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| BondsOnline.com: instant access to and extensive coverage of over 3.5 million stocks, bonds, indexes and other securities covering major and emerging markets and exchanges across the globe. |
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| Bonds Online |
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| 5/10/2013Market Performance |
| Municipal Bonds |
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S&P National Bond Index
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3.00% |
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S&P California Bond Index
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2.96% |
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S&P New York Bond Index
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3.13% |
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S&P National 0-5 Year Municipal Bond Index
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0.70% |
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| S&P/BGCantor US Treasury Bond |
400.09 |
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| Income Equities: |
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| Preferred Stocks |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index
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848.03 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (CAD)
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636.26 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR)
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1,701.05 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR) (CAD)
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1,276.26 |
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| REITs |
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S&P REIT Index
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174.07 |
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S&P REIT Index (TR)
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425.30 |
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| MLPs |
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S&P MLP Index
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2,469.58 |
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S&P MLP Index (TR)
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5,428.50 |
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See Data
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Boosting Fixed-Income Returns With Preferred Securities and Emerging Market Debt |
Seeking Alpha - June 30, 2011 - by Patrick Moore
Last week, Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reinforced his belief that interest rates should be kept at historically low levels for an extended period of time. For many fixed-income investors, this continuing stretch of meager returns is causing havoc. Withdrawal needs, growing inflation rates, and the lack of capital appreciation potential are eating away at their peace of mind and portfolios.
Despite this seemingly poor investing environment for most fixed-income investors, there are a number of income-producing options that investors should consider to improve their outcome. In this article, we’ll take a look at two of them -- preferred securities and Emerging Market debt.
Preferred Securities
Preferred stocks have been around for over a century. They are a type of hybrid security with characteristics of both equities and bonds. Preferred securities represent a large and growing asset class of approximately $585 billion.
Currently, the average yield of preferred securities is nearly 7.4%. That’s about 4.25% above the 10-year treasury yield. Beyond the benefit of this yield differential, these securities may actually enhance the diversification of a portfolio and lower portfolio risk due to their low correlation to both equities and bonds. Additionally, the overall preferred market has the same average credit quality as the broader bond market.
In the preferred security ETF space, we can mention three good options – iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (PFF), PowerShares Financial Preferred (PGF), and PowerShares Preferred (PGX). All three currently clear our hurdles as viable investment choices, but we like PFF for its size and stability. It’s less volatile than its smaller PowerShares brethren.
Emerging Market Debt
Emerging Market (EM) debt has evolved in recent years into a more mature, mainstream fixed-income asset class due to its size, liquidity, and availability of quality investment vehicles. Total outstanding EM corporate debt now stands at about $765 billion and accounts for approximately 10% of the total global bond market. In 2010, there was more than $200 billion of EM debt issued. As determined by the JPMorgan EMBI-Global Index, there are 41 emerging market countries that issue debt, compared with less than 15 a decade ago.
For the complete article.
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| Stuff to look at |
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S&P Commentary and Newsletters: S&P
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| BondsOnline Advisor |
Income Security Recommendation January 2013 Issue.
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