Well the stock market is flying today as the “China deal” is the gift that just keeps on giving. Seems like this deal has given the stock market 10% of its gains this year.
Interest rates are just a tic or two higher–as high as 1.90% to now at 1.89%–maybe back in the previous trading range before the Iranian event.
Preferreds and baby bonds ($25 issues) are trading off 2 pennies today–for all practical purposes flat.
I have noticed a lot of activity lately on the “Canadian Chat” page. Seems there is more interest in Canadian preferreds now that we have fewer reasonable choices in the U.S. markets. Maybe I will need to bone up on this market–and maybe others should as well.
We had a pretty sizable REPO today by the FED. They took $49 billion in the overnight (1 day) market and $34 billion in a 14 day deal–a total of $82 billion. I believe there are some large treasury auctions this week so it will be interesting if the Fed has to do bigger deals in days ahead to provide more liquidity to the primary dealers–we’ll see.
This morning I bought a modest position in Brookfield Property REIT 6.375% perpetual preferred (BPRAP) for $25.33. Issue is now callable (since 2/2018). The most recent dividend was paid 1/1/2020 so now it is accruing for the next payment–assuming typical 30 day notice before a call there is about 15 cents at risk in event of a call (calculated off the top of my head for those checking with a calculator). My intention is to simply hold this issue–not flip–I need cash deployment.
The new MetLife 4.75% perpetual issue is now trading at $25.24 on the OTC under ticker METFL. Folks obvious are scratching hard for a little yield.