Normally when an investor buys a preferred stock or baby bond the decision to buy is pretty easy.
For me right now it would be a utility or closed end fund preferred or baby bond I would be most interested in as I am sticking primarily to the quality issues–although I have deviated a bit by buying a couple REIT preferreds that are investment grade.
Right now this is my preferred shopping area.
In the age of low coupons I am interested in a potential buy if issues are at or near their $25 liquidation preference–which means I’m not doing much buying now–still in the 65% area invested.
My current problem is more one of selling than buying–everything is priced to perfection—way above liquidation preference. Of course when I execute the sell I have no where to go with the proceeds–at least no where in the investment grade arena.
Right now I am grappling with the potential sale of 2 issues–both utility baby bonds which have moved 4-5 interest payments above of where I bought them
The 2 issues are the DTE 5.25% baby bond (DTW) and the Sempra Energy 5.75% baby bond (SREA).
Now that I am writing about these issues I just checked the yield to worst–the DTW issue is 1.99% and the SREA issue is 3.70%. With this info in hand I know I will sell the DTW issues today–the Sempra Energy issue, which most certainly will be called in 2024 can remain in hand for a bit longer.
So when determining what to sell one has to look at a number of factors–in particular in this time of irrational exuberence. By stepping through paces while writing here the answer became clear.