have read, or maybe I am the only one watching, the FED has announced giant sized REPO moves for the balance of the year.

I have been watching since September and the FED has done overnight repurchase agreements in the $50 to $75 billion area mostly–tossing in $15-$25 billion in 14 day repurchases agreements every 2 weeks.

Of course this is to provide liquidity to the banking system after a ‘blow out’ overnight lending rate spike of near 10% on September 15th.

Now we are 90 days later and the FED has announced they will be taking the the overnight operation to at least $150 billion. Yikes!!

I am of the thought now that this is all out on the table we will likely avert major issue—BUT there is a chance of a misstep–in particular in light of the fact that no one really seems to fully understand the market workings (certainly I don’t under stand it).

The point being is that we could see disruptions in the next 3 weeks–through the end of the year and no one should be surprised it something “breaks”.

The FED Statement of operations for the next month can be read here.

It is always disappointing to me to see the silliness of the marketplace in reaction to potential deals–such as trade deals.

We don’t do politics, at all, on the website, but for once I would like to see both stocks and bonds trade on fundamentals.

We have so-called ‘trade deals’ which move the markets and we have a FED that is being controlled by short term market movements. Then we have algorithms moving the market based on whatever key words are in the news

Early this morning we had a quiet market–both interest rates and stocks were off just a bit–nice and quiet just like we prefer. Then a tweet and a meeting at the Whitehouse on China sends market sharply higher. Stocks up 1% and interest rates up 7 basis points (9 basis points higher from earlier levels) on the day.

Now in the end it doesn’t matter too much to me–holding what I hold there isn’t much movement, but I do worry about movements in markets getting out of control–irrational exuberance–as these things eventually (who knows when) come home to roost with movements in the opposite direction.

Oh well I guess I should get used to it–it certainly seems like the new norm.