The 11% Yield That Lends To The Companies Building The AI Era
Hercules Capital pays $0.47 a quarter from a 12.8% yielding book of venture loans to software and biotech startups, with 0.1% non-accruals and a 43% premium to net asset value
Buying AI's Landlords At A Fair Price, With An 81% Asterisk
Nuveen's renamed real estate income fund pays close to 8.9%, owns roughly 8% in the data center REITs powering the AI buildout, and funds four fifths of that payout with return of capital
A 12.4% Yield The IRS Cannot Touch, With A 13-Year Duration Attached
Nuveen's AMT-free muni fund pays 7.14% tax-free, which is worth roughly 12.4% pre-tax to a top-bracket investor, but 41% leverage and a 13.2-year duration made it lose 23% in 2022
The AI Buildout Needs Gas, And This 7.35% Yielder Owns The Pipes
Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund (KYN) just raised its monthly distribution 5.9% and holds 33 midstream names at a 11.14% discount. The tailwind is real, but 0.5x NII coverage and 25% leverage mean the energy cycle has to keep cooperating.
Rescheduled to Today at 12 PM ET, The Agriculture Allocation Nobody's Crowded Into
The Teucrium agriculture webinar with Jake Hanley moved to today, Friday August 14 at 12:00 PM ET. Same Zoom link. Free 1 hour CFP CE credit approved.
The Allocation No One Talks About, and Why Today's WASDE Just Made It Impossible to Ignore
Agriculture ETFs are 0.01 percent of all ETF AUM. Yesterday's WASDE cut US wheat stocks 22 percent YoY. Live today at 2 PM ET with Jake Hanley of Teucrium. CFP CE credit included.
The Simplest 6% In The Income Market Is A Pure Bet On Rates
Invesco Preferred ETF (PGX) pays 6.31% from 265 mostly investment-grade preferred securities with no leverage and no derivatives. The price has fallen from $15.60 to $10.67 since 2020, and whether that reverses depends entirely on the Fed.
What Consumer Credit Says About Corporate Defaults
Credit card balances 90+ days delinquent hit 13.12 percent in Q1 2026, closing in on the 13.74 percent 2010 record. Auto loans are already at a series-record 5.60 percent. High yield spreads are at 287 basis points. The household ledger has already turned. Corporate credit is still pricing the calm.
The Dollar Round-Tripped. Gold Kept Climbing.
The dollar erased its post-jobs dovish repricing. Gold and crude did not. That gap refutes last week's convergence thesis.
Sponsored: Hedgia
Today's Lead-Lag Report post is sponsored by Hedgia Launching a hedge fund used to cost $50,000. Now it is $89 a month. The $50,000 setup and the $1,000 a month in admin fees kept good managers from launching their own funds. Hedgia deleted both.
Rally Broadens Slightly: XLE Confirms Week 4 Leadership, GLD Flips Back to Leader, XLU Framework Check Deeply Broken
SPY +2.0% to $773. XLU 4W ROC -8.58% (Framework Check broken week 3). XLE Notable +1.02σ week 4 confirmed. GLD flips back to Leader. Rotation broadens but stays narrow. Run #26: 5 of 6 forward calls correct.
The Full Risk-On Stack
Every intermarket signal stays on offense. Trend, rotation, commodities, and Treasury behavior remain unanimously aligned with risk.