You can’t hide from this global market maelstrom; you have to have a plan. Read More

We’ve never met a man who’s gone broke with regular checks coming in. Read More

The hits just keep on coming. And not even high-quality electric utility stocks have proven immune. Read More

Few sectors have been spared the vicious global market selloff and publicly traded partnerships (PTP) aren’t one of the lucky few. Read More

The daily news is focused on cash and credit, which is no surprise. More and more company managers already have problems with short-term financing or will soon hear them knocking at the doors of their executive suites. Read More

Leverage hasn’t paid this year. That much is plain from the pasting we’ve taken in Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Income Fund. Read More

September marked the worst month for the S&P 500 since 2001; few sectors and stocks were spared the carnage. Some of the worst performers: the very stocks that performed best in the first half of the year. Read More

The media has highlighted federal efforts to thaw the frozen credit markets, especially now that taxpayer money is explicitly involved. But despite innumerable anecdotes about how Wall Street’s credit woes are trickling down to Main Street, many remain in the dark about how to gauge whether Washington’s efforts are working. Meet Ted. The difference between the yield on three-month US Treasury contracts and the three-month London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR), THE TED SPREAD SERVES AS A BAROMETER OF PERCEIVED CREDIT RISK AT THE INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL. US Treasury bills are considered risk-free investments, while LIBOR measures the rate at which banks are willing to lend money to one another; a rising TED spread indicates that lenders are demanding a higher rate of interest to mitigate elevated credit risk or are settling for the lower, safer returns offered by T-Bills. A falling TED spread would indicate that credit conditions are improving. Read More

At a time when money market funds are facing unprecedented pressures from tight credit markets and investor redemptions, it can take some pressure off when you can find stocks and bonds that generate steady returns with less risk. Read More

Since their creation in 1970, investors have depended on money market funds (MMF) to stash their cash with essentially no risk. Constrained by regulation to purchasing investment-grade short-term debt such as commercial paper (CP), there’s little room for creative portfolio construction. In essence, all money market managers had to do was make sure the net asset value of their funds remained at $1 per share. Read More