High Yield Spotlight
JPMorgan's $44 Billion Nasdaq Income Machine Pays 13%. Read The Fine Print
JEPQ's 13.32% 30-day SEC yield is option premium, not a coupon. What the income machine sells to pay you.
Michael A. Gayed, CFA
CFA charterholder. Founder of Lead-Lag Media. Publisher of The Lead-Lag Report. 5x Dow & NAAIM Founders Award winner for research on intermarket signals.
Weekly Signals
A Market Divided: Two Signals Shout Risk, Two Whisper Caution
The S&P 500 sits 7.36% above its 200-day average and utilities just made new lows, but gold outran lumber by nineteen points over thirteen weeks and long bonds led August. Two risk-on, two risk-off: the split itself is the signal.
Macro Observations
The Shock Absorber Is Gone
The mortgage-to-Treasury spread compressed from 320 basis points to about 185, in line with its 20-year average, just as the 10-year broke to 5.18%, its highest since 2007. Every basis point now lands on the buyer.
Macro Observations
The Delinquency Cycle Already Turned
Bank card delinquencies peaked at 3.22% in mid-2024 and have fallen five straight quarters to 2.85%. The consumer crack everyone braced for happened, quietly, and ended while nobody repriced it.
Macro Observations
The Eight Trillion Dollar Myth
Money market funds hold a record $8.44 trillion and the reverse repo facility has drained to zero. The cash is not dry powder waiting to buy stocks. It is the plumbing of the bill market.
Macro Observations
The Bond Market Never Believed In Three And A Half Percent
The one-year Treasury yields 62 basis points above the fed funds midpoint, and everything from two to ten years sits near five percent. The market is pricing a return to where the cycle began.
High Yield Spotlight
A Tax-Free 8.5% Monthly Check Built From 76-Cent Bonds And 41% Leverage
Nuveen's NMZ pays an 8.5% tax-free monthly check from investment income, using 41% leverage and a 17-year duration. The income is clean; the structure is the risk.
High Yield Spotlight
An 11.7% Junk Yield Where A Quarter Of The Check Is Your Own Money
BlackRock's HYT pays $0.0779 monthly, an 11.7% yield at its widest discount in a year. But about a quarter of the check is return of capital.
High Yield Spotlight
This 15.6% Yielder Trades At 62 Cents On The Dollar. The Dollar Keeps Shrinking.
FS KKR's new variable distribution annualizes to 15.6% at a 38% discount to NAV. The catch: the NAV itself has fallen 25% in ten quarters.
High Yield Spotlight
You Can Buy This 11% Yielder For 78 Cents On The Dollar. If You Trust The Marks.
OBDC's 22% discount to NAV is either the market's verdict on private credit, or a gift. It is probably some of both.
Global View
The Fed’s First Hike in Three Years, and Copper Went Right Back to Its Record
The Fed delivered its first hike in three years and the 10-year brushed 5%, the BoJ went to its highest rate since 1995 and the yen kept sliding, and copper ignored all of it, climbing back within 1.1% of its record while gold snapped its losing streak.
Weekly Signals
The Offense Lost Its Quorum
Treasury Rotation flips defensive, the lumber-gold gap blows out to nineteen points, and both remaining offensive readings lose conviction. The composite tilts risk-off at -18.