Black Rock to buy out some of its auction-rate securities

There was a modest ray of sunlight penetrating the auction-rate securities (ARS) gloom today as BlackRock announced that it would buy out $1.9 billion of its taxable auction-rate preferred shares (ARPS.) According to an Associated Press article entitled "BlackRock to buy out $1.9B in auction-rate preferred shares", BlackRock has $9.8 billion in ARPS outstanding. The article says BlackRock will be buying about half of the outstanding shares of each of its taxable ARPS, and three-quarters of one of the funds.

There was no mention of their intentions for the other 50% of those funds, the tax-free ARPS, or how they would allocate the money to ARPS shareholders.

Still, every little bit of progress helps, and this was a notable degree of progress.

-- Jack Krupansky