A "Safe Haven"?

It’s been a busy month and I haven’t written as often as I usually do. I began thinking yesterday of what topics might be both timely and of interest for an end-of-month post.

There are many. It’s been a very active month for TRE.

LOTS of auctions; another volume record. Lots of new Sellers; some very interesting and some a little puzzling. Lots of established Sellers bringing new Account Debtors to the Exchange; again, some very interesting and some a little puzzling.

Those all suggest good topics.

TRE management has made significant and important efforts to enforce the requirement that Sellers update their financial statements on a more timely basis. Those new statements show that there have been some important swings in the condition of some Sellers: some in a positive direction and some negative.

It’s clear that 2009 was a tough year for many TRE Sellers. I’ve already commented on my own reactions to having to “let go of” some favorite Sellers and to become willing to buy from some Sellers that I’ve shunned in the past. There’s more than one good post in that topic.

And the bidding dynamics have continued to show changes in the relative strength of Buyers and Sellers and to provide some very interesting glimpses into the strategies and motivations of some market participants. Again, good topics to come back to.

But, as I sit here at the end of the day and the end of the month and the quarter, I have to pick a topic. And what strikes me as most important right now is “none of the above”.

I bought more auctions in June than in any of the 13 months that I’ve been an active Buyer. The average expected return on those auctions was higher than the average of any prior month.

I had more auctions close-out in June than in any prior month and none of those auctions was in any way problematic.

It wasn’t a month without some angst but most of that was self-inflicted and that goes with the territory in any investment medium.

And there’s the story…..

It was a month of increasing volume, increasing opportunity and increasing returns.

It was a month whose problems were the problems of managing opportunities.

Contrast that environment with the turmoil in stock market, the currency markets, the commodity markets or the sovereign debt markets. And then there were those who thought that bond yields couldn’t go any lower!

Who would have thought that buying receivables on an upstart electronic exchange would dampen portfolio volatility at the same time as providing incremental return!

Who would have considered this type of investment a “safe haven”.

Now, “safety” is relative and I am not going to downplay the potential risks involved in TRE transactions. I’ve taken pains to make some of those clear in prior posts. But I’m talking about the RELATIVE performance in an admittedly volatile period for other financial markets.

And, also admittedly, the volume of Exchange transactions is still too small to make a meaningful difference in the context of the portfolios of large investors.

But current experience has to be at least a LITTLE intriguing, even to the larger players, as we look forward to the day when TRE volume is a meaningful percentage of its potential.