Preferreds regain ground after day starts off soft; Goldman Sachs profit beats estimates

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Phoenix, Oct. 16 – Preferred stocks managed to rebound Thursday afternoon, stemming a sell-off from earlier in the day.

The Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities index closed up 16 basis points. The index was down 9 bps at mid-morning.

But as the markets have been getting beat down of late, a trader noted that trading activity was on the light side.

“It’s just really quiet,” he said.

“Volume was very, very low,” another market source said.

Even Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. followed the trend of the day. Initially the bank’s paper was weaker, despite reporting a third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ expectations. However, the preferreds came back to end with a mostly positive tone.

Banks that had already put out earnings this week – Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. – were meantime dominating overall trading.

The Wells Fargo 6% series T noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: WFCPT) were the most active of paying securities, closing up 2 cents at $24.92. JPMorgan, which was the second most active issue, saw its 6.3% series W noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: JPMPE) unchanged at par.

Citigroup had two issues among the top five most active issues. The 6.875% series K fixed-to-floating-rate noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: CPK) fell a penny to $26.54. The 7.125% series J fixed-to-floating-rate noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: CPJ) were down the same amount at $26.90.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.