Featured Articles
10 Year Treasury Marches Higher as Stocks Spike
Tim McPartland | June 10, 2015
The 10 year treasury shot up to near 2.5% this morning, yet stocks have moved higher in a move that reeks of folks 'buying the bottom'. For us it is a welcome sign--no panic. Remember that over the last 10 years we have seen time and time again that it isn't necessarily the pure level of interest rates that panics…
We are Just 30 Basis Points from a Big Tumble
Tim McPartland | June 9, 2015
It is rather refreshing to observe how equities of all sorts have been reacting to the move up in interest rates--it has been pretty orderly (meaning no major daily tumbles). We believed that rates would move higher, but as is normal one NEVER knows how stocks (whether it be preferreds, exchange traded debt, REITs or utilities) will react.Now turning to…
The Problem with Taking a Hedge Position
Tim McPartland | June 8, 2015
As you may recall last week we took a position in Proshares UltraShort SP500 (ticker:SDS) to help cushion our losses in case of a downdraft in equities. Note that this position was meant to only cushion common stock risk-- and nothing else. Hedges like this can present problems if one doesn't have a plan of sorts. If you are hedging…
Preferred Stocks and Exchange Traded Debt Issues Moving Lower
Tim McPartland | June 7, 2015
We like to watch the macro pricing levels of all the different sectors of income securities---watching any given singular security is of no real help in establishing trends. ETF's of a sector can help and Closed End Funds (CEFs) may help, but they trade with discounts and premiums so they are not always helpful. We watch 1 item that is…
Markets Gyrate Trying to Figure Out the U.S. Economy
Tim McPartland | June 5, 2015
Both stock and bond markets are gyrating up and down today as they try to decifer the meaning of the very strong employment number that was released today. While we haven't had time to pick through all the details of the report at first blush it looks like a lot of lousy jobs were created, while the higher paying jobs went south--we…
