Much has been written about attractive opportunities in the preferred shares of financial companies that have been especially hard hit in the market’s downturn. Indeed, this week’s Barron’s has an article on the subject.

While many preferred shares look interesting, one of the most attractive fixed income securities in my view is the exchange-traded debt offerings of SLM Corp. (SLM) (Sallie Mae), which trade under the symbols [[OSM]] (11.02) and [[ISM]] (10.99). These securities functions like Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities ((TIPS)) and pay a yield which is adjusted monthly to equal the 12-month CPI change plus 2.00% for OSM, and plus 2.05% for ISM.