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FS Frank Sileo Senior Fixed Income Strategist for the Americas in the UBS Chief Investment Office, covering preferred securities and other fixed income sectors for wealth mana...

“The 10-year yield rose 82 basis points in the third quarter of this year alone. That was the fourth largest quarterly increase in the 10-year Treasury yield in a decade. And much of that move took place in a single month, September, with the 10-year eventually reaching 5.31 in early October. That was the 10-year Treasury yield's highest level since April of 2002, nearly 25 years.”

UBS On-Air: Market Moves · Money & Markets · November 2026

“The 10-year yield rose 82 basis points in the third quarter of this year alone. That was the fourth largest quarterly increase in the 10-year Treasury yield in a decade. And much of that move took place in a single month, September, with the 10-year eventually reaching 5.31 in early October. That was the 10-year Treasury yield's highest level since April of 2002, nearly 25 years.” — Frank Sileo, UBS On-Air: Market Moves

Context

Explaining why preferred securities underperformed recently, he describes the sharp rise in Treasury yields this autumn and says he expects rates to stabilize in 2027.

Transcript

UBS On-Air: Market Moves Around 03:52 into the episode
Frank Sileo

Thanks, Dan. It's always great to be here. I appreciate it.

Daniel Cassidy

…us from a positioning standpoint. I know a few weeks ago, the Chief Investment Office upgraded its view of the preferred securities sector to attractive. So, as a starting point, Frank, can you walk our listeners, our clients, through the thinking behind the upgrade and why the timing? Why now?

Frank Sileo

Sure, definitely. Yeah, we did recently upgrade the sector to attractive with a particular focus on the $25 par retail preferred sub-sector. But before I get to that, I do want to emphasize I'm still very constructive on the institutional $1,000 par preferred sub-sector as well. Those have variable-rate coupons, so they're much less sensitive to interest rates than their $25 par counterparts. And yields today are about 7% in the institutional preferred space versus roughly 7.25 to 730 in the $25 par market. So you're giving up a little bit of yield, but you're getting significantly less interest rate risk. In fact, duration is less than half that of the $25 par sector. So that's why $1,000 par preferreds have been a primary focus of my recommendations in this space for the past several years. What's changed is that we now see an increasingly compelling opportunity in the $25 par preferred space. And I'd point out three things in particular. First, there's a potential tactical rebound after some pretty pronounced underperformance in recent weeks and months. Secondly, yields are now above 7%, closer to 7.25, almost 7.5% in the $25 par space. And that's meaningful…

Daniel Cassidy

Very helpful overview at the start as to the rationale behind CIO's upgrade of preferred securities to attractive. Frank, what is it about the retail $25 par preferred sector that makes it more volatile?

Frank Sileo

Well, first, I think it's important to recognize it wasn't always this way. The $25 par preferred market is much more volatile today than it was just five years ago. And the reason goes back to 2020 and 2021. We had this massive refinancing boom at that time when the Fed had interest rates down…

Daniel Cassidy

So, Frank, that makes sense as you broke it down there for a slow coupon, fixed-rate preferreds have more rate sensitivity. Though, Frank, haven't we seen instances, specifically in October, where the $25 par preferreds have declined even when rates are falling?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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