I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a lot of auto-response emails from folks in the investment world who are on vacation these days. Yes, the summer doldrums have set in, often leaving junior portfolio managers—without seniority, vacation time, school-age children, or much in the way of discretionary authority—to mind the store. Read more about Sector Detector: Summer Doldrums Arrive Despite Global Uncertainty

The rejection of the offer by Covington to purchase all outstanding shares of Advocat (AVCA) represents a missed opportunity for capital gains in this position for the RSY portfolio. Covington, luckily, has kept the offer open and has written a letter to shareholders expressing their position in support of the buyout (reprinted below.). If the offer was dead, then we might expect a drop to pre-offer levels at around the mid $4 range as stated in the letter. Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Buy CNAF, CMO, Optional Options, Updates

When something is confusing or incomprehensible, a person might say, “It’s all Greek to me.” Well, that’s exactly what investors have been saying for the past several days—in the market’s inimitable way. Despite promising economic and corporate news in the U.S., the headline risk from Europe has been just too much to bear. It is keeping the bulls at bay, and front and center for an encore performance is Greece. Read more about Sector Detector: Confused investors are saying, “It’s all Greek to me”

Last week I noted that there wasn’t much new to say about the stock market and its drivers lately, but like washing your car tends to attract rain, my comments were immediately followed by anger-driven election results in France and Greece. Both of these elections were about a rejection of austerity mandates placed upon a citizenry already feeling severe pain. The thought process is, “If the U.S. Read more about Sector Detector: Elections in Europe put US investors on the defensive

Sabrient Systems recently upgraded Invesco Mortgage Capital, Inc. (IVR) to a Strong Buy because of its outstanding value profile. Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Buy IVR for Economy's Soft Patch, Second Time Around

Despite a respectable showing for Sabrient's key value measure, IVR is rated a Sell. It appeared among Sabrient's shorting filters as a stock with characteristics that are being avoided by the current market.

RSY recommends selling off the remaining half of the initial position of 400 shares (based on a portfolio of $100,000). Sell 200 shares of IVR at a limit price of $20.81 (GTC). Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Sell IVR, Update

Just as selling in a strong market is good, selling covered options in a strong bull run is beneficial. Before we look into some possible choices for selling covered calls on our portfolio, let us look at the latest Sabrient ratings for our rated positions. Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Optional Options

The table below is a summary of the RSY trades and dividend payouts since inception. Since the last update, we added 100 shares of TOT at $61.07 on March 31st, and today we added 600 shares of STM at $11.82 which was below our bid price of $11.99, along with 400 shares of TESS at $11.62. Hopefully, if you had an order in the morning, it executed at the bid of $11.51, but if you went with a market order you got it for $11.62. Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Update, More Alpha from Changes in Dividend Policy?

I am going to begin today by updating a few cash transactions in the Rock Solid Yield virtual portfolio since our post on January 12th.   On Jan. Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Update, Sell FL 200 @ $17.89

Since the last post, RSY recommended a sell of TSH at $32.99. On December 21st it nicely gaped up and thus RSY noted an opening price point of $33.23. RSY is also recording three dividend deposits distributed from EGAS of $18, GAIN of $8, and TSH of $35.50. The chart below gives a detail of the transaction history so far with realized gains of nearly $2300. (Click on tables for clearer images.) Read more about Rock Solid Yields (RSY): Update.