Forget Treasuries. Buy Convertibles Inst – Paul Sm

Boosting yields
Another attractive feature of convertibles is their yield. Sometimes, convertibles pay higher dividends than the same issuer's common stock. Take a look at these convertibles, all of which pay much higher yields on their convertible preferred shares than their common stock:

Regardless of whether they're technically preferred stock or bonds, convertibles typically make distributions to their owners on a regular basis. Most convertibles have a maturity date, just like a regular bond does, at which point investors get the face value of the convertible back.

But with many starting to warn of a possible bond bubble, you may not be entirely comfortable with bonds or stocks right now. If you want an investment that can give you the benefits of both stocks and bonds, though, look no further than convertible securities. They're not a fail-safe way to play the financial markets, but they have some attractive traits you won't find anywhere else.

What gives convertibles their unique properties, however, is the ability for their owners to convert their securities. Although the specific terms vary from security to security, investors in convertibles generally have the ability at some point to exchange their securities for shares of the issuer's common stock. Often,Paul Smith, though, you never have to convert to common stock if you don't want to. That essentially gives you the equivalent of a call option on the company's shares; if the stock rises, then converting makes sense and you'll earn a profit. If the stock falls, then you'll just take your money back at maturity rather than converting into shares that are worth less.

The ins and outs of convertibles
Convertible securities combine elements of both stocks and bonds. Some convertible securities are technically bonds, while other companies issue them as preferred stock. In either case, they give investors a higher priority in a company's capital structure than common shareholders.

Source: Yahoo Finance, Quantum Online.

If you think the economy is doomed, you might want to think about selling stocks short. Matt Koppenheffer was a skeptic, but read what he learned about short-selling.

Where to buy convertibles
The problem with trying to buy convertibles, though, is that they tend to be thinly traded. Some issues don't have any volume at all on some days. That's why many investors who want to buy convertible securities use mutual funds or ETFs. The SPDR Barclays Convertible Securities ETF (CWB) holds over 100 different securities, including several of the ones mentioned above. Since the ETF started in April 2009, the shares have gained 26% — only a bit under the 31% gain in the S&P 500 over the same period.

Are they right for you?
It's unclear whether the bond market's dramatic rise is in its final stages or just getting started. But if you're wary of ultra-high bond prices that could reverse quickly when the economy starts getting stronger, then convertibles will give you a lot of benefit from a stronger stock market while also giving you some of the protection of a fixed-income investment. That may be just the combination you're looking for.

Fool contributor Dan Caplinger has owned convertibles for over 20 years and doesn't mind dropping the top on a warm summer day. He owns shares of Chesapeake Energy. Ford Motor is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection. Chesapeake Energy is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. The Fool owns shares of Annaly Capital Management and Chesapeake Energy. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days. The Fool's disclosure policy will never try to convert you.

In practice, a Merrill Lynch survey said that convertibles provide 70% of a stock's upside while providing much greater protection against falling share prices. Right now, I bet plenty of people would give up 30% of any potential gains for a floor underneath their investment.

That won't always be the case, though. Both Annaly Capital (NYSE: NLY – News) and Anworth Mortgage (NYSE: ANW – News), for instance, have convertible preferred issues outstanding. Yet neither of them pays anything close to the dividends that the common stock pays.

IssuerYield on Common StockYield on ConvertibleChesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK – News)1.5%5.3%Bank of America (NYSE: BAC – News)0.3%7.6%Ford Motor (NYSE: F – News)0%7%KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY – News)0.6%7.5%El Paso (NYSE: EP – News)0.4%6.4%

The recent pullback in the stock market has many investors running for cover. Meanwhile, fear of an imminent double-dip recession and concerns about renewed pressure in the housing market has pushed bond prices to historic highs, reducing bond yields and creating an income crunch for savers. Throughout 2010, billions of dollars have gone into bond mutual funds,Chanel, and the trend shows no sign of reversing anytime soon.

If you prefer a longer track record, many mutual funds focus on convertibles. Calamos Convertible (CCVIX), for instance, has been around since 1985, and it's given long-term investors a 9.7% annual return since then. Although the Calamos fund charges a sales load, you can find a host of other funds from other providers.

Exclusive Sammi I Hope The Situation’s DWTS – Co

Also anxious to see The Situation’s moves? Contestant Margaret Cho!

Her No. 1 wish? “I just hope his partner knows how to fist pump,” she tells Us.

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Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola tells UsMagazine.com she is “excited” her Jersey Shore costar Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino will be on the show’s 11th season, airing Sept. 20.

“I cannot wait to meet the Situation!” she told Us at a DWTS press conference Monday night. “He is awesome and I’m very excited!”

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“I will be rooting for him every week — nothing like a little Jersey on the dance floor!” she tells Us.

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“And when things get bad, they’re still the same friends,” she says. “And,Roca Wear, you know, it– everything passes. It all passes. But they just– you know, they know if they screw up they’re not coming on the next vacation. I’m not going to babysit their kids. I will cut them. I will take them down.”

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“How lucky am I?” she asks Lauer.

“It takes good people with integrity,” she says. “I mean, I read something like, how did someone keep a secret, and it’s– you know– human beings exist that have integrity that know how to keep their mouth shut. That know the bigger picture, that don’t sell out their friends. Those people are all over the place. But again, we don’t like to talk about it, because it doesn’t sell a magazine. But I was blessed with the same friends I’ve had since before things got really special for me and blessed in life.

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“Everything works out the way the universe wants it to work out,” she says. “We had always said that it didn’t matter where the child came from. If they had issues that were medical issues, we didn’t care. It’s like the child that needed us in the home is the child that’s going to be placed.

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Bullock and ex husband James, 40 — with whom she split earlier this year following reports that he cheated — began the adoption process four years ago. See more photos of Sandra in New Orleans.

Bullock, 46 — who attended the ribbon cutting Sunday of a new $700,000 New Orleans health clinic she helped fund to mark the fifth year of Hurricane Katrina — says she loves being tied to the Big Easy.

Kidding aside, she says, “I have friends and family that are filled with massive amounts of integrity. And it shouldn’t be an oddity.”

Bullock has said she always had “faith” she would end up with the right child.

In her first television interview since splitting with Jesse James,Ed hardy belts, Sandra Bullock says “everything works out the way the universe wants it to work out.”

“He’s a little Cajun cookie,” she tells the Today show’s Matt Lauer in the interview, airing Tuesday.

“And I didn’t think it would be a boy,” she adds. “We don’t have any boys in our family. Boy, is everyone really happy about that. So, he’s like the crown prince. You know, it’s nothing but girls in our family … It was just the hierarchy that needed to be broken.”

“It was a long process,” she tells Lauer. “I did not circumvent. I wanted to do everything exactly the same way everyone else did. And– it was– he was always mine, you know. It wasn’t like I felt like someone was going to take him away. But it was nice to have someone say, I think you’re a fit parent.”

Bullock kept her adoption hush-hush — and she credits her close friends with helping her do so.

Case in point: Her seven-month-old son Louis, whom she adopted from New Orleans.

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“Britney was very professional and very much the sweet Southern belle,” a set source says in the new Us Weekly. “Her attitude was, ‘I’m here to work,Lacoste, let’s do this!’”

The singer, 28, continued to show off her body — taut and better than ever — hanging out with her man Jason Trawick in Maui, Hawaii on Thursday. Check out more hot shots of Brit on the beach!

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Spears recently confirmed she’s back in the recording studio making the follow-up to her 2008 smash Circus; she also recently filmed her talked-about appearance on Glee.

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Although things are going well with former manager Trawick — they’ve been dating for over a year — Spears recently used her Twitter to slam a tabloid report that they’re planning to get hitched in a “double wedding” with Spears’ little sister Jamie-Lynn.

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Exclusive Kenny Chesney Co-Produces – Ed hardy Sh

That Kenny Chesney is always full of surprises. For instance, who knew the multi-platinum country superstar used to don a football helmet long before his trademark Stetsons? Well, now you know if you’ve seen his new video and single, “Boys Of Fall” (off his upcoming disc Hemingway’s Whiskey, due out September 28), which the singer co-produced along with an upcoming documentary about the sport from the same name. So, what’s the back story? Chesney explained what’s behind his latest inspiration — and how he almost made another career choice — when I caught up with him last week.

Us: When did you know that you wanted to be a singer, not a football player?

Kenny Chesney: Well, actually it’s kind of the other way around. We started making the video and I kind of had in my mind what I wanted to do and what I wanted this video to be. For us to do the video the way I wanted to do it, we had to start filming last football season, and we’ve been working on this ever since then. The first thing we shot was Sean Payton talking to his team where he went to high school. He gave the pre-game speech. After I saw that, I started thinking about all of the friends that I’ve met in football in my years touring. That’s where we got the idea to make the documentary.

KC: I knew I wasn’t going to be a football player even when I was playing. I was vertically challenged. I’m 5’6″ on a good day.

Us: Have you had that problem with women in your life in the past where you’re watching a game and you’re trying to explain it to them?

KC: Yeah,Ed hardy Shoes, that was me! I’m still not sure which picture you’re talking about but a lot of those pictures were taken my last week of playing football. I knew I wasn’t going to play major college football. I only played two years, and I say this in the film. But I didn’t realize the impact that those two years were going to have on the rest of my life and how I approach my life as an adult and the way I run my business as far as setting goals and working hard.

Us: In the video, there’s a picture of you in high school in your football uniform!

By Ian Drew for UsMagazine.com. To read more of Ian’s blog, click here, and don’t forget to follow him on Twitter.

Us: What is the genesis of the song “Boys of Fall”?

UsMagazine.com: Tell Us about the making of this documentary. You shot scenes for the film and then used pieces for a music video?

KC: No. Usually everybody I date understands it.

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KC: I think there are a lot of women who do love football. If you look at the demographic of people who watch ESPN, it’s not just guys. Look at the people that report it. There are more female reporters on there than there are guys. But for somebody who doesn’t get [the game], they may understand the core values of this song and what it means to people who grew up in a small town. I don’t think I have to explain the game to them and why it matters — either you love it or you don’t. If they grew up like I did, they will at least get the fact that there are a lot of towns that really rely on the love of their team and they lean on them. I think that’s something that’s really universal.

Us: Our readership is a lot of women who don’t quite get football. How do you explain your love for it and why do guys go crazy for it?

KC: Some of these people I knew, some of them I didn’t. I had never met Brett Favre in my life. But Brett and me will be friends forever now. He was just like the guys in my family, the guys I grew up with. When I landed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I’d never met him. I had his number and we were texting back and forth getting this interview set up. When I landed,Abercrombie shoes, I said ‘What’s for dinner?’ just joking with him. I got nothing back. I was like ‘Uh-oh, I pissed Brett Favre off.’ I got home and I sent him a message that said I was just kidding, just joking and still got nothing back. So we made it to his house, we did the interview, and after we got done with the interview, he said ‘I want you guys to come in here.’ And there were about 30 of us in this film crew. We go into his house and the reason he didn’t text me back was because he had gone and gotten a barbecue dinner for all of us. It was a crazy twist where all of a sudden we’re in Brett Favre’s house eating.

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Us: What was it like sitting down with your football heroes?

KC: It was one of the first songs that I recorded for my new record that’s coming out in September. The song described a lot of what was my reality in East Tennessee where I grew up — a lot of small towns that revolve around the game of football. When we talked to all of these people who have meant so much to the game of football and that have shaped lives for generations, the one question I asked them was ‘What would you say to kids?’ Every one of them talked about dreaming and dreaming big.

Review The Back-up Plan – Calvin Klein

Us Rating: **

Similar to Jennifer Aniston’s The Switch, this clunky comedy finds Jennifer Lopez as a single career woman in NYC who gets pregnant through artificial insemination — then falls for Mr. Right. Lopez an her hunky beau (Alex O’Loughlin) have a serious lack of chemistry, and the physical humor literally falls flat. At least the charming Lopez tries hard to save it. (Sony, $29)

–MARA REINSTEIN

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The references to new Apple devices come from the latest beta of iOS 4.1, which is due for release in the “coming weeks,” according to AppleInsider and its anonymous tipsters.

The USB configuration files of the new beta supposedly include a line of code with the text “iPod 4,1,” which probably refers to a revamped,Crystal Rock, fourth-generation iPod Touch, says AppleInsider — not merely a revision of the third-generation Touch, which was earlier identified in the iOS firmware as “iPod 3,2.”

In other words, we might be in for a true revamp of the Touch next month, especially given that Apple usually holds its music-focused events in September. The smart money has Apple adding such features as a front- and rear-facing cameras, FaceTime video chat, its speedy A4 processor, and the iPhone 4’s “Retina Display” to the Touch,Abercrombie swimwear, which — in its current form, anyway — still lacks a camera of any sort.

Also found in the new iOS USB configuration files, according to AppleInsider: a mention of “iProd 2,1,” with “all indications” being that it’s a reference to a “material update” to the iPad — which had, after all, previously been referred to as “iProd 1,1″ in the iOS code. Again, not a huge surprise, since Apple is surely far along in the development of a second-generation iPad (perhaps with a camera, this time).

Most intriguingly, though, is a third mysterious product reference in the latest iOS beta: “unknownHardware.” Hmmm … what’s this?

Well, given all the speculation that Apple might be poised to unveil a new, pared-down $99 Apple TV that runs on its own version of iOS, we could well be looking at a reference to an updated Apple TV — or “iTV,” as Engadget claims it’ll end up being called.

But that’s “purely speculation,” as AppleInsider prudently notes. Perhaps Apple has something else up its sleeves instead, like a smaller, 7-inch iPad, or even a tiny touchscreen iPod Nano. (Then again, could you imagine dealing with apps on a 1.7-inch screen? Ugh.)

Anyway, “unknown hardware” aside, it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll get a full-on revamp of the iPod Touch in the coming weeks — excellent news for anyone enticed by the new features on the iPhone 4 but spooked by all the “Antennagate” drama (or unwilling to sign up for two years with AT&T). Meanwhile, a cheaper, app-friendly Apple TV — or iTV — could be just the thing to jump-start Apple’s stalled living-room “hobby.”

So, what do you think Apple’s “unknown hardware” is?

AppleInsider: Apple testing iOS 4.1 alongside next-gen iPod touch, iPad and ‘unknown’ product

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

Follow me on Twitter!

A new beta of Apple’s iOS mobile software reportedly boasts references to a fourth-generation iPod Touch and maybe even a new iPad — not much of a surprise there. It’s the mention of some “unknown hardware” in the iOS beta code that’s raising eyebrows. Are we talking a new Apple TV, perhaps, or something new we haven’t seen yet?

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“It’s disgusting and vile, but Spencer will do anything to keep his fame, even tempting companies with [the sex tapes]. Whatever they do, though, will be together. He is doing nothing behind her back.”

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“The tapes exist. There’s more than the one,Dsquared,” the insider tells Us of explicit flicks starring Montag, 23; Pratt, 26, has had discussions with porn company Vivid Entertainment about the tapes,Frankie morello, and told Us last Friday that he was “looking forward” to sharing them with the world.

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What about the reality couple’s divorce, slated to be finalized next Valentine’s Day? “They are still a couple,” the source reports. “They are not really breaking up.”

“This is all a PR stunt,” the source counters. “They will never really sell unless they get desperate.”

When it comes to Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, fact and fiction can get a little murky.

PHOTOS: How The Hills’ stars have changed

Over the weekend, Montag Tweeted that she was “crying” and ranted to Pratt: “F U !!!!!”

Retorted Pratt: “Seriously? You’re going to start sh*t on twitter?”

But a much-talked about sex tape is absolutely bonafide, a source close to the couple insists to UsMagazine.com.

PHOTOS: Heidi and Spencer’s April 2009 wedding