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Ford to Offer Baby Bonds

Vehicle manufacturer Ford Motor (F) will be selling a note offering with a maturity date out in 2059.

The company offered notes earlier in the years (May) so this will be their second offering this year. The previous note (which can be seen here) carries a 6.20% coupon.

The preliminary prospectus for the new issue can be seen here.

There will be no official OTC Grey market trading on the issue, but one may be able to purchase before exchange trading by contacting their broker once the CUSIP is announced.

earlybird was right on this one on the Reader Initiated Alerts page.

Customers Bancorp to Sell Baby Bonds

Customers Bancorp (CUBI) will be selling a small issue of $25 subordinated notes with a due date in 2034. Details are not known but I believe the issuance will be 1-1.5 million shares (bonds).

Of course CUBI has numerous issues of preferred stock outstanding and they have always seemed to be favorites with investors.

Their preferreds outstanding can be found here. All 4 issues outstandings are fixed-to-floating rate issues.

Note that within the preliminary prospectus for the new notes the company states they ‘may redeem shares of our preferred stock once they become redeemable’. The next issue available for redemption is the CUBI-C 7% issue which is redeemable in June, 2020.

The preliminary prospectus can be found here.

Baby Bond Listing Now Loading Fast

The Baby Bond page is the 4th most accessed page on the website–and honestly, the crappiest in performance.

Historically speaking, many of us that have watched these things for a long while, know that just getting a reliable source for baby bond quotes is near impossible–and further getting them to load in a timely fashion is a royal pain in the ass (to be blunt).

For 14 years I have fought this problem and I finally believe I have it solved (maybe famous last words before it breaks again).

Anyway the page had an average load time of 10.8 seconds–really. Who the hell waits around for 10.8 seconds for the page to load? I can tell you 69% of the folks accessing this page don’t wait–what frustration.

As I have ‘clocked’ the page it is now loading in around 2 seconds which is about as fast as any page.

If a few readers could access the page here and let me know in the comments below if the page is fairly fast–or still painfully slow I would appreciate it. Sometimes what I see is not always the same as what you might see and feedback would be helpful.

Thanks for your help.

And the Poundings Continue

The poundings of common stocks continue to take place today, but with a totally different bond market reaction.

With the S&P500 off just over 1% the 10 year treasury is moving sharply lower as well–off 13 basis points (13/100 of a percent) to 1.70%. Yesterday with the S&P500 off just less than 1% the 10 year treasury was actually up 6 basis points from last weeks close–this made no sense. Obviously the bond market was betting on a trade deal–which was in conflict with stocks.

I though for sure I would find some preferred stocks and baby bonds beginning to fall in sympathy with common stocks today–but NO–they are virtually unchanged, on average, over yesterdays prices. Both junky issues and investment grade preferreds and baby bonds are actually about even (although taking out the CBL and Just Energy issues from the picture shows prices up a couple cents).

We do note that the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PEI) perpetual preferreds are off 8-10% (1.50 to 2.00) in sympathy with CBL no doubt. You can see the PEI issues here.

An income issue holder has to be happy right now with the reaction of our issues to this rocky market. BUT this could change. Remember last December–I went into the month with a nice gain for the year and ended the month with a 1% loss for the year–11 months worth of work up in smoke in 30 days. Fortunately this year has been kind and thus far I am happy with gains, but have plenty of dry powder available.

Just Energy and CBL Properties Cut Preferred Dividends-Updated

It has been a tough time for investors in the preferred stock of Canadian energy reseller Just Energy (JE) and mall owner CBL Properties (CBL).

While the preferred shares have been under pressure for some time it was only yesterday that both company’s announced suspension of their preferred stock dividends.

Just Energy has just 1 preferred issue outstanding which can be seen here. The issue had been trading around $16-$17/share last week and plunged yesterday to $9.80/share on the suspension announcement.

For what it is worth these shares are cumulative–thus dividends will continue to accrue. Of course whether they are ever paid probably is kind of a long shot, but speculators can determine that for themselves.

The Just Energy announcement can be read here.

Of course CBL Properties preferred stock had already seen tough times and the announcement was expected by many. CBL has 2 outstanding preferreds which can be seen here.

UPDATE

These shares which were already depressed trading around $10–per Ptrader they are trading much lower this morning.

The CBL issues are cumulative so dividends continue to accrue–again, whether they will ever be paid may be dicey.

The CBL announcement can be read here.

While very conservative investors such as myself are unlikely to have any interest in these preferred shares an opportunity may present itself for more adventuresome folks–only time will tell.