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Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

Displaying 41-50 out of 161 results for "Interest Rate Swaps".

UBS Succumbed to Conflicts and Purchased $1.7 Billion of Employee Retirement System Bonds into its Puerto Rican Municipal bond Funds in 2008

(Nov 2014)

In today's post we show that UBS underwrote unmarketable Employee Retirement System bonds and bought them into the UBS Funds in 2008. Friday, we'll show similar conflicts led UBS to underwrite unmarketable 2008 COFINA bonds and then stuff them into the UBS Funds.

The Puerto Rican Employee Retirement System was acutely and chronically underfunded. Figure 1 is a plot of the PR funding ratio and the median of the 50 states' funding ratios. The states median funding ratio fluctuated between 80%...

UBS Stuffed $2.5 Billion of ERS and COFINA Bonds it Underwrote in Its Puerto Rican Funds in 2007 and 2008

(Nov 2014)

We've written extensively about the UBS Puerto Rican Municipal Bond Funds. You can find our earlier blog posts about Puerto Rican Funds on our blog. In a January 2014 blog post titled "Diversification and UBS Puerto Rico Bond Fund Losses", we pointed out that the losses suffered by investors in the UBS PR Funds were caused by the portfolios' high leverage and concentration in Employee Retirement System and Sales Tax Authority (COFINA) bonds. In a December 2013 post titled "Merry Christmas...

Taxes, Puerto Rico Municipal Bonds and the UBS Funds

(Oct 2014)

We've written extensively about the UBS Puerto Rican Municipal Bond Funds on our blog. Puerto Rico's unique tax regime keeps coming up and we thought it was worth a blog post clearing this matter up.

Puerto Rican residents don't pay federal income tax but do pay very high income taxes. The Puerto Rican maximum marginal income tax rate is 33%, reached at only $50,000 per year of taxable income.

The income on Puerto Rican municipal bonds is exempt from the state income tax that would be paid...

United Development Funding IV Left Investors $34.8 Million Worse Off

(Jun 2014)

On Wednesday last week, another non-traded REIT listed on a public exchange. United Development Funding IV (ticker: UDF), which sold as a non-traded REIT for $20 per share, closed its first day of trading on the NASDAQ at $19.60. As we have argued extensively in the past, we think that non-traded REITs are a very bad deal for investors, and UDF IV was no exception.

We have gone through all of UDF IV's SEC filings and applied the gross proceeds, distributions, and other cash flows to a liquid,...

Non-traded REITs' Annualized Returns Were 4.82% Compared to Traded REITs' 10.44%.

(May 2014)

We have posted previously about how non-traded REITs which have had "liquidity events" have destroyed $27.7 billion in investor wealth compared to traded REITS. See our other blog posts on Non-Traded REITs. In this post, we calculate that the 27 non-traded REITs we discussed in prior posts have an internal rate of return (IRR) of 4.82%, which is 5.62 percentage points lower than the 10.44% IRR of a liquid, diversified REIT mutual fund over the same time period, with the same cash flows.

To...

How is NYRT Doing?

(May 2014)

We've posted extensively about the evils of non-traded REITs. You can find those previous posts on our blog. Two weeks ago we posted the summary results of our investigation into the performance of 27 non-traded REITs which had had a liquidity event by December 31, 2013. We found that investors are $27.7 billion worse as a result of investing in these 27 REITs rather than investing in a diversified portfolio of traded REITs. To learn more, read our blog post titled "Retail Investors Have...

This is How We Determined Investors Lost $27.7 Billion Investing in Non-Traded REITs

(Apr 2014)

Earlier this week we posted the summary results of our investigation into the performance of 27 non-traded REITs which had had a liquidity event by December 31, 2013. We found that investors are $27.7 billion worse as a result of investing in these 27 REITs rather than investing in a diversified portfolio of traded REITs. The post titled "Retail Investors Have Lost at Least $27.7 billion as a Result of Non-Traded REITs" is available on our blog.

Figuring out this $27.7 billion shortfall...

Retail Investors Have Lost at Least $27.7 billion as a Result of Non-Traded REITs

(Apr 2014)

As part of our effort to help investors avoid non-traded REITs, we have written over 25 blog posts on this defective investment type. We have noted in our research that because of high costs, illiquidity, lack of transparency and conflicts of interest, non-traded REITs should underperform liquid, low-cost traded REITs. A number of our blog posts including our post on the early trading in NYRT last week, titled "NYRT's Listing is More Evidence That Even the Non-Traded REITs Winners Are...

NYRT's Listing is More Evidence That Even the Non-Traded REITs Winners Are Losers

(Apr 2014)

The non-traded REIT, American Realty Capital New York Recovery REIT, Inc., renamed New York REIT, became a listed REIT this week. It opened at $10.70 and closed at $10.75 on April 15, 2014. Yesterday, April 16, 2014, it closed at $10.55 and today it closed at $10.62. We've posted extensively about the evils of non-traded REITs. You can find our previous blog posts on Non-Traded REITs to learn more.

The April 16, 2014 Wall Street Journal's "New York REIT Starts Fast" quotes Nicholas Schorsch...

Risk and Return in UBS's Willow Fund

(Mar 2014)

In four blog posts we have detailed the fall of UBS's Willow Fund. See Credit Default Swaps on Steroids: UBS's Willow Fund, Willow Fund's Hedging, Investing and Speculating in Distressed Debt With Credit Default Swaps, Further Reckoning of UBS Willow Fund's CDS Losses and UBS Intentionally Misled Willow Fund Investors About its Troubled CDS Portfolio.

The spectacular collapse of the Willow Fund was not the result of general market conditions operating on the Fund's disclosed investment...

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