Midday Commentary: Preferreds look to regain ground; Allstate's Leopards deal doing well

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Phoenix, Dec. 3 - Preferred stocks were attempting to recover some of the ground lost in the previous session during Tuesday trading.

The Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities index was up 4 basis points at mid-morning. The index had dropped 27 bps by Monday's close.

Still, overall liquidity remained light.

"Hopefully we will see some good deals," a trader said of the primary market. As previously reported, a rumor is circulating in the marketplace that a new deal will be coming later this week.

The trader did mention the Allstate Corp. plans to sell 6.625% series D noncumulative perpetual preferreds via Incapital LLC's Leopards program, a program designed to give retail investors more access to the preferred market.

"I guess it was doing OK," the trader said, adding that he was hearing there was "a lot of demand" for the paper. But given that it is a "best-efforts" deal, he had not seen any markets.

"It didn't look too bad," he said of the deal's structure.

Incapital launched the Leopards program on Monday. Shortly thereafter, Allstate announced its preferred offering.

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