Keeping Up

We – like everyone else – are watching our screens and listening to the news more closely than ever. The BDC Reporter has struggled to find the best way to keep our readers apprised of what we’re seeing and our occasional thoughts on the evolving situation. We’ve tried daily articles on market conditions at the close of business, but that’s proven too time consuming, especially as BDC earnings season continues, with its seemingly endless news releases, filings, presentations and conference call transcripts. We’ve been seeking to read as much as we can and update our First Look assessments on whether results were GOOD, MIXED or POOR as well as updating changes in BDC book value. Where possible, we’ve been annotating and publishing the conference call transcripts to provide readers with context and second opinions about what BDC managers are saying. Of course, we will continue to publish the BDC Common Stocks and BDC Fixed Income Market Recaps, which allow us to take a deep breath and review the manifold developments underway in the business.

Best

Still, we’d also like readers to get more immediately timely feedback about the markets and some insights about what the current market meltdown might hold for everyone involved: the BDCs themselves and their investors. We’ve started using the BDC Reporter’s Twitter News Feed as our principal outlet for hot off the digital presses reporting. Today we’ve been “tweeting” every hour about what the markets – and the BDC sector both as a group and individually – are doing. Admittedly, there’s much ephemera there but read down our posts and you’ll get a sense of the changing landscape. We’re also “tweeting” about any especially interesting development that we find in the endless reading and analysis we’re doing as Wall Street burns. Today we “live tweeted” during a BDC’s conference call, calling out its latest non accrual and providing exposure and some context. Expect more of both types of content in the days ahead till the markets cool down. By the way, our wholly unscientific but strongly held belief, is that this could last a considerable amount of time, which is another reason we’re writing this post to alert our readers. We’ve been through multiple market crises and some have gone on for months. 2019 was a very quiet year and may have lulled some into a sense of complacency. Unfortunately, uncertainty results in high price volatility and that’s just what we have and what is coming down the pike.

Mechanics

Anyway, to follow the BDC Reporter’s breaking news efforts if you’re interested, either sign up to follow us on Twitter, or check back regularly to the website and read the column on the right of the front page where our latest “tweets” will pop up regularly. Be aware there’s a few minutes lag time between when we initially publish on Twitter and when the item appears on the BDC Reporter. All this information is available to any reader of the BDC Reporter – even those not registered. However, Premium subscribers will continue to get our much more in-depth “News, Views & Analysis” articles. If you’ve not already done so, consider subscribing.  Chained as we are to our desks – and with the combination of earnings season and this market disruption – you’ll see we’re publishing at a heightened pace of 7-9 articles a week. Plenty of food for thought at a time when re-thinking how BDCs will perform should be at the top of everybody’s mind.

High Hopes

We’d like to think that the BDC Reporter is the first place anybody involved in the sector in any way – even if only episodically – will turn when a window into what’s happening in the foreground and background is required.

Feedback Loop

If anybody has any thoughts or suggestions about any of the above or anything else you’d like to see covered in 280 characters and a link or two, please write to [email protected].