Zions Bancorporation Announces Equity Distribution Agreement and Commencement of Senior Notes Offering

Second, fixed-income assets can serve as a supplement to your income. For example, a conservative bond ladder can put consistent and dependable cash in an investor’s pocket regularly over the life of the holdings. In tremulous times like these, structuring your securities like this may be a welcome alternative.

Of course, fixed-income assets do have their limitations. There is generally a much smaller reward with these options than with say, stocks. Younger generations are typically better positioned to take the bigger risks as they have the time and (usually) the financial stability to explore investment options in various markets. That said, historically more secure fixed income products, like the FDIC-insured CDs and agency bonds available at Zions Direct, are typically a wiser option for saving for foreseeable events, such as home buying, weddings and college tuition. These life milestones aren’t exactly the experiences on which we should gamble our money.

One of the main differences of Zions Direct, when compared to most other brokerages, is our focus on fixed-income products. Part of this is apparent in our Bonds for Less offering: a large selection, low commission fees, and institutional pricing (which allows retail customers to get the same pricing that large organizations get when buying bonds).

The other major part of the Zions Direct approach is our auction platform. Zions Direct Auctions is an innovative tool that allows regular individuals to help price the offered securities alongside institutions, and each bidder, big or small, can purchase each fixed-income product at the same price—a welcome change toward transparency and accessibility in an often confusing financial system.

For years, Zions Direct has been a leader in offering corporate bonds to retail customers at institutional prices. This week, Zions Direct has expanded that approach with the announcement of their first auction of secondary market corporate bonds. This innovative approach to selling corporate bonds allows retail and institutional investors to set the yield through a competitive bidding process, in contrast to the typical approach in which a broker/dealer sets the offering yield.

Look for Zions Direct at the Money Show in Las Vegas starting today, May 11 and running through the 14th. We will be hosting a booth and two workshops to describe why Zions Direct is the ideal destination for the self-directed fixed income investor. Speaking at the workshops will be Vice Presidents Evan Hill and Veronica Atkinson.

On April 28, Zions Direct closed its first municipal bond offering on the auctions platform. At its close, participants had bid on nearly nine times the offered amount on the Manatee County, Florida bond with the highest bid asking for a premium price of more than 1½ % above the coupon. Because of the benefits of the modified Dutch auction model, all winning bids got a better price than the coupon amount as each walked away a yield greater than 4.251% on these seven-year municipal bonds.

For those taking those possible tax advantages on this bond, if we assume a 35% tax bracket, it would take a yield of 6.53% on a taxable security in order to get a similar after-tax equivalent yield.

Zions Direct Chairman W. David Hemingway was featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article examining the Zions Direct auction platform.

Zions Direct announces its first auction of secondary market municipal bonds. The auction will begin Monday, April 20, and will run for eight days. This innovative approach to selling municipal bonds allows retail and institutional investors to set the yield through a competitive bidding process. This is in contrast to the typical approach in which a broker/dealer sets the offering yield.

It turns out that this Internet thing is good for more than just sending emails, investing, and viewing weird home videos. And we know that we need to do better at using it to communicate with you.

Armed with that knowledge, we are starting a blog. Those of you in the know understand what a blog is—or at least you have an idea of a few out there—see the value in creating a communication tool where we can talk to you and you can talk to us. But to those who do not know, we’ll explain what it means for Zions and what our purpose will be.