June 17, 2014

Good news, folks! When you (or your bank) applies for mortgage insurance now, there will be a large bureaucracy in place to determine whether the house is appropriate for you:

The head of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is shifting the priority of the mortgage insurer to helping Canadians buy homes they need, not the bigger, pricier homes they might want.

“We help Canadians meet their housing needs, not exceed them,” Mr. Siddall told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board, as he outlined the mandate that will guide his time at the helm of the mortgage insurer.

Assiduous Readers will remember (probably while grinning) how annoyed I get when the old World Economic Forum survey is trotted out to buttress claims that ‘Canadian banks are the stongest in the world’, thanks to our wise and woefully underpaid regulators.

Bloomberg Markets magazine has compiled its own list of the world’s individually strongest banks; not the same thing as ‘strongest national system’ admittedly; but on the other hand at least banks were ranked against each other on a basis that at least purports to be consistent. And guess what?

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Click for Big

How much is are market orders worth? Quite a bit!

Senators led by Carl Levin grilled brokerage and stock-market executives at a hearing over the various incentives that underpin U.S. equity trading, including rebates exchanges use to lure volume, and the payments market-making firms such Citadel LLC and Citigroup Inc. (C) give retail brokers.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), one of the biggest online brokers, last week gave an inkling of the money involved. The Omaha, Nebraska-based firm revealed that it pocketed $236 million in 2013 from firms that paid to execute its customers’ orders.

Larry Tabb, CEO of Tabb Group LLC, estimates that retail orders that are sent to market-makers and executed away from exchanges account for 15 percent of total U.S. volume. He doesn’t anticipate that the SEC will take any imminent action to limit the practice.

Under the payment for order flow system, online brokers agree to send their customers’ trades to specific securities firms for execution. These wholesalers include Citadel, KCG Holdings Inc. (KCG) and Citigroup.

Tabb said among the benefits of selling customer orders are that online brokers don’t need to set up their own trading desks. The payment system also keeps relationships above-board, he said, though the regulator “could do a better job in terms of forcing greater transparency,” he said.

Tabb was mentioned on June 12, pushing block trades,

There was another TD Ameritrade nugget:

One telling moment occurred during the questioning of Steven Quirk, senior vice-president at TD Ameritrade, the retail brokerage partially owned by Toronto-Dominion Bank. Mr. Quirk said that nearly all of the broker’s limit orders – that is, orders that do not have to be placed immediately – are routed to the trading venue that pays the highest rebate to receive such traffic. Critics allege that such a practice can result in customers receiving less advantageous pricing.

Not so much less advantageous pricing – it’s a limit order – but slower execution (at best) for resting orders on an expensive exchange, as discussed on May 22 and April 21.

It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts off 8bp, FixedResets up 5bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 2bp. Volatility was low. Volume was average.

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices
These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices

Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index Mean
Current
Yield
(at bid)
Median
YTW
Median
Average
Trading
Value
Median
Mod Dur
(YTW)
Issues Day’s Perf. Index Value
Ratchet 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 0.1554 % 2,475.0
FixedFloater 4.45 % 3.70 % 28,485 17.94 1 1.6175 % 3,860.6
Floater 2.96 % 3.09 % 44,733 19.51 4 0.1554 % 2,672.3
OpRet 4.38 % -7.69 % 25,053 0.08 2 1.9265 % 2,708.4
SplitShare 4.81 % 4.24 % 59,858 4.12 5 0.0159 % 3,113.9
Interest-Bearing 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 1.9265 % 2,476.6
Perpetual-Premium 5.51 % -1.27 % 81,204 0.08 17 0.1523 % 2,405.7
Perpetual-Discount 5.27 % 5.28 % 117,297 14.95 20 -0.0814 % 2,549.0
FixedReset 4.50 % 3.71 % 211,943 6.77 79 0.0523 % 2,535.6
Deemed-Retractible 5.00 % 0.78 % 139,635 0.12 43 0.0158 % 2,532.2
FloatingReset 2.66 % 2.39 % 127,987 3.95 6 0.1455 % 2,490.6
Performance Highlights
Issue Index Change Notes
ENB.PR.H FixedReset 1.03 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 22.66
Evaluated at bid price : 23.63
Bid-YTW : 3.95 %
BAM.PR.G FixedFloater 1.62 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 21.76
Evaluated at bid price : 21.36
Bid-YTW : 3.70 %
FTS.PR.E OpRet 3.90 % Not really all that real. As Assiduous Reader adrian2 pointed out in the comments yesterday, yesterday’s price was just another TMX screw up, although I don’t know whether it was a genuine market-maker’s fiasco or merely an after-hours cancellation fiasco.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-17
Maturity Price : 25.50
Evaluated at bid price : 25.82
Bid-YTW : -7.69 %
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Shares
Traded
Notes
SLF.PR.G FixedReset 154,651 RBC crossed 133,100 at 22.20.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2025-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 22.20
Bid-YTW : 4.47 %
CM.PR.O FixedReset 126,980 Recent new issue.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 23.18
Evaluated at bid price : 25.08
Bid-YTW : 3.78 %
BMO.PR.T FixedReset 89,360 Recent new issue.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 23.17
Evaluated at bid price : 25.05
Bid-YTW : 3.73 %
FTS.PR.G FixedReset 60,725 TD crossed 60,000 at 24.90.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 23.15
Evaluated at bid price : 24.79
Bid-YTW : 3.69 %
TD.PF.A FixedReset 55,180 Recent new issue
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 23.19
Evaluated at bid price : 25.15
Bid-YTW : 3.71 %
RY.PR.H FixedReset 53,918 Recent new issue.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 23.18
Evaluated at bid price : 25.09
Bid-YTW : 3.74 %
There were 32 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.
Wide Spread Highlights
Issue Index Quote Data and Yield Notes
MFC.PR.F FixedReset Quote: 22.85 – 23.35
Spot Rate : 0.5000
Average : 0.3418

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2025-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 22.85
Bid-YTW : 4.28 %

CIU.PR.C FixedReset Quote: 20.55 – 21.15
Spot Rate : 0.6000
Average : 0.4703

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2044-06-17
Maturity Price : 20.55
Evaluated at bid price : 20.55
Bid-YTW : 3.71 %

TD.PR.O Deemed-Retractible Quote: 25.50 – 25.74
Spot Rate : 0.2400
Average : 0.1517

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-17
Maturity Price : 25.25
Evaluated at bid price : 25.50
Bid-YTW : 0.43 %

BMO.PR.L Deemed-Retractible Quote: 26.50 – 26.70
Spot Rate : 0.2000
Average : 0.1245

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-17
Maturity Price : 25.75
Evaluated at bid price : 26.50
Bid-YTW : -23.54 %

IAG.PR.G FixedReset Quote: 25.76 – 25.98
Spot Rate : 0.2200
Average : 0.1512

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2017-06-30
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.76
Bid-YTW : 3.21 %

GWO.PR.Q Deemed-Retractible Quote: 24.60 – 24.85
Spot Rate : 0.2500
Average : 0.1855

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2025-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 24.60
Bid-YTW : 5.36 %

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