Quiet Start to Today

December 2, 2014  9 am

Today is starting off quiet with the MLP’s gaining some footing after the earlier slams even though oil is off $1/barrel from yesterdays giant crude rally.  It is likely we will stabalize right in here–both on crude prices and oil stock prices.  Movements will likely be ‘drifts’ versus plunges and spikes.  Watch for the EIA report on petroleum inventories tomorrow for clues on the crude oil inventory direction.

Interest rates are actually up even though overnight Russia has confirmed they are heading into a recession–one more nail in the glabal economic coffin. Staring in the face of a potential deflationary or disinflation monster we don’t look for rates to move beyond 2.35% anytime soon.

We are honing in on Preferred Apartment Communities (ticker:APTS) as an add to the model–the current yield is around 8%.  We like these small apartment REITs and we have Independence Realty Trust (ticker:IRT) in the model already so we have avoiding adding APTS because of the concentration of risk–but we are likely overly cautious.  We may add APTS yet today.  Note that Brad Thomas touches on APTS today in a Seeking Alpha article (free membership required) and he will be doing a more indepth drilldown on the issue soon.