Tag Archives: Senior Loan
Rieger Report: The Uncorrelated
Why worry? New highs for the U.S. stock market indices will keep coming, right? Just in case, this might be a good time to examine asset classes that are not correlated to the equity market or the “uncorrelated”. Corporate bonds of the issuers in the S&P 500 are tracked in the S&P 500 Bond Index. As a group…
- Categories Fixed Income
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S&P U.S. High Quality Preferred Stock Index: A Venn of an Index
Similar to the Venn diagram in which the overlapping section of circles is the focus, the S&P U.S. High Quality Preferred Stock Index is designed to measure preferred securities that are constituents of both the fixed-rate and investment-grade preferred stock indices. Exhibit 1: S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Indices Hierarchy The weight of cumulative preferred stocks…
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Bond Returns Barely Positive in February
The last few days of February had many wondering whether corporate bond indices would end up closing positive or negative for the month. The majority of indices closed up for February, but not by much. Higher-quality corporate bonds, as measured by the S&P 500® Bond Index, posted a 0.83% total return for February and returned…
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The Rieger Report: Bonds in 2016?
2015 had been a year of low or no returns for major asset classes. Income asset classes such as preferred stock and municipal bonds did outpace the S&P 500 Index and did so without the volatility but others did not bode as well. What about 2016? Let’s look at the leaders for 2015 first: From a total return perspective…
- Categories Fixed Income
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- Fixed Income
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What’s Your Weight in Energy?
Energy has been the hot topic in regard to investments. The drop in the price of oil (USD 37 per barrel) and prolonged low values of many commodities (S&P GSCI, -33% YTD) has added concern to an already nervous bond market. The expectation that the U.S. Federal Reserve would follow through on its assumed intention…
- Categories Fixed Income, Uncategorized
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- Fixed Income, Uncategorized
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Embracing Rising Interest Rates
Floating Rate Instruments can make a lot of sense in a rising interest rate environment In my May 19 blog, I mentioned two strategies that investors could consider in a rising interest rate environment. Given the recent direction of short-term interest rates, I believe the information bears repeating with updated numbers. Interest rates have been…
- Categories Fixed Income
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- Fixed Income
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U.S. Bond Prices Have Moved Up as Chinese Stock Prices Have Plunged
This week (starting July 27, 2015), the bond market has been off to a strong start, with the yield of the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond at 2.22%. U.S. bond prices have moved up as Chinese stock prices have plunged. Last week saw Treasury yields move lower, as dropping commodity prices followed the weaker CPI numbers…
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The U.S. Celebrates its Independence While Greece Displays its Dependence on Debt
Closing out a short week before the U.S. fourth of July holiday, the yield-to-worst of the S&P/BGCantor Current 10 Year U.S. Treasury Index closed at 2.38% on Thursday, July 2, 2015. The yield-to-worst was 9 bps lower than the 2.47% close of the previous Friday (June 26, 2015), as concerns over the Greek bailout vote…
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Greece Is not out of the Picture for U.S. Investors
The yield-to-worst (YTW) on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond, as measured by the S&P/BGCantor Current 10 Year U.S. Treasury Index, increased by 21 bps and ended 34 bps higher. At 2.47%, it appeared the optimism over a Greek settlement was justified. The index has returned -2.90% MTD and -1.94% YTD as of June 26, 2015. …
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Last Week’s Safety Trade Is Off, as Greece Charts a New Direction for Bonds
The yield-to-worst of the S&P/BGCantor Current 10 Year U.S. Treasury Index ended the week on Friday, June 19, 2015, 12 bps lower, at 2.26%. Concerns over Greek debt financing with the European Union led investors to the safety of U.S. Treasuries. Up to that Friday, the index had returned -1.11% MTD, recovering a bit after…
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