iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index

• How to Build Your Retirement Portfolio

  By Daniel Paterson - May 23, 2013 | Tickers: PFF, SDY, DEM

  There are plenty of publications out there telling you that everyone needs to be saving for retirement. Regardless of age you need to be putting away 10% to 15% of your income. Sometimes these publications will go one step further and tell you that you should be putting your money into index funds or mutual funds. That’s it.

  Rarely do people elaborate on what funds are the best of more »

• Should You Prefer Preferreds?

  By Robert Ciura - March 7, 2013 | Tickers: PFF, HPI, PGF

  When it comes to investing, you’ve no doubt come across the two main areas of asset allocation:  stocks and bonds.  Each offers its own characteristics, with equities providing a likelihood of greater gains over time, while bonds generally offer higher income and lower volatility.  What you might not know is that there is a separate asset class known as preferred stocks, which adopt a mixture of characteristics from bonds more »

• Preferring Preferreds for Income

  By Michael Gayed - January 26, 2012 | Tickers: XLF, IEF, PFF

  “I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.” - Anatole France

  With low yields and the Fed's stated intention to keep interest rates depressed until at least 2014, its become a harder and harder environment for income-oriented investors to collect cash flow from their positions. As I have noted in prior writings on several financial websites, there appears to be the growing possibility that 2012 ends up more »

• Price The Market Part 2

  By Glen Bradford - December 6, 2011 | Tickers: BBY, BIG, CVC, KMX, CCL, HRB, INTU, PFF, NFLX

  I decided to price the entire S&P500 because I woke up around 15 days ago and decided that life was what you make it. This is me making it.