Wrapping Up a Quiet Week

While the wheels fell off the equity rally yesterday it was still a very quiet week. My accounts didn’t move much this week (down a bit yesterday)–and that is just fine. To receive dividends and interest payments almost every week is my ‘heroin’–with the large number of CDs I hold my interest income is continual – sometimes large payments, sometimes smaller receipts (monthly payers). Still not quite back to ‘all time highs’ in accounts, but a little push in November and December could get me there by year end. We’ll see.

Today we have consumer sentiment news–but that is all. We do have Fed yakkers (3 of them) which could move the market a bit, but honestly investors are tiring of their blather-we all know their lines by now so go back to your office and come back in a month (for a day).

Interest rates are moving around 4.63% this morning after moving higher yesterday on comments from Powell. Apparently demand at a 30 year treasury auction was weak yesterday which was not helpful to rates. I will be most curious to see the consumer price index (CPI) next week–a new piece of meaningful data. Yesterday initial jobless claims came in near expectations at 217,000 so kind of goldilocks–we need it weaker.

No plans to do anything today–selling or buying. I have modest amounts of dry powder–some of which I used for the SiruisPoint purchase yesterday, but I see no reason to rush in. I have sold a large share of my small bank holdings, but continue to hold Minnesota banking company Bridgewater Bancorp preferreds (BWBBP) now trading at $16 for a current yield of 9.25%–the company has solid financials, but is small with $4 billion or so in assets. My current position is small and a nibble here and there might be worthwhile–no rush as it is a disliked security–we’ll see.