These market movement are a bit stressing and today a little bit of pain is being felt in preferreds and baby bonds. Our accounts are off a bit – really wiggles more or less–the Fido account shows the month being off <.01%—thats a really nothing number. I don’t recommend watching portfolios this closely, but it is what I do and have for decades (at least since the beginning of the internet-and even before the internet with a direct dial up phone link to the WSJ).
The 10 year treasury has bounced 5 basis points to 4.31%–we up 20 basis points since the low point on Tuesday.
The S&P500 has been all over the map–spiking sharply higher when the Mexico tariff pause was announced–the spike lasted about 2 minutes when the fast money bailed and down we go–now off 1.80% on the day–at the low of the day.
Now I am expecting some sort of announcement on Canada yet this week–for better or worse-who knows?
Certainly I won’t be involved in markets today–too much noise and I can’t really buy anything except the old standbys (CD and MM). I have not sold a thing and don’t plan to–more likely I would add to a short duration baby bond–something that has fallen a quarter or 50 cents.
Jobless claims came in today about where expected–maybe even below forecast. The Challenger lay off report came in higher than we have seen for years–at 172,000 versus last month around 50,000. DOGE related maybe.
Well I will get back to watching the ‘show’ and hope for a bounce.
Given the size of market declines today, I was pleasantly surprised to see I was down all of $136 across 3 portfolios. And basically unchanged since 2/27–which tells me I am positive compared to the market indexes.
Today I bought some LAND-M as I understand from this site that it is redeemed in one year. Good CD substitute at a CY of 5.05% and additional .8% capital gain @ 24.80.
Nervous about the daily tug-of-war over long Treasury rates. Up? Down? Sideways? Treasury wants to push down the 10, a key rate. Pundits now speculate that one way to do that is an engineered recession. (A negative for stocks.) Whether or not that is true, there is a huge amount of government debt to be rolled over in 2025. In top of that, 1.1+ trillion of private debt/year for 4 years. A pessimistic view from TOWs: “…one could even argue that the US can’t afford to refinance at higher rates. This is why reducing the 10-year yield is so important.”
If this was a debt maturity chart from a REIT earnings call, I would pass until they did the re-fi.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2025/3/5/saupload_5b3cbbba96e57b070450a38faf2f4db6_thumb1.png
Sentiment: More cash + shorter maturities for the uncertainty. JMO. DYODD
Old days: borrow to finance new business activity
Modern times: borrow to refinance existing debt.
Its interesting. I almost never look at the S&P anymore as my accounts sort of go off in any random direction any given day. I do, however, sort of silently compete against it and tabulate results at EOY. My crude math (just plotting some data points on a graph for a year or so) indicates the beta of my portfolios seems to be roughly .15 to .25 on most trading days. There are always those days where market is down and I’m up, and vice versa, but by and large, pig pile 150 (now moving back towards the pig pile 200) crushes the S&P on bad days (like today) and lags (sometimes severely) on the good market days. For what its worth, even though we’ve had a bit of drop in value this week, PP150 easily beating the S&P 500 for 2025, due to the relative non-movement of the 10YR I’m sure. If the 10Yr were to move back towards 5% then might see a pop up over .25 beta for extended period of time. Protections have been put into place though for limiting any huge losses by using time tested III’er methods of buying short Term Preferred and having a decent amount of floor mounted Fixed to Floaters and SteveA’s resets. You just have to stick with the floaters when you don’t want to when rates fall. Anyway, a window into my thinking.
I have no stock exposure either and use the PP150 as my benchmark.
I forgot to subscribe though so I don’t know if I am ahead or behind it ;o)
Right now I am on track to do right at 10% for the year looking at the first two month’s worth of results. Today’s play was loading up on Gam-B which goes ex-dividend tomorrow, and rebuying CHS shares I sold at $25.75 last month at $25.50. Also got some UMBFP at $25.17
The last week or so have presented more good trading opportunities than we have had in a while.
Also added GAM-B today, in addition to SPNT-B.
Is there an ETF that tracks the PP150 yet ? 🙂
Nickels, The second I do that I’ll end up like that Hawk Tuah girl after she tried to create a coin
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/hawktuuuah/
what does loor mounted Fixed to Floaters mean, and what would be a good example or two, if u don’t mind me asking.
Franklin, any fixed to float that states that rate can’t go below a certain floor. Check out the various BML floaters, 3 and 4% floors.
Preferred’s …. Fixed Rate from Issue Date to Disclosed Future Date …. then
a Reset to a Disclosed Peg Rate , and a disclosed ” Tack On ” rate …. with Disclosed Resets Periods ( 3mo. / Semi Annual , ect )
Quantum On Line is a Great site for info.
Example of an F / F ….. Ford …. F-D Issue.
Atlanta Fed GDPNow bounces to -2.4 percent
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
This time, will they bail out the Bitcoin holders instead of the banks?
af–talk about a volatile number–not sure if it worth much.
Markets appear to be confirming that we are in the phase of the economic cycle when both inflation and growth are rapidly slowing down at the same time. Stay safe.
Agree. My understanding is that gold repatriation due to tariffs (and possibly protectionism?) is increasing the deficit in Q1 which is a component of this GDP estimate/model.
“bounces”…LMAO