Well not really Freaky Friday—we should all know after a few weeks of a new administration that pretty much anything can happen.
We got employment numbers that were slightly better (overall) than forecast. New Jobs were a tiny bit light for January, but December was revised upward by quite a bit. Wages were a bit hot and the unemployment rate fell. All in all pretty neutral–but NOT supportive of any Fed Funds rate cuts anytime soon–of course subject to change any minute.
Stock markets reacted well to the news–until we started to get Fed yakkers and then word that there are more tariffs coming soon. This tanked stocks and we are now down 2/3%. The 10 year treasury has moved 5 basis points higher to 4.49%.
Yesterday I nibbled a bit as I mentioned I would likely be doing. I stuck to my short duration theme. I bought a little Eagle Point Institutional 8.125% Term Preferred (EIIA) @ $24.96. I already had a position in this one, but not a large position so I topped it off a bit.
I continue to look for opportunities. I will get my laundry list of holdings updated soon.
New to the site and like it already.
Is this a mistake:
The Maturity date of SCCF is 3/29/2026 on “https://innovativeincomeinvestor.com/list-of-baby-bonds/”
On the prospectus it is 06/30/2027
(off topic, but I couldn’t find anywhere to report this, so I did it here)
You are correct. Maturity date is 06/30/2027 for SCCF. That’s what is on the Baby Bonds list. The 03/29/26 is what’s shown for SCCE on the line just above, so maybe you just misread..
By the way, if you’re not already using it, try quantumonline.com. Great site.
not misreading – I can’t post an image unfortunately
https://innovativeincomeinvestor.com/short-medium-maturity-income-issues/
has it correct.
The other list I linked above is incorrect.
Thanks for the quantum site.
SACH baby bond redemption dates:
For each one, I checked the prospectus (from link on QOL), and then checked QOL and the URL that Malcom provided:
1. SCCB = 6/30/24. QOL and III’s list = correct.
2. SCCC = 9/30/25. QOL and III list = correct.
3. SCCD = 12/30/26. QOL and III list = correct.
4. SCCE = 3/30/27. QOL correct. III list incorrect (3/29/26).
5. SCCF = 6/30/27. QOL correct. III list incorrect (3/29/26).
6. SCCG = 9/30/27. QOL and III list = correct.
I tried quantumonline.com. I can’t see how to use it much, maybe for looking up prospectuses (prospecti?).
It doesn’t have any recent price/yield information, so no way to really use the tables. Do I really have to click on 768 links, once a day, or once an hour to get quotes?
So the markets freak when tariffs reappear and then unfreak after a deal is struck which may the case for many soon, and China later. Or just perhaps at some point the concept of reciprocal tariffs may enter the market psyche as fair and become the norm.
Anyhow am here to explore preferreds,
am curious how from safety point of view how others feel about Eagle Point? What about their financials give sense of safety? Am undecided. Thx.
I would not be surprised if Fridays were days that tariffs are decided and announced after the market closes. It gives the countries 2 days to work things out or announce they are negotiating.
So we could see more Fridays like this or nothing will be announced.
I am doing nothing. Show me the results and if they stick before I react.
Howard Marks (Oaktree) once did a podcast on making investment decisions with incomplete information in uncertain environments He quoted a successful professional poker player. Dealing with uncertainty was a normal part of her business. One quote from her book.
“What good poker players and good decision-makers have in common is their comfort with the world being an uncertain and unpredictable place. They understand that they can almost never know exactly how something will turn out.
“They embrace that uncertainty and, instead of focusing on being sure, they try to figure out how unsure they are, making their best guess at the chances that different outcomes will occur. The accuracy of those guesses will depend on how much information they have and how experienced they are at making such guesses. This is part of the basis of all bets.”
― Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts
JMO. DYODD.
Bear,
Back when I was a senior operations exec for a huge tech company, we kept a couple slots in my organization to bring in strong engineering managers (10+ years experience) from our offshore companies to help them become ready to take on roles like manufacturing plant general manager.
It grew from our desire to have “replacement tables” for virtually all jobs – i.e. “who are the people who could step into that role if the person who is currently in it left, and what training/experience does each candidate need to become ready to step up?” Wonderful personnel development tool and a way to be ready for the staff changes that inevitably happen. The idea of having replacement tables has stuck with me and we use it in all of our companies (and teach it to our clients).
One of the key things we would do is get these “trainees” to master the art of the “informed estimate”. As engineers, they were used to calculating everything out to 17 decimal points before they would communicate any information. Had to break them of that.
In those jobs, they would end up in situations where we sometimes needed planning information immediately (no time to go spin up dozens of engineers “back home” to do analysis for days, or even to let their home country boss know about it because of time zones), so our guys would have to make an “informed estimate” – really just their best guess.
It was almost funny to see some of them struggle with the concept of providing information (that their home operations might be held to) that was just a guess that would be attributed to them.
We would tell them that of everyone on the planet, their were the best informed to make that guess, but it was an excruciating process for some of them to change their mindset from confidence based on calculations (that were always based on assumptions, but those were masked in the reams of analysis) to the idea that the world runs on data when it can, and “best guesses” when it has to.
A couple of the best plant/regional managers we ever had went through those training jobs.
Corrections to 2024 jobs downward and upward temporary corrections to recent months. We spend billions in high priced talent in government and out to analyze unreliable data. Garbage In Garbage out? We can spend millions on diversity programs in central Africa but we have unreliable macro data?
This non-partisan problem has continued for years. The question now becomes: why doesn’t the system want to be fixed?
same reason our infrastructure is falling apart
American Society for Civil Engineers has ben reporting every 4 years about how we need to spend more on improing the dilapidated infrastructure. Do we do anythihng?
Biden spent 1.2 trillion.
Trump 1 – said he would spend a trillion, never got around to it.
from wiki – “During his first run for the presidency, Trump touted a potential major infrastructure initiative. Although both sides of the political aisle recognized the need to upgrade American infrastructure, no major infrastructure bill was passed due to disagreements over the details of such a spending package, namely, what to spend on, how much to spend, and how to pay for it.”
When people say “non-partisan problem has continued for years” – they aren’t paying attention!
The rail network needed a massive upgrade after Sandy in the North East, it was all planned and was already in progress – Trump came in cancelled it, then did nothing else.
Obama – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Bush – Almost nothing except massive increase in that fake Iraq war + tax cuts.
My $100 in tax cuts is not going to be spent on fixing the road or changing the pipes or providing better internet to rural communities!
Yeah – so when people say bi-partisan; they should actually look at who is working to actually make the government work better and who is trying to make the government large enough to drown in a bathtub!
Please posts are going off the rails with this political talk.
David,
I only wish everyone whose opinion is informed by sound bites–one neighbor came over today with his long list–at least spent the time to look at a second source that might not agree with his or her first. You’ve spent time thinking. That’s more than I can say for most ….and many of the “most” are very intelligent people. I guess people are basically lazy . I don’t know whether I agree with your POV or not, but all I can ask is people do some thinking.
You have to take that American Society of Civil Engineers report with a grain of salt. It is in their best interests to have funding allocated to do those projects. I don’t recall in my 35 years in the business that the letter grade issued was anything above a D. There’s definitely some truth to it, but its appropriate to point out that nothing is unbiased these days.