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We have a conservative income portfolio which we call the 2015/2015 Short/Moderate Duration Income Portfolio which has some pretty well defined guidelines--all issues in the model have maturity dates of less than 10 years--actually it should be all issues except 1 (which is Tortoise Energy Infrastructure 4.37% Term Preferred (ticker:TYG-B) which matures in 2027.Our premise is simple on this portfolio.  Reduce…

Sometmes we just write about various items we observe in the markets that are of interest to us (although not always for you).One item that caught our attention was a news item on New Source Energy Partners (ticker:NSLP) which is now trading at 11 cents (yes--11 cents).  The company has a cumulative, convertible preferred issue outstanding (ticker:NSLP-A) with a coupon…

Flipping to our MLP page this afternoon we were absolutely shocked to see the level of RED on the page--not just red, but hugely negative numbers (as measured in percentage--of course from current level a few cents sometimes makes for a huge percentage loss).60% of the issues were down MORE THAN 5% today!!! Bunches were down by more than 10%.…

We have noted that there seems to be a belief that that 'high yield' instruments hold up best in a weakening market.  I think this belief started back in 2008 and early 2009 when one could pick up higher yield preferreds and exchange traded debt, sometimes for 20-25 cents on the dollar and then hold them for the recovery. The…

We got a note from long time reader Howard as he vented on the so called 'trading' in the new issue Newtek Business Services 7.5% Notes (ticker:NEWTZ).For all practical purposes there is little 'trading' going on in the issue. We show a number of trades in the 1st 90 minutes of the day and then a measly 100 shares traded…