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While we never advocate 'trading' on a excessive basis, we do advocated staying aware of where you are invested (you snooze, you lose).  We have to admit that we have broken our own rule and got caught holding Puerto Rican banker Oriental Finance perpetual preferred shares (ticker:OFG-B) this week. Falling asleep has cost us a couple 1/10th of a percent in the…

Todays market downdraft was no worse than we thought it would be - plenty bad, but not disasterous. Unfortunately, there is no resolution to any global issues and in fact with the Puerto Rico debt issue coming front and center we have a bit more to ponder. At least the Puerto Rican govenor was straightforward in saying that creditors should…

Leave it to Greece to find a way to baffle global markets and when they decided they needed anationwide referendum to determine the countries financial path forward another shenanigan was contrived.It has been obvious to us for a long, long time that Greece had no viable way out of their economic predicament but we didn't ever expect them to call a…

As mentioned earlier today we were looking at taking a potential position in REIT CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust (ticker:CORR).  While we view the REIT sector as currently weak and likely to get weaker as interest rates creep higher we see CorEnergy as a special situation---currently undervalued with a reasonably safe distribution (and one that is over 8%).We have taken a 'starter' position (a smaller…

Income issues of all sorts continue to lose ground as interest rates fluctuate in the 2.40% area (the 10 year treasury). It seems that the market is 'pricing in' higher rates for September, instead of the conventional viewpoint that it will be December.Preferred stock closed end funds have taken the largest knock with prices now off 8-9% from their highs in February.…