Just a note on a few of the buys and sells I have done lately.
I sold some of my Tri-Continental 5% $50/shares preferred. I held 300 shares for years and this time as it trades up around $57.50 (and sometimes $58.40) I decided to ‘lighten up’. This issue has been outstanding since 1963 and likely will continue to remain outstanding, but with a call price of $55/share I decided to let some go–I am open to re-buying down around the call price.
I sold a 1/2 position of the Wesbanco 6.75% fixed-rate reset preferred which was a new issue from 8/4. I bought it for $25.50 and sold for $26.25. I am not buying any of these small bank issues to ‘hold’–just to flip.
I bought a full position of the new Federal Agricultural Mortgages 5.25% non cumulative preferred at $25.11 a day or two after it was issued. I see it trading at $25.58–think I will hold this position unless it goes totally crazy.
Lastly, I added a couple hundred shares of the Highland Income Fund 5.375% preferred (HFRO-A) at $24.86. While I am not thrilled with the Highland Income Fund (HFRO) as long as it is strongly investment grade (A1 from Moodys) and their asset coverage ratio remains reasonable good – 276% as of 12/31/2019 I will hold it as I can’t get investment grade issues with current yields of 5.40-5.50%.