Nikolay Pandev/E+ via Getty Images I bought Office Properties Income Trust’s (NASDAQ:OPI) 6.375% Senior Notes due 6/23/2050 (NASDAQ:OPINL) in November on the back of what was then a roughly 40% discount to their $25 liquidation value per note. This security has since continued to dip as market angst over office properties ramped up in response…
Andres Victorero The above is Briefing.com’s weekly economic data table. April ’24 PPI and April ’24 CPI are due out Tuesday, May 14th, and Wednesday, May 15th, respectively. Shelter or OER (owners’ equivalent rent) has a significant influence on the CPI given its weight (roughly 30% of the inflation gauge) and then add in auto…
Ildo Frazao Foreign fixed-income markets from a US investor perspective have been an unappealing asset class lately – with a glaring exception: corporate bonds in emerging markets. Year to date, this slice of global fixed-income securities is hot, based on a set of ETFs through Thursday’s close (May 9). The rest of the field is…
Trygve Finkelsen/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Co-authored by Treading Softly. Lifebuoys are often overlooked on watercraft such as boats, yachts, or cruise ships. However, these lifebuoys and the buoyant heaving lines they are attached to can be crucial in the event of an emergency. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever need it, it’s important…
Torsten Asmus Sharply rising precious metals prices and strong fiscal and monetary stances in EM bonds may provide opportunities for emerging markets debt investors. The VanEck Emerging Markets Bond Fund (EMBAX) was up 0.73% in March, compared to +1.03% for its benchmark, the 50% J.P Morgan Government Bond Index- Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) Global Diversified and…
RiverNorthPhotography/E+ via Getty Images Is This A Turning Point For Bonds To Lead? Heightened geopolitical fronts and deflated hopes for lowering interest rates held the S&P 500 index (or SPDR S&P 500 ETF, SPY) under pressure, pulling the benchmark down below 5,000 for the first time since February to a sixth consecutive slide, its weakest…
JimSchemel On our last coverage of Main Street Capital (NYSE:MAIN) we felt the valuation was middling for the shares. We expected the premium performance to continue, but just couldn’t get behind it at the valuation at the time. On the other hand we found solid appeal in the bonds and gave them a buy rating….
Dzmitry Skazau As the U.S. Presidential election draws nearer, many investors are eyeing the future of the soon-to-expire 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act- a significant individual tax code overhaul that reduced taxes across income levels-and more specifically, its potential impacts on the municipal bond market. Although each possible election outcome will likely result in…
mikkelwilliam Growth and inflation are not supportive of bonds On both a secular and cyclical basis, I am a bond bear. I last wrote about bonds in September, laying out why I believe bonds represent a poor risk-reward investment in almost all time frames. Yields are flat to slightly higher since I penned this piece,…
phive2015 Investors have been increasingly dipping their toes into the corporate bond market as demand for higher quality credit grows. Benjamin Chim, Vice President, Director and Lead of the High Yield Fixed Income team at TD Asset Management, looks at potential opportunities for investors. Transcript Greg Bonnell – Well, the US Federal Reserve is still…
Imagesrouges/iStock via Getty Images Bonds and fixed-income securities have become much more popular investments these past few years, as Federal Reserve hikes have led to much higher yields. Bonds and bond funds vary, with different characteristics including maturities and credit risk. In this article, I’ll be comparing short-term and long-term bonds, looking at how their…
xefstock Over recent years, I’ve continually traded the extensive bond index ETF, Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (NASDAQ:BND), which primarily owns longer-term US government bonds, with around a third of them exposed to investment-grade corporate bonds. I had a consistently bearish outlook from 2020 through 2023. In January, I published “BND: The 2024 Bond…
Andrii Dodonov By Marc Uy Issues like water scarcity are felt most intensely at the local level. That makes it incumbent on municipal bond issuers to lead the response. Municipal bond issuers are responsible for building and supporting the physical infrastructure and the public goods and services that enable citizens to participate more in an…
JamesBrey All values are in CAD unless noted otherwise. The ownership of this stock is generally restricted to Canadians. If you are wondering “What Is That Aboot?”, you can read more here. In our last coverage of Alaris Equity Partners Income Trust (TSX:AD.UN:CA), we made the case that this was severely mispriced and the big…
Kobus Louw Collateralized loan obligations don’t get much love from the media, but are worth considering in a portfolio. What are they? Floating-rate Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) are complex financial instruments that consist of a pool of loans. These loans are typically senior, secured, non-investment grade loans issued by corporations. The pooled loans are securitized…
Hispanolistic The SPDR Portfolio Short Term Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:SPSB) invests across U.S. investment-grade corporate bonds with a maturity between 1 and 3 years. In this case, SPSB isn’t necessarily the most conservative bond fund in the market, but it can be a good alternative to cash or money-market funds. When thinking about bond funds,…
Wirestock/iStock via Getty Images The article looks at Australia’s three key investment markets to find lucrative opportunities. The three key investment markets in Australia are stocks, bonds, and real estate. The course of each is shown graphically in the charts below. Stocks Trading Economics dot com Stocks have been trading in the same range since…
Jamakosy The WisdomTree Floating Rate Treasury Fund (NYSEARCA:USFR) holds a portfolio of floating rate bonds which have zero duration and whose interest payments adjust to reflect changes in 3-month Treasury Bill yields. The USFR currently yields 5.6% according to the Wisdom Tree website, which is highly attractive relative to stocks and Treasury bonds. I expect…
ugurhan Emerging markets bonds once again outperformed DM bonds, this time in a bond bull market year. The VanEck Emerging Markets Bond Fund was up 3.88% in December, compared to 4.12% for its benchmark. Egypt (dollar-denominated) was the biggest outperformer, along with Chile (local- and hard currency) and Colombia (local currency). Thailand, Indonesia, and Romania…
Andres Victorero Since the bond market peaked in late 2021 just before the Fed embarked on its attempt to tame inflation by hiking rates, it has been painful to be an investor in “risk-free” Treasuries at nearly all points on the curve. The most pain has been felt at the long-end of the Treasury curve…
tadamichi By John R. Mousseau, CFA As we wind down 2023’s year in bonds, the long, strange trip is ending up at the same ten-year bond yields that we started with. The ten-year US Treasury bond closed 2022 at 3.88%, and with the last day of this year upon us, the ten-year yield stands at…
spawns Introduction Headquartered in England, Argo Blockchain plc (NASDAQ:ARBK) (“Argo“) is a middling player in the global cryptocurrency mining industry. With the recent rise in Bitcoin (BTC-USD) (“Bitcoin“), however, the stock price is up roughly 200% year to date. While I have little interest in the stock, I find Argo’s 8.75% Senior Notes due 2026…
Zolak The iShares 25+ Year Treasury STRIPS Bond ETF (BATS:GOVZ) provides investors exposure to Treasury STRIPS, with 25 or more years to maturity. STRIPS in its expanded form is “Separate Trading of Registered Interest and Principal of Securities”. Breaking it down further, STRIPS are created by separating all of the periodic coupon payments, as well…
Darren415 Welcome to another installment of our Preferreds Market Weekly Review, where we discuss preferred stock and baby bond market activity from both the bottom-up, highlighting individual news and events, as well as the top-down, providing an overview of the broader market. We also try to add some historical context as well as relevant themes…
Critics argue that El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment was premature, highlighting the country’s struggles in achieving the ‘Bitcoinization’ of its economy. El Salvador’s foray into the crypto market has been nothing short of controversial, marked by a $117.5 million Bitcoin (BTC) investment that recently pitched on the edge of profitability. President Nayib Bukele’s persistence in the…
By securing outside funding support through the pioneering Volcano Bonds, El Salvador can continue progressing with Bitcoin integration across governmental services and society. El Salvador has successfully overcome a significant regulatory hurdle as it pursues the introduction of Bitcoin-backed sovereign debt instruments, referred to as “volcano bonds”. The nation’s Digital Assets Commission has provided the…
JHVEPhoto Hudson Pacific Properties (NYSE:HPP) is a West Coast based real estate investment trust that specializes in the ownership of office buildings and sound stages. With the strikes in Hollywood hurting the business, Hudson Pacific cut its dividend earlier this year only to eliminate it in the following quarter. While the strike is over, after…
Douglas Rissing Yields have risen meaningfully since I last covered the iShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF (BATS:GOVT), and the ETF has dipped as a result (yields move inversely to price). The Treasury backdrop has changed in recent weeks, though, as a relatively benign quarterly refunding announcement and decelerating inflation data have relieved pressure across the…
FrankRamspott With inflation easing and cracks emerging in the US labor markets, the days of Fed-driven rate hike pressures are likely at an end. The key risk, though, is that the US yield curve remains inverted, and until term premia normalizes, emerging market central banks may be kept on the defensive. Note the surprise rate…
Philippines’ state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines serve as the issue managers for the tokenized treasury bonds. The Philippines aims to boost its domestic debt market by introducing tokenized treasury bonds, with an initial offering of at least 10 billion pesos ($179 million). This marks the country’s first foray…
Maximusnd The global economic outlook along with market valuations and asset class fundamentals all lead us to favor fixed income. Relative to equities, we believe bonds have rarely been as attractive as they appear today. After a turbulent couple of years of high inflation and rising rates that challenged portfolios, investors may see a return…
cnythzl Thesis The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:TLT) is a fixed income exchange traded fund. The vehicle is widely used by retail investors to go long 20-year treasury bonds, with the fund seeking to track the investment results of the IDC US Treasury 20+ Year Index. We wrote about this name before back…
Alex Wong/Getty Images News Overview Though it is an often overlooked topic, yesterday’s Treasury bond auction has sparked a lot of interest amongst investors. The latest issue was not well received, with an auction tail of 5.3 bps. Markets were shaken by this, giving up the day’s gains and turning sharply negative. Or perhaps it…
DKosig Deluxe bonds and dividend traps are high-yield stocks. Deluxe bonds can play a useful role in your portfolio, but dividend traps can seriously hurt your retirement. Know the difference between them. After writing at length about the qualities of low-yield, high-growth stocks, and the reasons you should have some, it’s time I offer some…
tadamichi By Tracy Chen, CFA, CAIA The traditional risk parity portfolio has come under scrutiny. The classic asset allocation of 60% stocks/40% bonds is built upon the thesis that stocks and bonds when paired together can provide shock absorption to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns. These diversification benefits rely on the historical correlation between stock and…
libre de droit By Aditi Gupta, Client Portfolio Manager, Municipals Five reasons why municipal bonds are compelling now Between the regional banking crisis, debt ceiling melodrama that led to a further US sovereign rating downgrade, potential federal government shutdowns, heavy US Treasury issuance, and geopolitical risks, 2023 has been a tumultuous year in markets. That’s…
“Store your wealth in Bitcoin.” That was the message give by Ricardo Salinas, a prominent billionaire and the honorary chairman of TV Azteca, in an exclusive interview with Bitcoin Magazine reporter Isabella Santos last week. The rare sit-down interview, which marked the Mexican billionaire’s first Spanish-language interview on the topic. The Ricardo Salinas Interview: Mexican Billionaire…
Andres Victorero Emerging market central banks responded quicker to inflation and remain in better shape financially than developed markets, and EM bonds may add resilience to a bond portfolio in the current market. The past several years have been characterized by rising rates and emerging risks in global bond markets, after nearly a decade and…
Tom Werner/DigitalVision via Getty Images Here are three things I think I am thinking about this weekend. 1) What’s the best inflation hedge? There’s always a lot of debate about what the best inflation hedge is. Is it gold, commodities, TIPS, stocks, Bitcoin, real assets or something else? It’s not as clear-cut as we like…
NikolayK/iStock via Getty Images On our last coverage of NewtekOne (NASDAQ:NEWT) we suggested that the stock while beaten down to $15.31, still did not offer compelling return prospects. We also could not rate it a “Sell” as the valuation was not as poor as it was when it traded at $30.00 (see, A Good Point…
andresr/E+ via Getty Images The September CPI report revealed a hotter-than-expected 0.4% rise in monthly consumer prices compared to the +0.3% consensus. The Core rate rose 0.3% last month, matching estimates. The year-on-year headline rate was unchanged at +3.7%, one-tenth to the warm side versus expectations while Core CPI rose 4.1% from a year ago,…
Klaus Vedfelt Thesis The iShares 1-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NASDAQ:IGSB) is a fixed income exchange traded fund. As per its literature, the fund: Seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. dollar-denominated investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities between one and five years. The respective index is the…
tadamichi We normally favor being overweight stocks over bonds for the simple reason that they have historically outperformed bond returns by several percentage points. For example, if we compared the total returns of the S&P 500 index ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) with the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NASDAQ:BND), the outperformance is quite clear. Data by YCharts…
Andres Victorero By Karen Veraa, CFA After 11 rate hikes, the Fed funds rate is at its highest level in 22 years – investors are able to get paid to hold fixed income investments. This higher rate environment creates a generational opportunity for bond investors. While past returns don’t guarantee future performance, bond ETFs have…
Andres Victorero Transcript Government bond yields have surged this year, with long-term U.S. yields hitting 16-year highs in August. We think short-term government bonds now appeal more to us than investment grade credit over the long run. Yet, we still see risks to long-term bonds. Here’s why: 1) Comparable income The yield rise in short-term…
PM Images While screening for high yielding investments, I came across the SPDR Blackstone High Income ETF (BATS:HYBL). The HYBL ETF is managed by Blackstone, the well-known private equity and alternative asset manager. It seeks to generate high income from a portfolio of leveraged loans and high yield bonds. Although the HYBL ETF pays an…
Hemera Technologies/PHOTOS.com>> via Getty Images Bonds from a growth and inflation perspective For those who have been bullish bonds and calling for a rally throughout 2023, it has been on the back of falling growth and waning inflation such thesis have been based. By simply looking at the traditional relationship between yields and the business…
Viktor Aheiev The diverging performance of emerging markets local currency bonds in 2023 versus those in developed markets reflects the changing fundamental reality for fixed income investors. U.S. bond yields have been on an upwards trajectory in recent weeks, with the 10-year Treasury yield up nearly 100 basis points (bps) from its lowest level of…
Mano/iStock via Getty Images Introduction In the past few months, I have been building a position in some of the baby bonds issued by Sachem Capital (NYSE:SACH), an alternative lender focusing on real estate the “fix and flip” segment. As Sachem requires its borrowers to provide personal guarantees, it has so far been able to…
tum3123 Multiple factors may continue to push U.S. interest rates higher and increase risk to bond investors, but select emerging markets have generally been weathering these ongoing DM-led adverse scenarios. In July, the VanEck Emerging Markets Bond Fund (MUTF:EMBAX) was up 1.63% compared to up 2.34% for its benchmark (50% J.P. Morgan Government Bond Index-Emerging…