March delivered a spectacular crop of new preferred stock issues, almost all of which are offering cumulative dividends and half come with investment grade ratings. Last December no new preferreds were issued; for January I described only four new preferreds while February’s preferred stock market delivered a slightly better six new issues. During March, fourteen new preferred stocks were issued (and began trading by press time).
As the month came to a close, the average market price for all U.S. traded preferred stocks was $24.93, up $0.21 per share over the last month.
The good