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Exchange Traded Fixed Income Securities TablesThe QuantumOnline website is completely supported by voluntary user contributions. If our income investing information is useful to your income investing activities, please become a QuantumOnline supporter so that we can continue to offer this information to you. Become a QuantumOnline Supporter!
QuantumOnline offers nine separate tables of exchange-traded fixed income security information. The All Exchange-Traded Income Securities Table combines all six income security categories into a single, very large (and slow loading), table. The All Preferred Stocks Table combines the preferred stocks, trust preferred stocks and convertible preferreds into a single table. The Preferreds eligible for the 15% Tax Rate Table separates the preferreds that we believe are eligible for the 15% tax rate on to their own table. The last six tables list the six separate exchange-traded fixed income security categories on separate tables for ease of reference by the user interested in researching a particular category of income security. Clicking on the table's heading will produce the selected table sorted by security name. Clicking on a selected sort order in the row labeled "Sorted by:" from the chart below a table's heading will produce that table sorted by Ticker Symbol, Security Name, IPO Date, Redemption (or Call) Date, Moodys Credit Rating, Liquidation Preference (Issue Price), Call (Redemption) Price, Distribution Rate (Coupon Rate) in %, or Distribution Dates.
All Exchange-Traded Income Securities Table Select Sort Order below:
All Preferred Stocks Table Select Sort Order below:
Preferreds eligible for the 15% Tax Rate Table Select Sort Order below:
To develop this table we have used the following criteria to remove stocks from our comprehensive Exchange-Traded Income Securities Table: No REIT Securities, No Trust Preferreds (hybrid securities with tax deductible interest on the debt securities), No Debt Securities, No Securities with Distributions Suspended.
Traditional preferred stocks generally are perpetual securities that have no stated maturity date. Recently issued preferreds are redeemable on or after five years from the date of issue at the issuer's option at par (the issue price) while the older preferreds are now redeemable any time at the issuer's option, normally at a small premium. Most preferred stocks pay quarterly dividends while a few pay monthly dividends. In payment of dividends and upon liquidation, the traditional preferred ranks junior to the company's debt and senior to the company's common stock. Most traditional preferreds are eligible for the 15% tax rate with the exception of the preferreds issued by REITs which are NOT eligible for the lower tax rate.
The debt securities are generally junior subordinated deferrable interest debentures, which are the lowest ranked of the debt securities issued by the company, and which generally have a maturity date of 30 to 50 years from the date of issue. The interest payments of the debt securities, paid by the company to the trust, are used to fund the trust's distributions to the preferred security holders. When the debt securities mature and are paid off, the trust in turn uses those funds to pay off the trust preferred securities which mature on the same date as the debt securities. Trust preferreds can be redeemed (called) at the company's option, generally at the issue price (liquidation preference), and generally on or after five years from the date of issue. Redemption of the securities, on or after the specified optional redemption date, is optional for the company but, if called, the call for redemption is mandatory for the holder of the securities. The debt securities generally have a deferrable interest clause that allows the company to defer distributions for up to five years at their option and for any reason but not beyond the maturity date. A distribution deferral will generate a very unpleasant situation for the preferred holder as the tax laws require the holder to pay taxes on the deferred but accruing dividends even though the holders is not receiving any cash. The company also provides a rather limited guarantee for the trust preferred that guarantees that, if the company pays the interest payment to the trust, the company guarantees that the trust will pay the dividend payments to the security holders. The advantage of this hybrid arrangement to the company is that the interest paid on the debt securities is deductible from their income taxes while normal preferred dividends would not be deductible. Trust preferreds are NOT eligible for the 15% tax rate on dividends.
The securities are sold under a variety of names and acronyms including CABCO Trusts, Corporate Backed Trust Certificates (CBTCs), CorTS, PCARS, PPLUS, SATURNS, STEERS, TRUCs, etc. The firms buy institutional preferred and debt securities on the open market and then repackage them for sale to individual investors. To do this, the firm sets up a trust that buys the institutional securities from the firm and then sells the third party trust preferred securities to investors. Then, the trust collects the distributions from the underlying security issuer and pays the investors their dividends as established in the trust security's IPO prospectus. The distribution percentage paid to investors normally differs from the underlying security's distribution as the firm has generally bought the underlying securities at a premium or discount from the original issue price. Another basic difference of these securities is that they generally pay their distributions semi-annually rather than quarterly. These securities often have some unusual call provisions involving call warrants, etc. that are quite difficult to understand but often boil down to the securities in reality being callable on or after five years from the date of issue at par. Third party trust preferreds are NOT eligible for the 15% tax rate as the underlying security issuer uses the interest paid as a tax deductible expense which makes the security ineligible for the new tax rate.
Exchange-traded debt securities generally mature in 30 to 100 years. The debt securities are normally redeemable at the issuer's option on or after five years from the date of issue at par. Most of these debt securities pay quarterly interest distributions. In payment of interest and upon liquidation, the exchange-traded debt securities rank junior to the company's secured debt and senior to the company's preferred and common stock. In contrast to the more common $1000 corporate bonds, exchange-traded debt securities are issued in $25 denominations and can be traded on the stock exchanges in the same manner as common stocks. These debt securities are NOT eligible for the 15% tax rate on dividends as they pay interest, not dividends.
They are sometimes redeemable (callable) at the issuer's option on or after two to five years from the date of issue at a specified call price under a variety of circumstances. In regards to the payment of dividends and upon liquidation, these preferred shares normally rank junior to the company's debt, equally with other traditional preferreds of the company and senior to the common shares of the company. These convertibles offer the possibility of market price appreciation (or depreciation) if the price of the company's common increases and therefore can provide some inflation protection to the income investor together with the associated market risk. These convertibles would generally pay a slightly lower dividend rate than preferred stocks. The conversion provisions can be complicated and each individual convertible should be studied via the QuantumOnline description and the prospectus and the special conversion terms understood before considering a purchase. The dividends paid by at least most of the convertible preferreds are eligible for the 15% tax rate.
Mandatory convertible securities have many special provisions that need to be understood by the investor before any purchase is considered. In general, the securities pay higher distribution rates than preferred stocks. The securities are generally comprised of a stock purchase warrant and a debt security. They are mandatorily convertible at a specific date (generally 3 years from the date of issue) into a variable number of shares of the common stock of the company with the number of shares depending on the market price at the time specified for mandatory conversion. The potential investor in these complicated securities should definitely read and understand the terms of these securities as summarized in the QuantumOnline security description and as defined in the issue's IPO prospectus before considering a purchase. Since the mandatory convertible securities pay distributions based on a debt security that pays interest, the distributions of these securities are not eligible for the 15% tax rate.
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