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Loan Fund Primer

Sweden is now the latest country to make headlines about extreme central bank policy to stimulate growth which creates a dilemma for Swedish people trying to save money. This highlights the need to learn about different sectors of the fixed income market and taking a multi-sector approach in your fixed income portfolio. One sector that has attracted attention and assets has been the loan market. By Roger Nusbaum, AdvisorShares Strategist Last week the Riksbank (the Swedish central bank) dropped its benchmark interest rate to -0.10 and as of earlier this week Sweden’s ten year sovereign debt was yielding 0.50%. So Sweden is now the latest country to make headlines about extreme central bank policy to stimulate growth. We will see whether this turns out to be effective policy but it creates a dilemma for Swedish people trying to save money. This is the same or similar dilemma for people in many other countries including the US and while our rates are not as low as many other countries they are low enough to be problematic; two basis points for a money market and 2% for ten year treasuries. We’ve been looking at this issue for years, making the point about the need to learn about different sectors of the fixed income market and taking a multi-sector approach in your fixed income portfolio. We’ve talked about combining sectors with higher yields and so potentially more risk with sectors with lower yields and likely less risk to get an overall yield that hopefully approaches a useful level even if not a normal level; normal based on historical interest rates. One sector that has attracted attention and assets has been the loan market. There have been traditional mutual funds offering access for a fair bit of time and in the last couple of years ETFs have been rolled out that target the sector and the asset flows have been huge, more than $5 billion for the largest fund in the group. The attraction is simple enough; yields can be in the four percent range and because of their reset feature they don’t take interest rate risk. ‘Reset feature’ means that the interest rate paid on the loans adjusts based on prevailing rates on a regular interval, usually every three months. If you look on the info page for a loan fund you’ll see a maturity of several years but you’ll also see something like average days until reset which is when the rate on a given loan will update. From quarter to quarter there may not be much change but occasionally there will. This entire mechanism reduces interest rate risk to being essentially a non-issue. The credit quality of course tends to be lower which accounts for the yields being relatively attractive. Credit risk is generally mitigated, but not completely mitigated, by accessing the space via a fund similar to high yield. I would note that accessing an individual loan is not really a possibility for individuals. The other risk to mention is liquidity risk. Loans don’t trade on a secondary market so during some sort of event that strains liquidity the funds and their holders could have a problem with short term volatility. Most of the funds have the flexibility to hold some bonds that do trade on a secondary market to help in the face of a liquidity event. Anyone interested in the space, and with the yields available it is worth learning about, should take the time to understand what their given fund will do to address this potential issue. Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it. The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Additional disclosure: To the extent that this content includes references to securities, those references do not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or hold such security. AdvisorShares is a sponsor of actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and holds positions in all of its ETFs. This document should not be considered investment advice and the information contain within should not be relied upon in assessing whether or not to invest in any products mentioned. Investment in securities carries a high degree of risk which may result in investors losing all of their invested capital. Please keep in mind that a company’s past financial performance, including the performance of its share price, does not guarantee future results. To learn more about the risks with actively managed ETFs visit our website AdvisorShares.com .AdvisorShares is an SEC registered RIA, which advises to actively managed exchange traded funds (Active ETFs). The article has been written by Roger Nusbaum, AdvisorShares ETF Strategist. We are not receiving compensation for this article, and have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

This New ETF Looks To Take Advantage Of The Stock Buyback Trend

Summary State Street launched the SPDR S&P 500 Buyback ETF with the intention of capitalizing on the recent share buyback popularity. Its closest comparable, the PowerShares Buyback Achievers ETF, has doubled the return of the S&P 500 since its inception in 2006. Roughly 80% of S&P 500 companies have bought back their own shares within the last couple years. Companies, it seems, have had an insatiable appetite for buying back their own shares lately. It’s a strategy that is a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s great for shareholders as a reduced share count boosts earnings per share and almost always pops the share price. It also works out better for taxes because it’s essentially a tax-free transaction (as opposed to dividends which would be taxable). On the other hand, it could be an indication that the company doesn’t necessarily have any higher returning projects to invest in and instead are choosing to return the excess capital to shareholders. Big names like Boeing (NYSE: BA ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) have been big purchasers of their own stock lately and it’s estimated that 80% or more of S&P 500 companies have bought back their own shares recently. Given the effects that it has on stock prices, it’s not surprising that an ETF is attempting to jump on the trend in an attempt to deliver oversized returns. Earlier this month, State Street launched the SPDR S&P 500 Buyback ETF (NYSEARCA: SPYB ). The goal of the ETF is simple. It looks to invest in the top 100 stocks with the highest buyback ratios in the S&P 500 over the last 12 months. Current top holdings include big names like Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV ), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO ) and Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR ). The fund’s 0.35% annual expense ratio is not unreasonable as it falls in line with the expense ratios of many of State Street’s SPDR ETFs, but is a little on the high side considering the fact that it is passively benchmarked to the S&P 500 Buyback Index. While the concept of this ETF will be of interest to many investors, I can’t help thinking that this type of ETF has been done and with much success already. The PowerShares Buyback Achievers ETF (NYSEARCA: PKW ) was launched back at the end of 2006, and since then has returned a total of 92% compared to the S&P 500’s return of 44%. In just the past five years, the Buyback Achievers ETF has returned 142% compared to the S&P 500’s 93%. Perhaps the key differentiator between the two ETFs is the expense ratio. The SPDR S&P 500 Buyback ETF charges roughly half of the 0.71% expense ratio that the PowerShares ETF charges. Management styles are slightly different – the SPDR ETF is equally weighted whereas the PowerShares ETF is not – but the concept is substantially the same. Liquidity is also a big factor currently. The PowerShares ETF manages roughly $2.7B and trades around 380K shares a day. The SPDR ETF is obviously brand new and has just $5M under management with very thin trading volume. Conclusion Given the popularity of stock buybacks in the last 1-2 years, it’s not surprising to see State Street begin offering a product designed to capture the performance boost that typically comes with them. PowerShares has already proven that this strategy can produce above average returns over a lengthy period of time. While State Street has demonstrated a great deal of success over time with its SPDR family of ETFs, I feel that investors looking to jump on the buyback bandwagon might be better served starting with the PowerShares Buyback ETF first. First, what’s the harm in going with the product with the proven track record. Second, give the SPDR Buyback ETF time to build an asset and trading base so it can shake out some of its operating inefficiencies first. Overall, I think the SPDR S&P 500 Buyback ETF will ultimately be a solid addition to the State Street lineup and warrants investor consideration. Disclosure: The author is long AAPL. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

My Duke Energy Fourth-Quarter Earnings Prediction

I predict the stock to report a $1.27 earnings number on $6.344 billion in revenue. Analysts are predicting an average of $0.80 and $6.25 billion. Duke is definitely a solid name to hold onto to during difficult times and the 4% dividend yield offers pretty good protection for when the stock price drops. As earnings season continues we’ve seen the utility sector of the market show some chinks in the armor as the ten-year treasury yield has begun to climb. Duke has been the beneficiary stock recently of falling yields and now is becoming a victim of rising yields. I selected this stock for my portfolio of thirty back in May of 2013 because I liked the prospect of having a great dividend and a business which is always going to have a customer. During the past year the stock price has increased 11.74% excluding dividends and only just in the past two weeks has it lost 10% due to rising treasury yields. With that said I’d like to make my prediction for Duke Energy for the fourth quarter of 2014 that the company will be announcing on February 18, 2015 before the market opens. DUKE ENERGY CORPORATION (NYSE: DUK ) INCOME STATEMENT Fiscal year ends in December. USD in millions except per share data. 2014-12 2014-09 2014-06 2014-03 2013-12 2013-09 Revenue $6,344 $6,395 $5,949 $6,624 $6,112 $6,709 Cost of revenue $2,275 $2,307 $2,287 $2,531 $2,281 $2,474 Gross profit $4,069 $4,088 $3,662 $4,093 $3,831 $4,235 Operating expenses Operation and maintenance $1,398 $1,409 $1,467 $1,506 $1,527 $1,458 Depreciation and amortization $810 $788 $761 $790 $763 $707 Other operating expenses $491 $272 $318 $1,739 $338 $327 Total operating expenses $2,699 $2,469 $2,546 $4,035 $2,628 $2,492 Operating income $1,370 $1,619 $1,116 $58 $1,203 $1,743 Interest Expense $412 $405 $413 $406 $419 $379 Other income (expense) $175 $137 $122 $131 $211 $87 Income before income taxes $1,132 $1,351 $825 -$217 $995 $1,451 Provision for income taxes $340 $460 $209 -$127 $309 $457 Net income from continuing operations $793 $891 $616 -$90 $686 $994 Net income from discontinuing ops $100 $378 -$3 -$3 $6 $14 Other $3 $5 -$4 -$4 -$4 -$4 Net income $896 $1,274 $609 -$97 $688 $1,004 Net income available to common shareholders $896 $1,274 $609 -$97 $688 $1,004 Earnings per share Basic $1.27 $1.80 $0.86 -$0.14 $0.97 $1.42 Diluted $1.27 $1.80 $0.86 -$0.14 $0.97 $1.42 Weighted average shares outstanding Basic 707 707 707 706 706 706 Diluted 707 707 707 706 706 706 So you may notice that I have revenue to be about equal to what it was during the past quarter and that’s because I don’t believe the economy has excelled much during the past couple of quarters. The average analyst estimate for the quarter is $6.25 billion with a high of $6.8 billion. So I appear to be a bit optimistic for the quarter on revenue than the average but on a GAAP basis I’m predicting earnings to be $1.27 while the average estimate is $0.80 with a high of $0.98. I’m actually quite a bit higher than the rest of the pack because I’ve assumed best case scenarios for operating expenses as all their commodity prices have dropped significantly during the fourth quarter. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in a few days, but one thing is for sure, I’m not going to be buying any of the stock before the earnings report. However, I purchased a batch last week right before the ex-dividend date so I can increase my dividend a little. Duke is definitely a solid name to hold onto to during difficult times and the 4% dividend yield offers pretty good protection for when the stock price drops. Disclaimer: This article is in no way a recommendation to buy or sell any stock mentioned. This article is meant to serve as a journal for myself as to the rationale of why I bought/sold this stock when I look back on it in the future. These are only my personal opinions and you should do your own homework. Only you are responsible for what you trade and happy investing! Disclosure: The author is long DUK. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Are you Bullish or Bearish on ? Bullish Bearish Neutral Results for ( ) Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Submit & View Results Skip to results » Share this article with a colleague