Housekeeping – Reader Notes

Just a few quick housekeeping items from readers.

Doug asks about the significance of grey shaded entry on the spreadsheets.  We color all monthly paying issues with a grey outline–that is all.

Bryon asks if there is a phone number to talk to someone.  No there isn’t. This is our hobby and really we just try to present some information in a format that is usable. We aren’t able to recommend or help with portfolio construction–sorry.

Sundance asks about what we had written last week about reducing our yield by going shorter in duration. You are correct–if you want to maintain your yield you have to buy higher coupon issues if you are going to a shorter duration.  Unfortunately this also means you are likely also needing to reduce the quality of the portfolio. We actually care first about capital presevation–thus the shorter duration, but we also don’t want to downgrade our quality of holdings–in fact we prefer to raise it a bit.

Kevin asks about the Short/Medium Duration Income Portfolio.  No we haven’t written a lot about it specifically, but you can see that the issues are higher quality with shorter durations.  We will write on this portfolio soon. As far as our favorite Business Development Company baby bonds we always like anything from Ares Capital and Apollo Investment–but current yields are pretty low—for all around return we like Triangle Capital 7% Senior Notes with a current yield of 6.96% and a maturity date in 2019.