Certain corporations in the U.S. have two classes of stock: common stock and preferred stock. A preferred stock is a class of ownership in a corporation that has a higher claim on its assets than common stock in the event of a bankruptcy or liquidation. Preferred stock is still considered to be "equity" in that claims of preferred stockholders are secondary to any claims of creditors.
What makes preferred stocks unique is that most preferred stocks are designed to pay regular dividends. Preferred shares usually are issued with a fixed, predetermined dividend rate, although sometimes they are issued with a dividend rate that can vary based on a interest rate benchmark such as the 3-month LIBOR. There is no guarantee of course that a company will be able to make its dividend payments on preferred stock, but unless a company gets into financial trouble, most companies pay out the dividends on the preferred stock on a regular basis, usually every quarter. Preferred shares generally have a dividend that must be paid out before the company can pay any dividends to common shareholders.
Preferred shares may or may not come with any voting rights. You have to look carefully at the prospectus to determine what shareholder rights a preferred stock holder has.
Our database currently contains 599 preferred stocks that are traded on U.S. stock exchanges, with a total market capitalization of $523,502,633,114. See our list of preferred stocks. These 599 preferred stocks currently have an average dividend yield of 2.47%.
Preferred stocks are not that common. Most U.S. corporations that are publicly traded on the stock market have only common stock, as shown in this table:
| Category | Has Publicly Traded Preferred Stock | Has Privately Traded Preferred Stock | Doesn't Have Preferred Stock | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large cap | 53 | 34 | 529 | 616 |
| Micro cap | 48 | 139 | 2,045 | 2,232 |
| Mid cap | 62 | 38 | 886 | 986 |
| Small cap | 63 | 77 | 1,348 | 1,488 |
| Unknown | 0 | 0 | 197 | 197 |
| Total | 226 | 288 | 5,005 | 5,519 |
The above data is a live query from our database, so it should be reasonable accurate as of yesterday, as our database is automatically updated every night.
Preferred stock is very much a "hybrid" security that acts somewhat like a bond and somewhat like a common stock. Generally the market price of a preferred stock does not vary as much as a company's common stock. Preferred stocks can be more volatile than a bond, especially when the company is going through significant market stress or during periods of a stock market crash. If the stock market is relatively stable and there is nothing major going on with the company, preferred stocks tend to act like a bond, in the sense that they tend to go up or down in response to changing interest rates. But during a stock market crash, a preferred stock can often act more like a common stock than a bond.
Almost all preferred stocks are issued with a "liquidation value" and a pre-determined dividend rate that together determine the total dividends on the stock. When issued, the preferred stock will also specify exactly when the dividend payments will be made (i.e. monthly, quarterly, etc...). Once issued, the terms of a preferred stock don't change. For example, a preferred stock that is issued with a set dividend rate of 5% would pay 5% of the liquidation value, which is usually $25 per share. Liquidation value is used to determine the actual dividends per share on a preferred stock but it is also important because it is the stated value per share in the event of a company liquidation, as a way to determine the priority of claims of creditors versus stock holders.
There is no rule that requires it, but the tradition has become that most preferred stocks have a $25 liquidation value. That makes it easy to tell if the stock is trading at a discount or premium, because you can just compare the current market price to $25.00. Here are the liquidation values as of now:
| Liquidation Value | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | $336,899,311,250 | 64.4% | 0.4% | |
| 0.00 | 3 | $15,295,200,401 | 2.9% | 0.0% |
| 4.15 | 1 | $7,373,493 | 0.0% | 4.3% |
| 5.25 | 1 | $453,900,979 | 0.1% | 7.0% |
| 6.50 | 1 | $306,818,639 | 0.1% | 3.9% |
| 8.50 | 1 | $20,378,000 | 0.0% | 7.2% |
| 9.13 | 1 | $644,879,877 | 0.1% | 9.3% |
| 10.00 | 6 | $48,172,283 | 0.0% | 18.1% |
| 25.00 | 516 | $141,981,293,229 | 27.1% | 6.8% |
| 50.00 | 12 | $3,486,299,598 | 0.7% | 5.6% |
| 100.00 | 13 | $5,119,658,365 | 1.0% | 7.5% |
| 200.00 | 1 | $375,040,000 | 0.1% | 6.4% |
| 1000.00 | 5 | $18,864,307,000 | 3.6% | 5.8% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Most preferred stock pays out their dividends on a quarterly basis:
| Frequency | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | $336,899,311,250 | 64% | 0.41% | |
| 15 | $31,625,997,039 | 6% | 3.98% | |
| Annually | 3 | $403,867,812 | 0% | 4.05% |
| Monthly | 27 | $1,344,846,813 | 0% | 7.59% |
| Quarterly | 513 | $153,043,439,639 | 29% | 6.63% |
| Semi-Annually | 3 | $185,170,561 | 0% | 7.35% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Most preferred stock is "perpetual", which means that it remains outstanding forever (i.e. there is no maturity date):
| Perpetual | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | 35 | $13,678,082,679 | 3% | 6.50% |
| Yes | 564 | $509,824,550,435 | 97% | 2.36% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
But the fact that most preferred stocks are perpetual is a little misleading. Most preferred stock is "callable" by the issuer - i.e. it can be redeemed by the company, at the company's option, typically after they give investors a 30 day or 60 day advanced notice. Most preferred stock cannot be redeemed right away (immediately after issuance). Typically, preferred stock is callable only after it has been on the market for a few years. Preferred stock is redeemed or called quite often before maturity, for all number of reasons. For example, if interest rates fall, the company may call its preferred shares and issue another series with a lower yield. Shares can continue to trade past their call date if the company does not exercise this option.
Because of the call features, preferred stocks are being issued and redeemed all the time, partly in response to changing interest rates, but also as companies manage their capital positions. Let's look at when the current preferred stocks were issued:
| Year Issued | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | 5 | $593,146,114 | 0% | 6.17% |
| 1980 | 2 | $237,184,150 | 0% | 4.20% |
| 1983 | 1 | $1,102,200,000 | 0% | 5.74% |
| 1998 | 1 | $203,720,000 | 0% | 7.36% |
| 2003 | 2 | $243,452,621 | 0% | 6.02% |
| 2004 | 1 | $26,500,000 | 0% | 6.79% |
| 2005 | 4 | $846,033,567 | 0% | 8.71% |
| 2006 | 1 | $256,738,930 | 0% | 6.26% |
| 2012 | 5 | $2,273,930,639 | 0% | 5.69% |
| 2013 | 60 | $35,177,151,598 | 7% | 6.59% |
| 2014 | 24 | $4,950,375,992 | 1% | 7.21% |
| 2015 | 13 | $1,440,294,301 | 0% | 9.05% |
| 2016 | 29 | $3,654,114,292 | 1% | 7.58% |
| 2017 | 71 | $11,121,029,158 | 2% | 7.91% |
| 2018 | 41 | $7,170,201,612 | 1% | 6.83% |
| 2019 | 88 | $44,054,863,348 | 8% | 6.82% |
| 2020 | 86 | $31,298,844,379 | 6% | 5.95% |
| 2021 | 126 | $49,966,688,730 | 10% | 4.01% |
| 2022 | 34 | $327,031,762,425 | 62% | 0.37% |
| 2023 | 5 | $1,854,401,258 | 0% | 0.54% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Some preferred stock is "cumulative" preferred stock, meaning that if the company misses a scheduled dividend payment on the preferred stock, the dividends owed must be paid out in the future before common stock shareholders can receive any dividend payments. And if the company ever tries to redeem or call the preferred stock, they have to redeem the stock at price that includes the missed dividends. So preferred stock that is cumulative starts to act almost like debt, because the company is required to accrue and/or pay the dividends.
| Cumulative | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | 249 | $458,345,529,174 | 88% | 1.79% |
| Yes | 350 | $65,157,103,940 | 12% | 7.26% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Some preferred stock is convertible, meaning it can be exchanged for a given number of common shares under certain circumstances. The board of directors might vote to convert the stock, the investor might have the option to convert, or the stock might have a specified date at which it automatically converts. Here's a breakout:
| Category | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Convertible | 32 | $41,827,947,597 | 8% | 3.88% |
| Non-convertible | 567 | $481,674,685,517 | 92% | 2.34% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Convertible preferred stock is much more difficult to analyze because it usually contains a complex formula to determine the conversion ratio between the preferred stock and the common stock. It often isn't easy to understand whether it is a good deal or a bad deal to convert the preferred stock into common stock. Because the value of convertible preferred stock is tied to the value of the company's common stock, you often find that convertible preferred stock trades at a much greater discount or premium to par value compared to non-convertible preferred stock.
When it comes to common stocks, everybody talks about "large cap" stocks versus "mid cap" or "small cap" stocks. As explained in our article size categories, there is no standard definition of what makes up a "large cap" stock. On our website, we use: Large cap > $10 billion, Mid cap between $2 billion and $10 billion, small cap between $300 million and $2 billion and micro cap <$300 million.
But most preferred stock issuances are pretty small. Here's a breakout using the categories we use for common stocks:
| Category | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large cap | 7 | $285,842,530,161 | 54.6% | 0.0% |
| Micro cap | 433 | $45,082,807,393 | 8.6% | 7.5% |
| Mid cap | 22 | $100,983,716,033 | 19.3% | 3.8% |
| Small cap | 137 | $91,593,579,527 | 17.5% | 6.2% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
Because preferred stock issuances are so small, we normally don't refer much to the size category of a preferred stock.
Preferred stocks can be issued by various types of entities. Here's a breakout:
| Entity Type | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 | $338,890,175,250 | 64.7% | 0.5% | |
| ADRs | 3 | $32,610,061 | 0.0% | 2.7% |
| BDCs | 1 | $110,220,000 | 0.0% | 7.3% |
| Closed-end fund | 34 | $2,182,022,835 | 0.4% | 5.7% |
| Common stocks | 297 | $149,632,323,861 | 28.6% | 5.8% |
| MLPs | 29 | $5,700,730,480 | 1.1% | 8.5% |
| Mortgage REITs | 55 | $8,670,147,030 | 1.7% | 8.8% |
| Privately held | 27 | $3,674,849,125 | 0.7% | 8.2% |
| REITs | 107 | $14,609,554,472 | 2.8% | 6.9% |
| Total | 599 | $523,502,633,114 | 100% | 2.47% |
When the entity type is "Privately held", that means that the preferred stock was issued by an entity that does not have common shares that are publicly traded on a stock exchange.
Note that there are a lot of preferred stocks issued by BDCs, closed end funds, MLPs, mortgage REITs and REITs. That makes sense because these types of entities are yield focused entities - many investors buy these entity types because they are looking for a high dividend yield. Issuing preferred stock is one way that these entities can attempt to boost their dividend yield to common stockholders, in essence using a form of leverage.
Most of the "common stock" issuers are banks and other financial institutions. Here's a breakout of the common stock issuers by GICS sector:
| GICS Sector | # of Securities | Market cap | % | Avg Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication Services | 7 | $18,259,431,895 | 12.2% | 1.2% |
| Consumer Discretionary | 14 | $2,511,876,022 | 1.7% | 9.4% |
| Consumer Staples | 2 | $27,378,093 | 0.0% | 12.5% |
| Energy | 2 | $18,182,387 | 0.0% | 13.5% |
| Financials | 189 | $102,423,910,524 | 68.5% | 6.4% |
| Health Care | 14 | $4,668,292,102 | 3.1% | 5.2% |
| Industrials | 35 | $4,875,049,707 | 3.3% | 8.0% |
| Information Technology | 6 | $5,121,862,545 | 3.4% | 6.0% |
| Materials | 3 | $246,100,754 | 0.2% | 4.3% |
| Real Estate | 2 | $113,208,000 | 0.1% | 7.2% |
| Utilities | 23 | $11,367,031,832 | 7.6% | 6.6% |
| Total | 297 | $149,632,323,861 | 100% | 5.80% |
It is very common for preferred stock to be trading in the form of an American Depository Receipt, or "ADR". Most people think of an ADR as the common stock of a foreign corporation that is trading on a U.S. stock exchange as an ADR, as explained in our article what is an ADR?. But a lot of preferred stock is issued by American corporations via the same ADR process.
Why are so many preferred stocks issued as ADRs? We don't really know. It could be because companies want to issue their preferred stock at a $25 liquidation or par value, as explained above. An ADR can be issued with a "ratio" between the ADR and the actual security that is not equal to one. In other words, you can issue an ADR that is worth 25 shares of the actual stock. So if a company has a preferred stock with a liquidation value of $250, they can issue an ADR with a one to 10 ratio, thus creating a preferred stock that trades with a $25 liquidation value.
It can be confusing with preferred stocks to separate a "par value" from a "liquidation value". What exactly is par value versus liquidation value? The concept of par value was originally an accounting concept. It is the value that determines how much of the proceeds from the issuance of a stock gets recorded as "common stock" or "preferred stock" on a company's balance sheet versus "additional paid in capital". A lot of preferred stock gets issued with a par value of $.01 per share. But it has a liquidation value of $25.00 per share.
In day to day practice, however, many people refer to the $25 liquidation value of a preferred stock as simply the "par value", even though technically the par value might be $.01 per share. It's a loose way of referring to what really matters, which is the liquidation value.
Preferred stocks are often a pain because they have ticker symbols that can vary from website to website. Some preferred stocks have "normal" symbols such as "AIZP" that are universally referenced the same way. But many companies issue several different series of preferred stocks (series A, series B, etc...) and thus try to start using special preferred stock symbols with a series designator. That's what creates the confusion, as not all websites handle the series reference the same way. We use the syntax "ALLY-A", but some sites use "ALLY A", or "ALLY^A" or "ALLYpA" or "ALLY-PA".
| Website | ALLY-A | DTLA- |
|---|---|---|
| Nasdaq | ALLY^A | DTLA^ |
| NYSE | ALLYpA | DTLAp |
| IEX exchange | ALLY-A | DTLA- |
| Yahoo Finance | ALLY-PA | DTLA-P |
| Google Finance | ALLY-A | DTLA- |
There are now 17 ETFs and ETNs that either buy preferred stock or track an index of preferred stock:
| Symbol | Description | Inception Date | Leverage Factor | Current Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PGF | Invesco Financial Preferred ETF | 12/01/2006 | 1.00 | 5.51% |
| PFF | iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF | 03/26/2007 | 1.00 | 6.08% |
| PGX | Invesco Preferred Portfolio ETF | 01/31/2008 | 1.00 | 5.80% |
| PSK | SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF | 09/16/2009 | 1.00 | 6.55% |
| PFXF | Market Vectors Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF | 07/16/2012 | 1.00 | 6.13% |
| SPFF | Global X SuperIncome Preferred ETF | 07/16/2012 | 1.00 | 6.73% |
| VRP | Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF | 05/01/2014 | 1.00 | 5.27% |
| EPRF | S&P High Quality Preferred ETF | 05/23/2016 | 1.00 | 5.15% |
| PFFR | InfraCap REIT Preferred ETF | 02/07/2017 | 1.00 | 7.45% |
| PREF | Principal Spectrum Preferred Securities Active ETF | 07/10/2017 | 1.00 | 4.89% |
| PFFD | Global X U.S. Preferred ETF | 09/11/2017 | 1.00 | 6.05% |
| PFFA | Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock ETF | 05/15/2018 | 1.00 | 9.77% |
| PFFL | ETRACS Monthly Pay 2x Leveraged Preferred Stock ETN | 09/26/2018 | 2.00 | 10.77% |
| PFLD | AAM Low Duration Preferred and Income Securities ETF | 11/27/2019 | 1.00 | 4.84% |
| PFFV | Global X Variable Rate Preferred ETF | 06/24/2020 | 1.00 | 4.31% |
| QPFF | American Century Quality Preferred ETF | 02/18/2021 | 1.00 | 5.59% |
| JHPI | John Hancock Preferred Income ETF | 12/15/2021 | 1.00 | 6.39% |
All data is a live query from our database. The wording was last updated: 09/04/2020.
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