This evening (Jan 17th) we updated our online Municipal Bond Auction Calendar with more than 600 upcoming auctions. These deals include more than $12.6 billion in auctions spread over 43 different states. The largest offerings are from the State of Illinois, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the State of Colorado.

Filed under: General, Municipal Bonds
Posted on January 17th, 2012 by Bob Brinker

The January 2012 edition of the Brinker Fixed Income Advisor is now for subscriber access available at http://BrinkerAdvisor.com

Filed under: General, Investment Letter
Posted on January 1st, 2012 by Bob Brinker

The Brinker Fixed Income Advisor was named among the top performing investment letters over the past 5 years in the December 2011 Hulbert Financial Digest. Our Model Portfolio performance in 2011 was helped by our decision in May to reduce our exposure to convertible bonds and high yield bonds and reinvest the proceeds in the DoubleLine Total Return bond fund. Our Tax-Exempt portfolio rebounded smartly from the late-2010 municipal bond selloff and posted strong returns in 2011.

The following table lists the one, two, three, and five year total return for each of our Model Portfolios through December 31, 2011. The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is also provided for each portfolio.

		Aggressive	Moderate	Conservative	Tax-
		Portfolio	Portfolio	Portfolio	Exempt
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5-years	        + 30.0%	        + 31.8%	        + 31.6%	        + 25.0%
3-years	        + 56.3%	        + 38.9%	        + 29.8%	        + 24.9%
2-years	        + 17.7%	        + 15.8%	        + 13.9%	        + 10.8%
1-year	        +  4.0%	        +  5.7%	        +  5.0%	        +  8.5%
CAGR(5yr)	+  5.4%	        +  5.7%	        +  5.7%	        +  4.6%

Note: Model Portfolio total returns through December 31, 2011. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. CAGR = Compound Annual Growth Rate for 5 year period through 12/31/2011.

Filed under: Federal Reserve, Investment Letter
Posted on January 1st, 2012 by Bob Brinker

The December 2011 edition of the Brinker Fixed Income Advisor is now for subscriber access available at http://BrinkerAdvisor.com

Filed under: General, Investment Letter
Posted on December 1st, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 10:45a eastern:

Indicator – value (chg)
————————————————–
TED Spread — 53 (+2)
LIBOR-OIS — 53 (-19)
USD 2yr Swap Spread — 39 (-14)
US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 313 (+1)

EUROZONE:
———————–
German 10yr note — 2.29% (-2)
France 10yr note — 3.40% (-18)
Italy 10yr note — 7.06% (-14)
Spanish 10yr note — 6.28% (-29)

Filed under: General
Posted on November 30th, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 11:20a eastern:

Indicator – value (chg)
————————————————–
TED Spread — 51 (+1)
LIBOR-OIS — 72 (-2)
USD 2yr Swap Spread — 53 (-1)
US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 312 (-4)

EUROZONE:
———————–
German 10yr note — 2.31% (+4)
France 10yr note — 3.58% (-12)
Italy 10yr note — 7.20% (-10)
Spanish 10yr note — 6.57% (-14)
Ireland 10yr note — 8.21% (0)

Filed under: General
Posted on November 28th, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 10:40a eastern:

Indicator – value (chg)
————————————————–
TED Spread — 50 (+1)
LIBOR-OIS — 74 (0)
USD 2yr Swap Spread — 54 (0)
US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 316 (-2)

EUROZONE:
———————–
German 10yr note — 2.27% (+7)
France 10yr note — 3.70% (-2)
Italy 10yr note — 7.30% (+19)
Spanish 10yr note — 6.71% (+8)
Ireland 10yr note — 8.21% (0)

Filed under: Federal Reserve
Posted on November 25th, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 11:35a eastern:

Indicator – value (chg)
————————————————–
TED Spread — 49 (0)
LIBOR-OIS — 74 (+2)
USD 2yr Swap Spread — 54 (+2)
US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 318 (+2)

EUROZONE:
———————–
Italy 10yr note — 6.96% (+14)
Spanish 10yr note — 6.65% (+5)
German 10yr note — 2.14% (+21)
Ireland 10yr note — 8.21% (+47)

Filed under: General
Posted on November 23rd, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 11:45a eastern:

Indicator – value (chg)
————————————————–
TED Spread — 49 (0)

LIBOR-OIS — 72 (-1)

USD 2yr Swap Spread — 52 (0)

US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 316 (-3)

Italy 10yr note — 6.82% (+16)

Spanish 10yr note — 6.60% (+5)

Filed under: General
Posted on November 22nd, 2011 by Bob Brinker

as of 11:30a eastern time (chg):

TED Spread — 49 (0)

LIBOR-OIS — 73 (+2)

USD 2yr Swap Spread — 52 (+1)

US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 319 (+8)

Italy 10yr note — 6.66% (-1)

Spanish 10yr note — 6.55% (-21)

Filed under: General
Posted on November 21st, 2011 by Bob Brinker

Some of the key credit market stress indicators we are watching – values taken 10:45a eastern time on Friday …

TED Spread — 49

LIBOR-OIS — 71

USD 2yr Swap Spread — 51

US Inv Grd Baa/10yr UST Spread — 311

Italy 10yr note — 6.67%

Spanish 10yr note — 6.76%

Filed under: General
Posted on November 18th, 2011 by Bob Brinker

FRB: Press Release–Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement–November 2, 2011.

Filed under: Federal Reserve, General
Posted on November 2nd, 2011 by Bob Brinker

The November 2011 edition of the Brinker Fixed Income Advisor is now available for subscriber download at BrinkerAdvisor.com

Filed under: General, Investment Letter
Posted on November 1st, 2011 by Bob Brinker

The September 2011 edition of the Brinker Fixed Income Advisor is now available for subscriber download at BrinkerAdvisor.com

Filed under: General, Investment Letter
Posted on September 1st, 2011 by Bob Brinker

If you read just one thing today, this is the key paragraph from today’s FOMC August minutes released this afternoon :

Participants discussed the range of policy tools available to promote a stronger economic recovery should the Committee judge that providing additional monetary accommodation was warranted. Reinforcing the Committee’s forward guidance about the likely path of monetary policy was seen as a possible way to reduce interest rates and provide greater support to the economic expansion; a few participants emphasized that guidance focusing solely on the state of the economy would be preferable to guidance that named specific spans of time or calendar dates. Some participants noted that additional asset purchases could be used to provide more accommodation by lowering longer-term interest rates. Others suggested that increasing the average maturity of the System’s portfolio–perhaps by selling securities with relatively short remaining maturities and purchasing securities with relatively long remaining maturities–could have a similar effect on longer-term interest rates. Such an approach would not boost the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and the quantity of reserve balances. A few participants noted that a reduction in the interest rate paid on excess reserve balances could also be helpful in easing financial conditions. In contrast, some participants judged that none of the tools available to the Committee would likely do much to promote a faster economic recovery, either because the headwinds that the economy faced would unwind only gradually and that process could not be accelerated with monetary policy or because recent events had significantly lowered the path of potential output. Consequently, these participants thought that providing additional stimulus at this time would risk boosting inflation without providing a significant gain in output or employment. Participants noted that devoting additional time to discussion of the possible costs and benefits of various potential tools would be useful, and they agreed that the September meeting should be extended to two days in order to provide more time.

Filed under: Federal Reserve, General
Posted on August 30th, 2011 by Bob Brinker