Weekly Kickoff

Technologies continue to push the index higher–obviously they push the NASDAQ higher, but if tech in general is moving higher the S&P500 is also moving higher as it is dominated by the high flyers. Last week the gain was relatively meager, but a gain just the same as the index moved .4% higher from the close the previous Friday.

The 10 year treasury didn’t move much at all last week as it closed at 4.26% which was 4 basis points higher than the close the previous Friday. The yield is at right at the same level this morning. This week is kind of slow news wise until the end of the week when we have 1st quarter GDP revision, durable goods and the personal consumption expenditures index (PCE). Then the following week we have the employment numbers being released on July 5–the tone will be set for the month of July.

The Fed Reserve balance sheet assets fell by $7 billion last week–a couple weeks in a row of slow downward movement–we are due for a large drop to maintain the $60/billion per month runoff.

Once again the average $25/share was pretty flattish last week as the average share moved 6 cents lower. Investment grade issues moved 1 cent higher, banking preferreds moved 14 cents higher, mREIT preferreds were 7 cents higher and the stellar shipping preferreds moved 3 cents lower.

Last week we had 1 new issue priced as Bank of Hawaii (BOH) priced a new issue of perpetual preferred at 8%. The issue is investment grade, but on ‘credit watch’ with a possible downgrade in the wings.

Sachem Capital (SACH) announced they were selling a $1000 note issue to use proceeds to redeem at least 1 baby bond issue and maybe 2, but the issue was never priced–as far as I can see. I have written more than once that SACH was kind of dangerous being a ‘hard money’ lender–much to house flippers. House flipping works until it doesn’t -now is not generally a good time to be a flipper with high interest rates and sales prices of houses too high to make flipping lucrative. We’ll see where this goes.