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We have added shares of baby bond Newtek Business Services 7.5% notes (ticker:NEWTZ) to the 2014/2015 Short/Medium Duration Income Portfolio and to the 2015 Blended Income Portfolio.Note that we paid above par for the shares paying $25.45/share. As always it is our preference to pay just par or less, but this is a small issue with decent demand, so we…

September was a month of much consternation in the financial markets, but compared to July and August the actual movement in indexes was kind of mild.  The SP500 moved in a range of just 5% ending the month off just 2%.  This brings the loss YTD for the SP500 to -5.23%.  The index is off just 9.1% from the 52…

Giant utility company, Southern Company, has sold a big baby bond issue--35,000,000 shares.  The issue is investment grade as one would expect out of this company.  The coupon is fairly tasty for this level of quality at 6.25%.Unfortunately the issue has a duration that doesn't fit with our personal current focus of keeping durations short to medium in length.  The…

Date Issued   10/01/2015Shares Issued   35,000,000      Overallotment Shares  5,000,000S&P Rating  BBB   Moodys Rating   Baa2Security Ticker Symbol  SOJAMarket Traded ON   NYSEInterest Payment Paid on the 15th of January, April, July and October  beginning on 01/15/2016Quarterly Interest   .391   Annual Interest   1.563Securities may be redeemed, at the issuers option, as early as 10/15/2020 for a redemption price of $25/share plus…

We have written frequently about the leverage rules that closed end funds (which includes Business Development Companies) must follow per the SEC Act of 1940, Section 18 and at this point in time the rules are starting to bite in the CEF world. In general debt of CEFs must have a asset coverage ratio of 300% on debt and 200% on…