1. Bought 100 IGK at $22.04 (see disclaimer) : I really did not want to buy IGK today. I had some mental issues wrapped up in this security that I have yet to overcome. During one of the earlier meltdowns in the ING perpetual hybrid capital securities, I placed an order to buy IGK at around $6 or so, after I saw the price drop intra-day to that level on 2/20/09, not very long ago. Hartford Bond Sold/ Modoff: No Evidence of Trading/bought 50 INZ at 6.52/ I could have bought 100 at $6.5, but I was trying to save myself $50 during those volatile days for these ING securities. I did buy INZ that day at $6.52. So, you can see the problem. I did not save myself any money by being so smart, having now bought 100 shares of IGK at over $1500 higher than my skin flint offer on February 20th. Another mental issue is that I own a number of these securities already, including IND, INZ and ISF, and have had some success trading them to lower my cost basis. ING Preferred Stocks: Links in one Post Having established a low cost basis, I did not want to muck my record up by buying one after they had more than tripled in price. That was just a lot of mental baggage to be carrying around.
I turned the corner this morning when I looked at how much I had added to my money market fund, earning next to nothing, in the past two weeks. I was looking around for anything decent with a good yield, and IGK was the best that I could find this morning.
IGK is one of these weird securities from European firms, referred to as a hybrid security, that are both equity and debt, at the same time. The Quantum site has it listed under "preferred" stocks that pay qualified dividends Preferreds eligible for the 15% Tax Rate Table - QuantumOnline.com I can not confirm that tax status based on my own 1099s since I have not previously owned IGK before today. I can only say that both IND and INZ were listed on my 2008 1099 as paying qualified dividends. So, these securities are all apparently classified as equity preferred, part of ING's equity capital, for tax purposes. They are, however, debt. Both Moody's and S & P have these ING hybrids rated as investment grade based on the information at the quantum site, which I have not attempted to personally verify recently.
I bought the IGK today because it had the highest yield. At a cost of $22, the 8.5% coupon for a $25 par value security is worth 9.66%. IND and INZ were both yielding less than 9% when I placed the order for IGK this morning. The only issue is yield at the time a decision is made to buy one of these hybrid securities. I can not detect any material difference in the terms contained in the various prospectuses. Also, the coupon does not matter. What matters is the yield based on my purchase price. I would not have had a problem buying IND, which has a much lower coupon than IGK, provided it was yielding more this morning.
Dividends are paid quarterly, with the next ex date scheduled for later this month.
This is a link to the prospectus: 424B5
Besides a desire to earn more on my cash balance, and anything would be more now, I was also influenced by the market's reaction to the ING earnings report. ING common has been up strongly since the release.
2. Bought 50 Seaspan at $6.39-Lottery Ticket (see disclaimer): I mentioned in my post discussing the sell of the ETF SEA that I would be buying a lottery ticket in an individual shipping name later in the week. I did that this morning by buying 50 shares of Seaspan in my Roth IRA. This will be classified as a Lottery Ticket purchase, even though it exceeds the $300 maximum by a few dollars. LOTTERY TICKET PURCHASES: LINKS IN ONE POST RB avoided another rule violation by successfully arguing to Headknocker that it should receive a credit for the profit on SEA which reduced the effective cost in Headknocker's LT game to below the $300 maximum.
I put this stock into a Roth due to a specific and potential tax issue with this company, discussed in its annual report at page 119:Form 20-F
Like other shippers, the worldwide economic downturn has devastated the stock price of SSW. That is almost a requirement for a LT, and consequently viewed as a positive development, since I did not owned SSW before today. The stock hit a high of 37 in July 2007 and it has been downhill since that time. After plunging from around 25 in mid August to 5 in October 2008, the stock has mostly spent time meandering in a wide channel between 5 and 10. SSW worked its way back over 10 in last April 2009, and suffered another fall to the bottom of its range after cutting its dividend from $.475 to $.10, and posting a decline in earnings.
Seaspan's report for the 2nd quarter looked okay, considering the circumstances. YF lists the price to book at .45 and the PEG ratio for the next five years at .29. SSW: Key Statistics for SEASPAN If the earnings estimates can be hit over that future time period, and the company successfully navigates this worldwide recession, then a PEG ratio of .29 would be a buying opportunity, though a high risk one, which is why the purchase today was classified as a lottery ticket.
Morningstar has a favorable report on SSW, with a five star rating. One of the most important issues is the solvency of some of some of Seaspan's customers, and that issue is discussed some in the last earnings release and in the Morningstar report. I also subscribe to Value Line, but prefer the Morningstar service which is also much cheaper. VL does not have a report and S & P does not have an analyst report, just data and news on SSW. So, the report from Morningstar was important in making the decision to buy SSW this morning, over the other shipper being considered as the LT buy.
3. Sunopta (owned-LOTTERY TICKET) Headknocker ordered the LB to quit trashing stocks owned by him, as LB did recently in reviewing the recent earnings release of Sunopta. Sunopta Instead, Headknocker reamed the LB for not focusing on the organic food business of STKL, and the renewable clean energy segment, for all of our California surfer dude readers.
Sunopta has risen after the last earnings release, LB acknowledged, rising to a double from the RB's buy, but LB stands by its earlier opinion of this LT and would like to sell it.
No comments:
Post a Comment