PrefBlog

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close October 30, 2020, was $7.3270.

Disappointing performance was recorded by TRP.PR.B, PPL.PR.E, PPL.PR.O, TRP.PR.D and CF.PR.C, all returning less than -4% with a total weight in the portfolio of 7.4%. Strong performance was achieved by IFC.PR.C, MFC.PR.G, HSE.PR.G, SLF.PR.G and HSE.PR.C, all returning more than 4.00%, with a total portfolio weight of 15.6% at month-end.

Quote quality improved somewhat this month, with the difference in portfolio values when calculated with closing prices vs. calculation with bid prices decreasing from 1.71% to 0.96%.

MAPF returns assume reinvestment of dividends, and are shown after expenses but before fees. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund or any other fund. For more information, see the fund’s main page. The fund is available directly from Hymas Investment Management.

The preferred share market continues to be underpriced relative to other capital markets, leaving a lot of room for outsized gains. The Seniority Spread (the interest-equivalent yield on reasonably liquid, investment-grade PerpetualDiscounts less the yield on long term corporate bonds) is extremely elevated (chart end-date 2020-10-9:

Click for Big

Note that the Seniority Spread was recorded at 370bp at month-end, a significant narrowing from the 395bp at September month-end. As a good practical example of the spreads between markets, consider that CIU issued a long-term bond in early September, 2019 yielding 2.963%, about 411bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 7.07% for CIU.PR.A, which was then yielding about 5.44% as a dividend. CIU issued another bond in late September, 2020, yielding 2.609%, which was 399bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 6.60% for CIU.

… and the relationship between five-year Canada yields and yields on investment-grade FixedResets has gone even deeper into what I consider ‘decoupled panic’ territory (chart end-date 2020-10-9):

Click for Big

In addition, I feel that the yield on five-year Canadas is unsustainably low (it should be the inflation rate plus an increment of … 1%? 1.5%? 2.0%?),and a return to sustainable levels is likely over the medium term.

It seems clear that many market players are, wittingly or not, using FixedResets to speculate on future moves in the Canada 5-Year yield. This is excellent news for those who take market action based on fundamentals and the long term characteristics of the market because nobody can consistently time the markets. The speculators will, over the long run and in aggregate, lose money, handing it over to more sober investors.

It should be noted that I have been unable to explain the relatively strong performance of Floor issues during the 2018-19 downdraft relative to their non-Floor counterparts. See the discussions on PrefBlog at LINK, LINK and LINK.

I believe the bear-market outperformance by the Floor issues is a behavioural phenomenon with very little basis in fundamentals. When interest rates in general move, FixedReset prices should not change much (to a first approximation, for issues priced near par), since in Fixed Income investing it is spreads that are important, not absolute yields. There should be some effect on Floor issues, which should move up slightly in price as yields go down since the ‘option’ to receive the floor rate will become more valuable. Adjustments due to this effect should be fairly small, however – and over the past year issues with a floor, that started the period being expensive, have simply gotten even more expensive, relative to their non-floored counterparts.

And the tricky thing about behavioural models of investing is that they can lose their explanatory power very quickly when an investment fashion shifts, whereas fundamentals will always be effective – sometimes it just takes a little time! Just to give an example from the preferred share market – until the end of 2014, FixedResets were priced relative to each other according to their initial dividend; when the reset of TRP.PR.A shocked a lot of investors, relative pricing became much more dependent upon the Issue Reset Spread, a much more logical and fundamental property. This paradigm shift was discussed extensively in PrefLetter.

FixedReset (Discount) performance on the month was +0.37% vs. PerpetualDiscounts of +0.16% in October; the two classes finally decoupled in mid-November, 2018, after months of moving in lockstep, but it still appears to me that yields available on FixedResets are keeping the yields of PerpetualDiscounts up, even though a consistent valuation based on an expectation of declining interest rates would greatly increase the attractiveness of PerpetualDiscounts (in other words, PerpetualDiscounts are now priced off FixedResets rather than off Long-term Corporates):

Click for Big

Floaters performed poorly, returning -6.96% for October and the figure for the past twelve months remains awful at -20.49%. Look at the long-term performance:

Click for Big

Some Assiduous Readers will be interested to observe that the ‘Quantitative Easing’ decline was not initially as bad as the ‘Credit Crunch’ decline, which took the sector down to the point where the 15-year cumulative total return was negative. I wrote about that at the time. but it became worse in August, 2019! On August 30, 2019 the HIMI Floater Index (total return) value was calculated as 1906.6; the index first surpassed this value on 2003-8-13. Thus, cumulative total return (that is, including dividends) was negative over a period of slightly-over sixteen years. Worse, on March 31, 2020, the index level was 1454.8, a milestone first passed on 1997-7-30; a cumulative negative total return for 22 years and 8 months; at its low on March 18 the index level was 1253.7, first surpassed on 1996-1-4, a span of 24 years and over two months!

It seems clear that Floaters are used, wittingly or otherwise, as a vehicle for speculation on the policy rate and Canada Prime, while FixedResets are being used as a vehicle for speculation on the five-year Canada rate. In support of this idea, I present an Implied Volatility analysis of the TRP series of FixedResets as of October 30, which is comprised of six issues without a Minimum Rate Guarantee and two issues which do have this feature:

Click for Big

The two issues with floors, TRP.PR.J (+469, minimum 5.50%) and TRP.PR.K (+385, minimum 4.90%) are $4.59 and $5.50 rich, respectively. These figures are much wider than the 3.44 and 3.95 calculated last month’s figures. The floors have become effective since five-year Canadas dipped below 0.81% and 1.05%, respectively.

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable TRP FixedReset priced at par has widened significantly from 479bp last month to 439bp this month, while GOC-5 has increased from 0.35% to 0.38%.

I also show results for the BAM series of FixedResets, which includes three issues with dividend floors: BAM.PF.H (+417, Minimum 5.00%); BAM.PF.I (+386, Minimum 4.80%); and BAM.PF.J (+310, Minimum 4.75%); surprisingly, these issues are all rich compared to their non-floor siblings, being rich 0.48, rich 1.24, and rich 0.85 respectively, respectively, much more expensive than last month’s figures of rich 0.12, cheap 0.16 and cheap 0.16.

Click for Big

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable BAM FixedReset priced at par has widened; 465bp last month to 475bp this month, while GOC-5 has increased from 0.35% to 0.38%.

Relative performance during the month was uncorrelated with Issue Reset Spreads for both the “Pfd-2 Group” and the “Pfd-3 Group” issues:

Click for Big

… and no correlations for the three-month period either:

Click for Big

As for the future, of course, it’s one thing to say that ‘spreads are unsustainable and so are government yields’ and it’s quite another to forecast just how and when a more economically sustainable environment will take effect. It could be years. The same caution applies for an end to the overpricing of issues with a minimum rate guarantee. There could be a reversal, particularly if either Trump’s international trade policies or the economic damage wreaked by the coronavirus approaches the gloomier extreme of current forecasts. And, of course, I could be just plain wrong about the sustainability of the current environment.

On the other hand, I will pass on my observation that international interest in the Canadian preferred share market is increasing, as other Floating Rate indices globally are doing much better. Consider, for example the Solactive Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond Index, which “provides exposure to the largest and most liquid floating rate debt securities issued by selected Australian banks. The index is comprised of investment grade floating rate debt securities denominated in AUD and calculated as a Total Return Index” (LINK although the index constituents currently all have a remaining term of less than five years), and the S&P U.S. Floating Rate Preferred Stock Index.

Yields on preferred shares of all stripes are extremely high compared to those available from other investments of similar quality. As I told John Heinzl in an eMail interview in late November, 2018, the best advice I can offer investors remains Shut up and clip your coupons!

I think that a broad, sustainable rally in FixedResets will require higher five-year Canada yields (or a widespread expectation of them), since paradigm shifts generally require a trigger (a Wile E. Coyote moment, as they say!) … and although I’m sure this will happen eventually, it would be foolish to speculate on just when it will happen.

These calculations were performed assuming constant contemporary GOC-5 and 3-Month Bill rates, as follows:

I note that the sustainable yield calculated above is not directly comparable with any yield calculation currently reported by any other preferred share fund as far as I am aware. The Sustainable Yield depends on:
i) Calculating Yield-to-Worst for each instrument and using this yield for reporting purposes;
ii) Using the contemporary value of Five-Year Canadas to estimate dividends after reset for FixedResets. The assumption regarding the five-year Canada rate has become more important as the proportion of low-spread FixedResets in the portfolio has increased.
iii) Making the assumption that deeply discounted NVCC non-compliant issues from banks (and insurers, until November 2019), both Straight and FixedResets will be redeemed at par on their DeemedMaturity date as discussed above.

Turnover increased in October to 14%.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I complained about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues were considered so cheap relative to their peers that a large portion of the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism (PLAM), whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats. However, it is a positive move that the increase in the limit for preferred share issuance was increased from 10% of the capital requirement to 15%; but this increase may only be met with issues having a PLAM.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on October 30 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

An additional wrinkle to the division into sub-indices is the fact that some issues are classed here as FixedResets, even though for analytical purposes they are classified as Straights – this is due to the fact that these particular issues reset with a floor rate which is (given the current level of the GOC 5-Year bond) currently expected to be effective.

For MAPF, these issues are BIP.PR.D, BIP.PR.E, BIP.PR.F and ECN.PR.C, with a combined portfolio weight of 4.6%. The total portfolio is therefore 78.3% “Floating”, which means the rates will reset periodically based upon the GOC-5, T-Bill or Canada Prime levels.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close September 30, 2020, was $7.2852 after a distribution of 0.103820.

The market was essentially flat over the month, with price declines offsetting dividend receipts.

Disappointing performance was recorded by HSE.PR.G, HSE.PR.C, BPO.PR.R and BPO.PR.N, all returning less than -10% with a total weight in the portfolio of 9.0%, but note that each of these issues were strong performers in August. Strong performance was achieved by PWF.PR.S, ECN.PR.C, SLF.PR.D and SLF.PR.C, all returning more than 4.00%, with a total portfolio weight of 8.8% at month-end.

Quote quality deteriorated sharply this month, with the difference in portfolio values when calculated with closing prices vs. calculation with bid prices increasing from 0.44% to 1.71%. Note that the market rose sharply in the month’s last half-hour of trading, so a certain amount of deterioration was expected.

MAPF returns assume reinvestment of dividends, and are shown after expenses but before fees. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund or any other fund. For more information, see the fund’s main page. The fund is available directly from Hymas Investment Management.

The preferred share market continues to be underpriced relative to other capital markets, leaving a lot of room for outsized gains. The Seniority Spread (the interest-equivalent yield on reasonably liquid, investment-grade PerpetualDiscounts less the yield on long term corporate bonds) is extremely elevated (chart end-date 2020-9-11:

Click for Big

Note that the Seniority Spread was recorded at 395bp at month-end, a significant narrowing from the 415bp shortly after August month-end. As a good practical example of the spreads between markets, consider that CIU issued a long-term bond in early September, 2019 yielding 2.963%, about 411bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 7.07% for CIU.PR.A, which was then yielding about 5.44% as a dividend. CIU issued another bond in late September, 2020, yielding 2.609%, which was 399bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 6.60% for CIU.

… and the relationship between five-year Canada yields and yields on investment-grade FixedResets has gone even deeper into what I consider ‘decoupled panic’ territory (chart end-date 2020-8-14):

Click for Big

In addition, I feel that the yield on five-year Canadas is unsustainably low (it should be the inflation rate plus an increment of … 1%? 1.5%? 2.0%?),and a return to sustainable levels is likely over the medium term.

It seems clear that many market players are, wittingly or not, using FixedResets to speculate on future moves in the Canada 5-Year yield. This is excellent news for those who take market action based on fundamentals and the long term characteristics of the market because nobody can consistently time the markets. The speculators will, over the long run and in aggregate, lose money, handing it over to more sober investors.

It should be noted that I have been unable to explain the relatively strong performance of Floor issues during the 2018-19 downdraft relative to their non-Floor counterparts. See the discussions on PrefBlog at LINK, LINK and LINK.

I believe the bear-market outperformance by the Floor issues is a behavioural phenomenon with very little basis in fundamentals. When interest rates in general move, FixedReset prices should not change much (to a first approximation, for issues priced near par), since in Fixed Income investing it is spreads that are important, not absolute yields. There should be some effect on Floor issues, which should move up slightly in price as yields go down since the ‘option’ to receive the floor rate will become more valuable. Adjustments due to this effect should be fairly small, however – and over the past year issues with a floor, that started the period being expensive, have simply gotten even more expensive, relative to their non-floored counterparts.

And the tricky thing about behavioural models of investing is that they can lose their explanatory power very quickly when an investment fashion shifts, whereas fundamentals will always be effective – sometimes it just takes a little time! Just to give an example from the preferred share market – until the end of 2014, FixedResets were priced relative to each other according to their initial dividend; when the reset of TRP.PR.A shocked a lot of investors, relative pricing became much more dependent upon the Issue Reset Spread, a much more logical and fundamental property. This paradigm shift was discussed extensively in PrefLetter.

FixedReset (Discount) performance on the month was -1.00% vs. PerpetualDiscounts of +2.54% in September; the two classes finally decoupled in mid-November, 2018, after months of moving in lockstep, but it still appears to me that yields available on FixedResets are keeping the yields of PerpetualDiscounts up, even though a consistent valuation based on an expectation of declining interest rates would greatly increase the attractiveness of PerpetualDiscounts (in other words, PerpetualDiscounts are now priced off FixedResets rather than off Long-term Corporates):

Click for Big

Floaters performed poorly, returning -2.15% for September but the figure for the past twelve months remains awful at -13.70%. Look at the long-term performance:

Click for Big

Some Assiduous Readers will be interested to observe that the ‘Quantitative Easing’ decline was not initially as bad as the ‘Credit Crunch’ decline, which took the sector down to the point where the 15-year cumulative total return was negative. I wrote about that at the time. but it became worse in August, 2019! On August 30, 2019 the HIMI Floater Index (total return) value was calculated as 1906.6; the index first surpassed this value on 2003-8-13. Thus, cumulative total return (that is, including dividends) was negative over a period of slightly-over sixteen years. Worse, on March 31, 2020, the index level was 1454.8, a milestone first passed on 1997-7-30; a cumulative negative total return for 22 years and 8 months; at its low on March 18 the index level was 1253.7, first surpassed on 1996-1-4, a span of 24 years and over two months!

It seems clear that Floaters are used, wittingly or otherwise, as a vehicle for speculation on the policy rate and Canada Prime, while FixedResets are being used as a vehicle for speculation on the five-year Canada rate. In support of this idea, I present an Implied Volatility analysis of the TRP series of FixedResets as of September 30, which is comprised of six issues without a Minimum Rate Guarantee and two issues which do have this feature:

Click for Big

The two issues with floors, TRP.PR.J (+469, minimum 5.50%) and TRP.PR.K (+385, minimum 4.90%) are $3.44 and $3.95 rich, respectively. These figures are wider than the 3.15 and 3.55 calculated last month’s figures. The floors have become effective since five-year Canadas dipped below 0.81% and 1.05%, respectively.

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable TRP FixedReset priced at par has widened slightly from 439bp last month to 444bp this month, while GOC-5 has declined from 0.40% to 0.35%.

I also show results for the BAM series of FixedResets, which includes three issues with dividend floors: BAM.PF.H (+417, Minimum 5.00%); BAM.PF.I (+386, Minimum 4.80%); and BAM.PF.J (+310, Minimum 4.75%); surprisingly, these issues are all rich compared to their non-floor siblings, being rich 0.12, cheap 0.16, cheap 0.16 respectively, respectively, similar to last month’s figures of cheap 0.25, rich 0.37 and cheap 0.04.

Click for Big

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable BAM FixedReset priced at par has widened slightly; 454bp last month to 465bp this month, while GOC-5 has declined from 0.40% to 0.35%.

Relative performance during the month was uncorrelated with Issue Reset Spreads for both the “Pfd-2 Group” and the “Pfd-3 Group” issues:

Click for Big

… but the three-month period showed some correlation for the Pfd-2 Group (14%):

Click for Big

As for the future, of course, it’s one thing to say that ‘spreads are unsustainable and so are government yields’ and it’s quite another to forecast just how and when a more economically sustainable environment will take effect. It could be years. The same caution applies for an end to the overpricing of issues with a minimum rate guarantee. There could be a reversal, particularly if either Trump’s international trade policies or the economic damage wreaked by the coronavirus approaches the gloomier extreme of current forecasts. And, of course, I could be just plain wrong about the sustainability of the current environment.

On the other hand, I will pass on my observation that international interest in the Canadian preferred share market is increasing, as other Floating Rate indices globally are doing much better. Consider, for example the Solactive Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond Index, which “provides exposure to the largest and most liquid floating rate debt securities issued by selected Australian banks. The index is comprised of investment grade floating rate debt securities denominated in AUD and calculated as a Total Return Index” (LINK although the index constituents currently all have a remaining term of less than five years), and the S&P U.S. Floating Rate Preferred Stock Index.

Yields on preferred shares of all stripes are extremely high compared to those available from other investments of similar quality. As I told John Heinzl in an eMail interview in late November, 2018, the best advice I can offer investors remains Shut up and clip your coupons!

I think that a broad, sustainable rally in FixedResets will require higher five-year Canada yields (or a widespread expectation of them), since paradigm shifts generally require a trigger (a Wile E. Coyote moment, as they say!) … and although I’m sure this will happen eventually, it would be foolish to speculate on just when it will happen.

These calculations were performed assuming constant contemporary GOC-5 and 3-Month Bill rates, as follows:

I note that the sustainable yield calculated above is not directly comparable with any yield calculation currently reported by any other preferred share fund as far as I am aware. The Sustainable Yield depends on:
i) Calculating Yield-to-Worst for each instrument and using this yield for reporting purposes;
ii) Using the contemporary value of Five-Year Canadas to estimate dividends after reset for FixedResets. The assumption regarding the five-year Canada rate has become more important as the proportion of low-spread FixedResets in the portfolio has increased.
iii) Making the assumption that deeply discounted NVCC non-compliant issues from banks (and insurers, until November 2019), both Straight and FixedResets will be redeemed at par on their DeemedMaturity date as discussed above.

Turnover decreased in September to 8%.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I complained about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues were considered so cheap relative to their peers that a large portion of the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism (PLAM), whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats. However, it is a positive move that the increase in the limit for preferred share issuance was increased from 10% of the capital requirement to 15%; but this increase may only be met with issues having a PLAM.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on September 30 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

An additional wrinkle to the division into sub-indices is the fact that some issues are classed here as FixedResets, even though for analytical purposes they are classified as Straights – this is due to the fact that these particular issues reset with a floor rate which is (given the current level of the GOC 5-Year bond) currently expected to be effective.

For MAPF, these issues are BIP.PR.D, BIP.PR.E, BIP.PR.F and ECN.PR.C, with a combined portfolio weight of 4.7%. The total portfolio is therefore 71.4% “Floating”, which means the rates will reset periodically based upon the GOC-5, T-Bill or Canada Prime levels.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close August 31, 2020, was $7.4849.

The fine performance of the preferred share market can be ascribed to July’s announcement of the “LRCN” securities by RBC, as discussed in the July Report, which was followed up by a mass redemption of Royal Bank’s NVCC non-compliant issues in August. Note that I am very dubious regarding the fundamentals of this effect and take the view that the Canadian preferred share market has been ridiculously cheap for some time but that some players were waiting for some good news, however minor, before jumping back into the market.

Portfolio performance was enhanced by the holdings in three issues with total returns exceeding +15%: LB.PR.J, HSE.PR.C and TD.PF.D, with a total weight at month-end of 3%; there were a further five issues with returns exceeding 10%: FFH.PR.G, PPL.PR.S, BPO.PR.R, BPO.PR.N and HSE.PR.G, with a total month-end weight of 11.7%. Disappointments included IFC.PR.A, GWO.PR.N, SLF.PR.G and IFC.PR.C, all returning less than 2% with a total month-end weight of 10.8%.

Quote quality improved this month, with the difference in portfolio values when calculated with closing prices vs. calculation with bid prices decreasing from about 0.83% to 0.44%.

MAPF returns assume reinvestment of dividends, and are shown after expenses but before fees. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund or any other fund. For more information, see the fund’s main page. The fund is available directly from Hymas Investment Management.

The preferred share market continues to be underpriced relative to other capital markets, leaving a lot of room for outsized gains. The Seniority Spread (the interest-equivalent yield on reasonably liquid, investment-grade PerpetualDiscounts less the yield on long term corporate bonds) is extremely elevated (chart end-date 2020-8-14:

Click for Big

Note that the Seniority Spread was recorded at 415bp shortly after month-end a sharp narrowing from the 450bp near July month-end. As a good practical example of the spreads between markets, consider that CIU issued a long-term bond in early September, 2019 yielding 2.963%, about 411bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 7.07% for CIU.PR.A, which was then yielding about 5.44% as a dividend. Shaw Communications issued 30-year notes at 4.25% interest on December 5, 2019, when their FixedResets, SJR.PR.A, were yielding 6.59% dividends; at the end of May, 2020, Pembina issued 30-year notes at 4.67% at a time when their FixedResets were yielding between 6.92% and 8.22% as dividends.

As has been noted, the increase in the Seniority Spread over the past one or two years has been due not to an increase in yield (drop in prices) of Straight Preferreds over the year, but largely because the yield of the Straight Preferreds has remained relatively constant while the yield of long-term corporate bonds has dropped dramatically.

… and the relationship between five-year Canada yields and yields on investment-grade FixedResets has gone even deeper into what I consider ‘decoupled panic’ territory (chart end-date 2020-8-14):

Click for Big

In addition, I feel that the yield on five-year Canadas is unsustainably low (it should be the inflation rate plus an increment of … 1%? 1.5%? 2.0%?),and a return to sustainable levels is likely over the medium term.

It seems clear that many market players are, wittingly or not, using FixedResets to speculate on future moves in the Canada 5-Year yield. This is excellent news for those who take market action based on fundamentals and the long term characteristics of the market because nobody can consistently time the markets. The speculators will, over the long run and in aggregate, lose money, handing it over to more sober investors.

It should be noted that I have been unable to explain the relatively strong performance of Floor issues during the 2018-19 downdraft relative to their non-Floor counterparts. See the discussions on PrefBlog at LINK, LINK and LINK.

I believe the bear-market outperformance by the Floor issues is a behavioural phenomenon with very little basis in fundamentals. When interest rates in general move, FixedReset prices should not change much (to a first approximation, for issues priced near par), since in Fixed Income investing it is spreads that are important, not absolute yields. There should be some effect on Floor issues, which should move up slightly in price as yields go down since the ‘option’ to receive the floor rate will become more valuable. Adjustments due to this effect should be fairly small, however – and over the past year issues with a floor, that started the period being expensive, have simply gotten even more expensive, relative to their non-floored counterparts.

And the tricky thing about behavioural models of investing is that they can lose their explanatory power very quickly when an investment fashion shifts, whereas fundamentals will always be effective – sometimes it just takes a little time! Just to give an example from the preferred share market – until the end of 2014, FixedResets were priced relative to each other according to their initial dividend; when the reset of TRP.PR.A shocked a lot of investors, relative pricing became much more dependent upon the Issue Reset Spread, a much more logical and fundamental property. This paradigm shift was discussed extensively in PrefLetter.

FixedReset (Discount) performance on the month was +5.59% vs. PerpetualDiscounts of +3.94% in July; the two classes finally decoupled in mid-November, 2018, after months of moving in lockstep, but it still appears to me that yields available on FixedResets are keeping the yields of PerpetualDiscounts up, even though a consistent valuation based on an expectation of declining interest rates would greatly increase the attractiveness of PerpetualDiscounts (in other words, PerpetualDiscounts are now priced off FixedResets rather than off Long-term Corporates):

Click for Big

Floaters performed well, returning +10.12% for July but the figure for the past twelve months remains awful at -20.42%. Look at the long-term performance:

Click for Big

Some Assiduous Readers will be interested to observe that the ‘Quantitative Easing’ decline was not initially as bad as the ‘Credit Crunch’ decline, which took the sector down to the point where the 15-year cumulative total return was negative. I wrote about that at the time. but it became worse in August, 2019! On August 30, 2019 the HIMI Floater Index (total return) value was calculated as 1906.6; the index first surpassed this value on 2003-8-13. Thus, cumulative total return (that is, including dividends) was negative over a period of slightly-over sixteen years. Worse, on March 31, 2020, the index level was 1454.8, a milestone first passed on 1997-7-30; a cumulative negative total return for 22 years and 8 months; at its low on March 18 the index level was 1253.7, first surpassed on 1996-1-4, a span of 24 years and over two months!

It seems clear that Floaters are used, wittingly or otherwise, as a vehicle for speculation on the policy rate and Canada Prime, while FixedResets are being used as a vehicle for speculation on the five-year Canada rate. In support of this idea, I present an Implied Volatility analysis of the TRP series of FixedResets as of August 31, which is comprised of six issues without a Minimum Rate Guarantee and two issues which do have this feature:

Click for Big

The two issues with floors, TRP.PR.J (+469, minimum 5.50%) and TRP.PR.K (+385, minimum 4.90%) are $3.15 and $3.55 rich, respectively. These figures are wider than the 2.99 and 2.30 calculated last month’s figures. The floors have become effective since five-year Canadas dipped below 0.81% and 1.05%, respectively.

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable TRP FixedReset priced at par has declined slightly from 457bp last month to 439bp this month, while GOC-5 has increased from 0.32% to 0.40%.

I also show results for the BAM series of FixedResets, which includes three issues with dividend floors: BAM.PF.H (+417, Minimum 5.00%); BAM.PF.I (+386, Minimum 4.80%); and BAM.PF.J (+310, Minimum 4.75%); surprisingly, these issues are all rich compared to their non-floor siblings, being cheap 0.25, rich 0.37, cheap 0.04 respectively, respectively, cheapening up markedly from last month’s figures of rich 0.36, rich 0.24 and rich 0.78, and very sharply from June’s figures of rich 1.99, rich 2.06 and rich 1.58.

Click for Big

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable BAM FixedReset priced at par has declined sharply; 477bp last month to 454bp this month, while GOC-5 has increased from 0.32% to 0.40%.

Relative performance during the month was uncorrelated with Issue Reset Spreads for both the “Pfd-2 Group” and the “Pfd-3 Group” issues:

Click for Big

… and results for the three-month period were the same:

Click for Big

As for the future, of course, it’s one thing to say that ‘spreads are unsustainable and so are government yields’ and it’s quite another to forecast just how and when a more economically sustainable environment will take effect. It could be years. The same caution applies for an end to the overpricing of issues with a minimum rate guarantee. There could be a reversal, particularly if either Trump’s international trade policies or the economic damage wreaked by the coronavirus approaches the gloomier extreme of current forecasts. And, of course, I could be just plain wrong about the sustainability of the current environment.

On the other hand, I will pass on my observation that international interest in the Canadian preferred share market is increasing, as other Floating Rate indices globally are doing much better. Consider, for example the Solactive Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond Index, which “provides exposure to the largest and most liquid floating rate debt securities issued by selected Australian banks. The index is comprised of investment grade floating rate debt securities denominated in AUD and calculated as a Total Return Index” (LINK although the index constituents currently all have a remaining term of less than five years), and the S&P U.S. Floating Rate Preferred Stock Index.

Yields on preferred shares of all stripes are extremely high compared to those available from other investments of similar quality. As I told John Heinzl in an eMail interview in late November, 2018, the best advice I can offer investors remains Shut up and clip your coupons!

I think that a broad, sustainable rally in FixedResets will require higher five-year Canada yields (or a widespread expectation of them), since paradigm shifts generally require a trigger (a Wile E. Coyote moment, as they say!) … and although I’m sure this will happen eventually, it would be foolish to speculate on just when it will happen.

These calculations were performed assuming constant contemporary GOC-5 and 3-Month Bill rates, as follows:

I note that the sustainable yield calculated above is not directly comparable with any yield calculation currently reported by any other preferred share fund as far as I am aware. The Sustainable Yield depends on:
i) Calculating Yield-to-Worst for each instrument and using this yield for reporting purposes;
ii) Using the contemporary value of Five-Year Canadas to estimate dividends after reset for FixedResets. The assumption regarding the five-year Canada rate has become more important as the proportion of low-spread FixedResets in the portfolio has increased.
iii) Making the assumption that deeply discounted NVCC non-compliant issues from banks (and insurers, until November 2019), both Straight and FixedResets will be redeemed at par on their DeemedMaturity date as discussed above.

Turnover increased slightly in August to 13%.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I complained about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues were considered so cheap relative to their peers that a large portion of the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism (PLAM), whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats. However, it is a positive move that the increase in the limit for preferred share issuance was increased from 10% of the capital requirement to 15%; but this increase may only be met with issues having a PLAM.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on August 31 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

An additional wrinkle to the division into sub-indices is the fact that some issues are classed here as FixedResets, even though for analytical purposes they are classified as Straights – this is due to the fact that these particular issues reset with a floor rate which is (given the current level of the GOC 5-Year bond) currently expected to be effective.

For MAPF, these issues are BIP.PR.D, BIP.PR.E, BIP.PR.F and ECN.PR.C, with a combined portfolio weight of 4.5%. The total portfolio is therefore 69.1% “Floating”, which means the rates will reset periodically based upon the GOC-5, T-Bill or Canada Prime levels.

For the BMO-CM “50” index, these issues are ALA.PR.I, BIP.PR.D, BPO.PR.C and PPL.PR.M, with a combined weight of 7.5%. The total index is therefore 69.7% “Floating”.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close July 31, 2020, was $7.0713.

Excellent performance by the fund was led by FixedResets with low Issue Reset Spreads. The fund held positions in ten issues with performance for the month in excess of 15%, comprising about 37% of the portfolio at month-end, all FixedResets with spreads ranging from 130bp (GWO.PR.N, returning +16.00%) to 338bp (CM.PR.R, returning +19.93%).

The fine performance of the preferred share market can be ascribed to the approval and issuance of the “LRCN” securities by RBC, as discussed below.

Quote quality remained steady this month, with the difference in portfolio values when calculated with closing prices vs. calculation with bid prices increasing slightly from about 0.8% to 0.83%.

MAPF returns assume reinvestment of dividends, and are shown after expenses but before fees. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund or any other fund. For more information, see the fund’s main page. The fund is available directly from Hymas Investment Management.

The preferred share market continues to be underpriced relative to other capital markets, leaving a lot of room for outsized gains. The Seniority Spread (the interest-equivalent yield on reasonably liquid, investment-grade PerpetualDiscounts less the yield on long term corporate bonds) is extremely elevated (chart end-date 2020-7-10):

Click for Big

Note that the Seniority Spread was recorded at 450bp shortly before month-end a slight widening from the 440bp near June month-end. As a good practical example of the spreads between markets, consider that CIU issued a long-term bond in early September, 2019 yielding 2.963%, about 411bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 7.07% for CIU.PR.A, which was then yielding about 5.44% as a dividend. Shaw Communications issued 30-year notes at 4.25% interest on December 5, 2019, when their FixedResets, SJR.PR.A, were yielding 6.59% dividends; at the end of May, 2020, Pembina issued 30-year notes at 4.67% at a time when their FixedResets were yielding between 6.92% and 8.22% as dividends.

As has been noted, the increase in the Seniority Spread over the past one or two years has been due not to an increase in yield (drop in prices) of Straight Preferreds over the year, but largely because the yield of the Straight Preferreds has remained relatively constant while the yield of long-term corporate bonds has dropped dramatically.

… and the relationship between five-year Canada yields and yields on investment-grade FixedResets has gone even deeper into what I consider ‘decoupled panic’ territory (chart end-date 2020-7-10):

Click for Big

In addition, I feel that the yield on five-year Canadas is unsustainably low (it should be the inflation rate plus an increment of … 1%? 1.5%? 2.0%?),and a return to sustainable levels is likely over the medium term.

It seems clear that many market players are, wittingly or not, using FixedResets to speculate on future moves in the Canada 5-Year yield. This is excellent news for those who take market action based on fundamentals and the long term characteristics of the market because nobody can consistently time the markets. The speculators will, over the long run and in aggregate, lose money, handing it over to more sober investors.

It should be noted that I have been unable to explain the relatively strong performance of Floor issues during the 2018-19 downdraft relative to their non-Floor counterparts. See the discussions on PrefBlog at LINK, LINK and LINK.

I believe the bear-market outperformance by the Floor issues is a behavioural phenomenon with very little basis in fundamentals. When interest rates in general move, FixedReset prices should not change much (to a first approximation, for issues priced near par), since in Fixed Income investing it is spreads that are important, not absolute yields. There should be some effect on Floor issues, which should move up slightly in price as yields go down since the ‘option’ to receive the floor rate will become more valuable. Adjustments due to this effect should be fairly small, however – and over the past year issues with a floor, that started the period being expensive, have simply gotten even more expensive, relative to their non-floored counterparts.

And the tricky thing about behavioural models of investing is that they can lose their explanatory power very quickly when an investment fashion shifts, whereas fundamentals will always be effective – sometimes it just takes a little time! Just to give an example from the preferred share market – until the end of 2014, FixedResets were priced relative to each other according to their initial dividend; when the reset of TRP.PR.A shocked a lot of investors, relative pricing became much more dependent upon the Issue Reset Spread, a much more logical and fundamental property. This paradigm shift was discussed extensively in PrefLetter.

FixedReset (Discount) performance on the month was +9.20% vs. PerpetualDiscounts of +2.51% in July; the two classes finally decoupled in mid-November, 2018, after months of moving in lockstep, but it still appears to me that yields available on FixedResets are keeping the yields of PerpetualDiscounts up, even though a consistent valuation based on an expectation of declining interest rates would greatly increase the attractiveness of PerpetualDiscounts (in other words, PerpetualDiscounts are now priced off FixedResets rather than off Long-term Corporates):

Click for Big

Floaters performed well, returning +10.12% for July but the figure for the past twelve months remains awful at -20.42%. Look at the long-term performance:

Click for Big

Some Assiduous Readers will be interested to observe that the ‘Quantitative Easing’ decline was not initially as bad as the ‘Credit Crunch’ decline, which took the sector down to the point where the 15-year cumulative total return was negative. I wrote about that at the time. but it became worse in August, 2019! On August 30, 2019 the HIMI Floater Index (total return) value was calculated as 1906.6; the index first surpassed this value on 2003-8-13. Thus, cumulative total return (that is, including dividends) was negative over a period of slightly-over sixteen years. Worse, on March 31, 2020, the index level was 1454.8, a milestone first passed on 1997-7-30; a cumulative negative total return for 22 years and 8 months; at its low on March 18 the index level was 1253.7, first surpassed on 1996-1-4, a span of 24 years and over two months!

It seems clear that Floaters are used, wittingly or otherwise, as a vehicle for speculation on the policy rate and Canada Prime, while FixedResets are being used as a vehicle for speculation on the five-year Canada rate. In support of this idea, I present an Implied Volatility analysis of the TRP series of FixedResets as of July 31, which is comprised of six issues without a Minimum Rate Guarantee and two issues which do have this feature:

Click for Big

The two issues with floors, TRP.PR.J (+469, minimum 5.50%) and TRP.PR.K (+385, minimum 4.90%) are $2.99 and $2.30 rich, respectively. These figures are much narrower than the 4.39 and 4.18 calculated last month’s figures; this reflects underperformance of these two issues relative to their siblings over the past month. The floors have become effective since five-year Canadas dipped below 0.81% and 1.05%, respectively.

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable TRP FixedReset priced at par has declined slightly from 481bp last month to 457bp this month, while GOC-5 has been declined from 0.37% to 0.32%.

I also show results for the BAM series of FixedResets, which includes three issues with dividend floors: BAM.PF.H (+417, Minimum 5.00%); BAM.PF.I (+386, Minimum 4.80%); and BAM.PF.J (+310, Minimum 4.75%); these issues are all rich compared to their non-floor siblings, being rich 0.36, 0.24 and 0.78 respectively, respectively, cheapening up markedly from last month’s figures of 1.99, 2.06 and 1.58

Click for Big

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable BAM FixedReset priced at par has declined sharply; 526bp last month to 477bp this month, while GOC-5 has declined from 0.36% to 0.32%.

Relative performance during the month was correlated with Issue Reset Spreads for the “Pfd-2 Group” (20%) but not for the “Pfd-3 Group” issues:

Click for Big

… while results over the quarter for the Pfd-2 Group were uncorrelated but weakly correlated for the Pfd-3 Group (11%) – however, the correlation for the latter group is unduly influenced by the performance of ECN.PR.A (6.50%+544M650, +45.03%):

Click for Big

Disaggregating the one-month performance for the Pfd-2 group reveals stronger correlations (banks, 43%; insurance 21%; general 25%):

Click for Big

This fine performance by bank and insurance issues may be presumed to be due to OSFI’s approval of the LRCN structure for bank Alternative Tier 1 Capital. This new type of instrument was discussed on PrefBlog on July 15, July 16, July 17 and July 22. Briefly, the bank will issue preferred shares to a separate, but consolidated, entity and this entity will then issue 60-year notes to institutional investors – retail is not encouraged to participate. These notes may be counted as Tier 1 Capital, up to an allowable limit on the total.

There is (or, perhaps, was?) some argument that this alternative route to Alternative Tier 1 Capital (since the introduction of the NVCC rules, issuance has been restricted to preferred shares) will lead to a reduction of future supply and therefore to an increase in prices, with some pundits speculating that there could be wholesale redemption of bank issues currently trading far below par.

As explained in my links above, I’m pleased that future supply will be somewhat reduced, but highly skeptical that prices should be responding in a significant way to this news; and even more skeptical about the ‘wholesale redemption’ part of the story! As it stands, the TXPR Total Return index gained 6.76% from the close July 14 to the close July 16, and finished the month with a total gain of 6.38% … so if you weren’t holding preferreds on those two days, you missed all the fun!

As for the future, of course, it’s one thing to say that ‘spreads are unsustainable and so are government yields’ and it’s quite another to forecast just how and when a more economically sustainable environment will take effect. It could be years. The same caution applies for an end to the overpricing of issues with a minimum rate guarantee. There could be a reversal, particularly if either Trump’s international trade policies or the economic damage wreaked by the coronavirus approaches the gloomier extreme of current forecasts. And, of course, I could be just plain wrong about the sustainability of the current environment.

On the other hand, I will pass on my observation that international interest in the Canadian preferred share market is increasing, as other Floating Rate indices globally are doing much better. Consider, for example the Solactive Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond Index, which “provides exposure to the largest and most liquid floating rate debt securities issued by selected Australian banks. The index is comprised of investment grade floating rate debt securities denominated in AUD and calculated as a Total Return Index” (LINK although the index constituents currently all have a remaining term of less than five years), and the S&P U.S. Floating Rate Preferred Stock Index.

Yields on preferred shares of all stripes are extremely high compared to those available from other investments of similar quality. As I told John Heinzl in an eMail interview in late November, 2018, the best advice I can offer investors remains Shut up and clip your coupons!

I think that a broad, sustainable rally in FixedResets will require higher five-year Canada yields (or a widespread expectation of them), since paradigm shifts generally require a trigger (a Wile E. Coyote moment, as they say!) … and although I’m sure this will happen eventually, it would be foolish to speculate on just when it will happen.

These calculations were performed assuming constant contemporary GOC-5 and 3-Month Bill rates, as follows:

I note that the sustainable yield calculated above is not directly comparable with any yield calculation currently reported by any other preferred share fund as far as I am aware. The Sustainable Yield depends on:
i) Calculating Yield-to-Worst for each instrument and using this yield for reporting purposes;
ii) Using the contemporary value of Five-Year Canadas to estimate dividends after reset for FixedResets. The assumption regarding the five-year Canada rate has become more important as the proportion of low-spread FixedResets in the portfolio has increased.
iii) Making the assumption that deeply discounted NVCC non-compliant issues from banks (and insurers, until November 2019), both Straight and FixedResets will be redeemed at par on their DeemedMaturity date as discussed above.

Turnover remained steady in July at 10%.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I complained about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues were considered so cheap relative to their peers that a large portion of the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism (PLAM), whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats. However, it is a positive move that the increase in the limit for preferred share issuance was increased from 10% of the capital requirement to 15%; but this increase may only be met with issues having a PLAM.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on July 31 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

A similar portfolio composition analysis has been performed on the Claymore Preferred Share ETF (symbol CPD) (and other funds) as of July 31, 2017, and published in the August, 2017, PrefLetter. It is fair to say:

• MAPF credit quality is similar
• MAPF liquidity is lower
• MAPF Yield is higher
• Weightings
  • MAPF is less exposed to Straight Perpetuals
  • Neither portfolio is exposed to Operating Retractibles (there aren’t too many of those any more!)
  • MAPF is similarly exposed to SplitShares
  • MAPF is less exposed to FixFloat / Floater / Ratchet
  • MAPF is higher weighted in FixedResets, with a greater emphasis on lower-spread issues

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close June, 2020, was $6.3568 after a dividend distribution of 0.119146.

Performance for the month was hurt by the fund’s relatively low holdings of low-spread bank issues – see discussion below on the insights obtained by disaggregating the 1-month performance of the Pfd-2 Group.

Quote quality declined slightly this this month, with the difference in portfolio values when calculated with closing prices vs. calculation with bid prices increasing from about 0.6% to 0.8%.

MAPF returns assume reinvestment of dividends, and are shown after expenses but before fees. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund or any other fund. For more information, see the fund’s main page. The fund is available directly from Hymas Investment Management.

The preferred share market continues to be underpriced relative to other capital markets, leaving a lot of room for outsized gains. The Seniority Spread (the interest-equivalent yield on reasonably liquid, investment-grade PerpetualDiscounts less the yield on long term corporate bonds) is extremely elevated (chart end-date 2020-6-12):

Click for Big

Note that the Seniority Spread was recorded at 440bp shortly before month-end a slight (and possibly spurious) narrowing from the incredible 445bp near May month-end. As a good practical example of the spreads between markets, consider that CIU issued a long-term bond in early September yielding 2.963%, about 411bp cheaper than the interest-equivalent figure of 7.07% for CIU.PR.A, which was then yielding about 5.44% as a dividend. Shaw Communications issued 30-year notes at 4.25% interest on December 5, 2019, when their FixedResets, SJR.PR.A, were yielding 6.59% dividends; at the end of May, 2020, Pembina issued 30-year notes at 4.67% at a time when their FixedResets were yielding between 6.92% and 8.22% as dividends.

As has been noted, the increase in the Seniority Spread over the past one or two years has been due not to an increase in yield (drop in prices) of Straight Preferreds over the year, but largely because the yield of the Straight Preferreds has remained relatively constant while the yield of long-term corporate bonds has dropped dramatically.

… and the relationship between five-year Canada yields and yields on investment-grade FixedResets has gone even deeper into what I consider ‘decoupled panic’ territory (chart end-date 2020-6-12):

Click for Big

In addition, I feel that the yield on five-year Canadas is unsustainably low (it should be the inflation rate plus an increment of … 1%? 1.5%? 2.0%?),and a return to sustainable levels is likely over the medium term.

It seems clear that many market players are, wittingly or not, using FixedResets to speculate on future moves in the Canada 5-Year yield. This is excellent news for those who take market action based on fundamentals and the long term characteristics of the market because nobody can consistently time the markets. The speculators will, over the long run and in aggregate, lose money, handing it over to more sober investors.

It should be noted that I have been unable to explain the relatively strong performance of Floor issues during the 2018-19 downdraft relative to their non-Floor counterparts. See the discussions on PrefBlog at LINK, LINK and LINK.

I believe the bear-market outperformance by the Floor issues is a behavioural phenomenon with very little basis in fundamentals. When interest rates in general move, FixedReset prices should not change much (to a first approximation, for issues priced near par), since in Fixed Income investing it is spreads that are important, not absolute yields. There should be some effect on Floor issues, which should move up slightly in price as yields go down since the ‘option’ to receive the floor rate will become more valuable. Adjustments due to this effect should be fairly small, however – and over the past year issues with a floor, that started the period being expensive, have simply gotten even more expensive, relative to their non-floored counterparts.

And the tricky thing about behavioural models of investing is that they can lose their explanatory power very quickly when an investment fashion shifts, whereas fundamentals will always be effective – sometimes it just takes a little time! Just to give an example from the preferred share market – until the end of 2014, FixedResets were priced relative to each other according to their initial dividend; when the reset of TRP.PR.A shocked a lot of investors, relative pricing became much more dependent upon the Issue Reset Spread, a much more logical and fundamental property. This paradigm shift was discussed extensively in PrefLetter.

FixedReset (Discount) performance on the month was +3.24% vs. PerpetualDiscounts of +2.31% in May; the two classes finally decoupled in mid-November, 2018, after months of moving in lockstep, but it still appears to me that yields available on FixedResets are keeping the yields of PerpetualDiscounts up, even though a consistent valuation based on an expectation of declining interest rates would greatly increase the attractiveness of PerpetualDiscounts (in other words, PerpetualDiscounts are now priced off FixedResets rather than off Long-term Corporates):

Click for Big

Floaters underperformed FixedResets, returning +2.51% for June and the figure for the past twelve months remains awful at -25.00%. Look at the long-term performance:

Click for Big

Some Assiduous Readers will be interested to observe that the ‘Quantitative Easing’ decline was not initially as bad as the ‘Credit Crunch’ decline, which took the sector down to the point where the 15-year cumulative total return was negative. I wrote about that at the time. but it became worse in August, 2019! On August 30, 2019 the HIMI Floater Index (total return) value was calculated as 1906.6; the index first surpassed this value on 2003-8-13. Thus, cumulative total return (that is, including dividends) was negative over a period of slightly-over sixteen years. Worse, on March 31, 2020, the index level was 1454.8, a milestone first passed on 1997-7-30; a cumulative negative total return for 22 years and 8 months; at its low on March 18 the index level was 1253.7, first surpassed on 1996-1-4, a span of 24 years and over two months!

It seems clear that Floaters are used, wittingly or otherwise, as a vehicle for speculation on the policy rate and Canada Prime, while FixedResets are being used as a vehicle for speculation on the five-year Canada rate. In support of this idea, I present an Implied Volatility analysis of the TRP series of FixedResets as of May 29, which is comprised of six issues without a Minimum Rate Guarantee and two issues which do have this feature:

Click for Big

The two issues with floors, TRP.PR.J (+469, minimum 5.50%) and TRP.PR.K (+385, minimum 4.90%) are $4.39 and $4.18 rich, respectively. These figures are wider than the 4.10 and 3.38 calculated last month’s figures; however, it should be noted that their floors have become effective since five-year Canadas dipped below 0.81% and 1.05%, respectively. We expect something of an increase in fair value as noted above; but these levels seem elevated!

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable TRP FixedReset priced at par has declined slightly from 489bp last month to 481bp this month, while GOC-5 has been steady, moving from 0.36% to 0.37%.

I also show results for the BAM series of FixedResets, which includes three issues with dividend floors: BAM.PF.H (+417, Minimum 5.00%); BAM.PF.I (+386, Minimum 4.80%); and BAM.PF.J (+310, Minimum 4.75%); these issues are all rich compared to their non-floor siblings, being rich 1.99, 2.06 and 1.58 respectively, respectively, cheapening up a bit from last month’s figures of 2.17, 2.28 and 2.07

Click for Big

It will also be noted that the spread of a notional non-callable BAM FixedReset priced at par has remained fairly steady; 517bp last month to 526bp this month, while GOC-5 has declined from 0.45% to 0.36%.

Relative performance during the month was uncorrelated with Issue Reset Spreads for either the “Pfd-2 Group” or the “Pfd-3 Group” issues:

Click for Big

… and results over the quarter for the Pfd-2 Group were better correlated (26%) but uncorrelated for the Pfd-3 Group:

Click for Big

Disaggregating the one-month performance for the Pfd-2 group reveals an unusual pattern:

Click for Big

Bank issues with Issue Reset Spreads at the low end of their range performed unusually well and led to an unusual pattern in which the slope of the regression line for bank issues has a difference sign than that for insurance issues. I do not believe that this behaviour will continue.

As for the future, of course, it’s one thing to say that ‘spreads are unsustainable and so are government yields’ and it’s quite another to forecast just how and when a more economically sustainable environment will take effect. It could be years. The same caution applies for an end to the overpricing of issues with a minimum rate guarantee. There could be a reversal, particularly if either Trump’s international trade policies or the economic damage wreaked by the coronavirus approaches the gloomier extreme of current forecasts. And, of course, I could be just plain wrong about the sustainability of the current environment.

On the other hand, I will pass on my observation that international interest in the Canadian preferred share market is increasing, as other Floating Rate indices globally are doing much better. Consider, for example the Solactive Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond Index, which “provides exposure to the largest and most liquid floating rate debt securities issued by selected Australian banks. The index is comprised of investment grade floating rate debt securities denominated in AUD and calculated as a Total Return Index” (LINK although the index constituents currently all have a remaining term of less than five years), and the S&P U.S. Floating Rate Preferred Stock Index.

Yields on preferred shares of all stripes are extremely high compared to those available from other investments of similar quality. As I told John Heinzl in an eMail interview in late November, 2018, the best advice I can offer investors remains Shut up and clip your coupons!

I think that a broad, sustainable rally in FixedResets will require higher five-year Canada yields (or a widespread expectation of them), since paradigm shifts generally require a trigger (a Wile E. Coyote moment, as they say!) … and although I’m sure this will happen eventually, it would be foolish to speculate on just when it will happen.

These calculations were performed assuming constant contemporary GOC-5 and 3-Month Bill rates, as follows:

I note that the sustainable yield calculated above is not directly comparable with any yield calculation currently reported by any other preferred share fund as far as I am aware. The Sustainable Yield depends on:
i) Calculating Yield-to-Worst for each instrument and using this yield for reporting purposes;
ii) Using the contemporary value of Five-Year Canadas to estimate dividends after reset for FixedResets. The assumption regarding the five-year Canada rate has become more important as the proportion of low-spread FixedResets in the portfolio has increased.
iii) Making the assumption that deeply discounted NVCC non-compliant issues from banks (and insurers, until November 2019), both Straight and FixedResets will be redeemed at par on their DeemedMaturity date as discussed above.

Turnover declined in June to 10%.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I complained about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues were considered so cheap relative to their peers that a large portion of the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism (PLAM), whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats. However, it is a positive move that the increase in the limit for preferred share issuance was increased from 10% of the capital requirement to 15%; but this increase may only be met with issues having a PLAM.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on June 30 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

A similar portfolio composition analysis has been performed on the Claymore Preferred Share ETF (symbol CPD) (and other funds) as of July 31, 2017, and published in the August, 2017, PrefLetter. It is fair to say:

• MAPF credit quality is similar
• MAPF liquidity is lower
• MAPF Yield is higher
• Weightings
  • MAPF is less exposed to Straight Perpetuals
  • Neither portfolio is exposed to Operating Retractibles (there aren’t too many of those any more!)
  • MAPF is similarly exposed to SplitShares
  • MAPF is less exposed to FixFloat / Floater / Ratchet
  • MAPF is higher weighted in FixedResets, with a greater emphasis on lower-spread issues