Recently i discovered to my surprise that many bonds that sold at a large discount have gained in value. it is now harder to find them cheap. so in order to find those issued by a reliable company, i have to go easy on maturity date.
just bought a long term bond. issued by Cigna, coupon $7.65% which is very high, maturity date 3/2023. bought at $88. The rating is BBB (not very high) by S&P.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
sold a bond over par
JUST sold a bond 060505AG9 at 100.751. it is above the par. although it pays a good interest rate, i can still find something similar i think.
frankly i thought i would hold it until maturity. but above the par, just can't resist.
actually two of my other bonds are being sold near par too...
frankly i thought i would hold it until maturity. but above the par, just can't resist.
actually two of my other bonds are being sold near par too...
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
SKF
I just can't resist the temptation any more. i set the limit price and it was executed this afternoon.
bout skf at 44.90
bout skf at 44.90
Bac
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/242096/Stress-Test-Shocker-BofA-Needs-34B-But-That's-%22Good-News%22-for-Ken-Lewis-&-Co.?tickers=BAC,C,XLF,SKF,FAS,FAZ,%5EDJI?sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
i do own a few BAC from the countrywide mess. since i did not do dollar average in the last few month, they are in bad shape. i am not too excited if it goes up 10% in a day since i am not planning to sell them all with a big loss anyway.
since it needs to raise $34B capital, i am not sure why it is up a lot this morning. the article above has put it nicely.
i personally never liked it as a bank although i banked there as soon as i came to this country 10 years ago. a friend was a loyal customer so she took me to a branch and had me opened an account. there were few choices in the neighbourhood at the time and BAC was the only major American bank. A banker sold me two mutual funds before i moved to Houston. He wanted 95% of my money to invest in 4 mutual funds that he recommended and lied to me about minimum $ requirement to invest. i did not know anything about mutual funds. I did not know that there are actually funds that do not charge a 5% fee as soon as you invest in them (front load). the funds did poorly and i sold them at a loss 5 years later. I actually did pick some no-load funds my self and they beat BAC recommendations badly. and my own stock picks did even better.
Ever since i opened checking/saving at Etrade bank, i seldom used my bac accounts and i closed them two years ago. they cancelled my bac credit cards too.
i do own a few BAC from the countrywide mess. since i did not do dollar average in the last few month, they are in bad shape. i am not too excited if it goes up 10% in a day since i am not planning to sell them all with a big loss anyway.
since it needs to raise $34B capital, i am not sure why it is up a lot this morning. the article above has put it nicely.
i personally never liked it as a bank although i banked there as soon as i came to this country 10 years ago. a friend was a loyal customer so she took me to a branch and had me opened an account. there were few choices in the neighbourhood at the time and BAC was the only major American bank. A banker sold me two mutual funds before i moved to Houston. He wanted 95% of my money to invest in 4 mutual funds that he recommended and lied to me about minimum $ requirement to invest. i did not know anything about mutual funds. I did not know that there are actually funds that do not charge a 5% fee as soon as you invest in them (front load). the funds did poorly and i sold them at a loss 5 years later. I actually did pick some no-load funds my self and they beat BAC recommendations badly. and my own stock picks did even better.
Ever since i opened checking/saving at Etrade bank, i seldom used my bac accounts and i closed them two years ago. they cancelled my bac credit cards too.
Monday, May 4, 2009
DXD
Since the rally of the mkt has been a while, i have been more and more tempted to short it as a hedge. as a investment beginner, the index i pay the most attention to is of course DJIA. so today i started by buying DXD at 50.50. it has twice leverage so a little investment can have twice the power.
i am also thinking of SKF - it dropped almost 18% today - it is obviously more volatile given the sensitivity of the financial industry. let's start with the easy one and i will probably get into skf if the mkt continue to "recover".
i am also thinking of SKF - it dropped almost 18% today - it is obviously more volatile given the sensitivity of the financial industry. let's start with the easy one and i will probably get into skf if the mkt continue to "recover".
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