July 11, 2012

The SEC is approving a scheme by the NYSE that will discriminate between orders based on who you are:

A Retail Order would be an agency order that originated from a natural person and not a trading algorithm or any other computerized methodology. A Retail Order would be an immediate or cancel order. The Retail Member Organization submitting the order would not be able to alter the terms of such order with respect to price or side of the market. A Retail Order could be submitted in a round lot, odd lot, or partial round lot amounts.

Under the proposal, a Retail Member Organization submitting a Retail Order could choose one of three ways for the Retail Order to interact with available contra-side interest. First, a Retail Order could interact only with available contra-side Retail Price Improvement Orders. The Exchange would label this a Type 1 Retail Order and such orders would not interact with other available contra-side interest in Exchange systems or route to other markets. Portions of a Type 1 Retail Order that are not executed would be cancelled.

Regrettably, there are no provisions according special status to orders placed by black jewish lesbians. I trust that this oversight will be addressed forthwith.

San Bernardino’s going bust:

San Bernardino’s City Council voted to become the third California municipality this year to seek bankruptcy protection after officials learned they might not have enough cash to pay workers.

A filing by San Bernardino would follow ones by Stockton, a community of 292,000 east of San Francisco, which on June 28 became the biggest U.S. city to go into bankruptcy. Mammoth Lakes, a mountain resort of 8,200, filed for protection from creditors July 3 saying it can’t afford to pay a $43 million legal judgment, more than twice its general-fund spending for the year.

Taxable Build America Bonds sold by the San Bernardino Joint Powers Financing Authority in December 2010 and maturing in 2030 traded today at a record average yield of about 11 percent, up from 7 percent yesterday, data compiled by Bloomberg show. General-obligation debt from state and local California issuers yielded an additional 1.04 percentage points above top- grade securities on average as of yesterday, matching the most since Jan. 12, according to Bloomberg Fair Value index data.

Confronting a $45 million shortfall, San Bernardino is facing insolvency because of accounting errors, deficit spending, pension and debt costs, and lack of revenue growth, according to a June 26 budget analysis posted on the city’s website. Officials have declared fiscal emergencies, negotiated for concessions from employees and reduced the workforce by 20 percent in four years.

I confess to being most interested in the pension section of the city’s tale of woe, which I will not reproduce here because the bastards scanned the report instead of producing something more web-friendly. Basically, retirement costs were 9% of the budget in 2006/7 and are projected to increase to 15% of the budget by 2015/16.

It was an unevenly positive day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums winning 21bp, FixedResets up 4bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 2bp. Two PerpetualPremiums made it on to the three-entry Performance Highlights table. Volume was low.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 4.94%, equivalent to 6.42% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield about 4.3%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread is now about 210bp, a tightening from the 220bp reported June 20.

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 -0.2811 % 2,294.3
FixedFloater 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 -0.2811 % 3,432.0
Floater 3.17 % 3.20 % 73,541 19.26 3 -0.2811 % 2,477.2
OpRet 4.79 % 2.75 % 41,710 0.94 5 0.1466 % 2,520.6
SplitShare 5.51 % 4.93 % 83,271 4.71 3 -0.0402 % 2,745.1
Interest-Bearing 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 0.1466 % 2,304.8
Perpetual-Premium 5.36 % 3.36 % 90,182 0.55 28 0.2072 % 2,258.1
Perpetual-Discount 5.00 % 4.94 % 112,489 15.55 6 0.0344 % 2,489.6
FixedReset 5.01 % 2.96 % 198,650 4.81 70 0.0371 % 2,410.0
Deemed-Retractible 4.99 % 3.80 % 153,399 2.84 46 0.0200 % 2,329.7
Performance Highlights
Issue Index Change Notes
BAM.PR.K Floater -1.08 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2042-07-11
Maturity Price : 16.51
Evaluated at bid price : 16.51
Bid-YTW : 3.20 %
IGM.PR.B Perpetual-Premium 1.29 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-12-31
Maturity Price : 26.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.64
Bid-YTW : 4.50 %
W.PR.H Perpetual-Premium 1.92 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2013-01-15
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.00
Bid-YTW : -2.33 %
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Shares
Traded
Notes
CU.PR.E Perpetual-Premium 74,831 Recent new issue.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2021-09-01
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.41
Bid-YTW : 4.72 %
CM.PR.P Deemed-Retractible 58,235 Scotia crossed 50,000 at 25.38.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2012-10-29
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.37
Bid-YTW : -0.36 %
GWO.PR.Q Deemed-Retractible 57,695 Recent new issue.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2022-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.13
Bid-YTW : 5.12 %
IAG.PR.G FixedReset 48,090 Recent reopening.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2022-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.24
Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
PWF.PR.G Perpetual-Premium 34,353 TD crossed 32,400 at 25.25.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2012-08-10
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.23
Bid-YTW : -8.98 %
TD.PR.I FixedReset 34,200 RBC crossed blocks of 12,600 and 17,200 shares, both at 26.90.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.81
Bid-YTW : 2.46 %
There were 22 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.
Wide Spread Highlights
Issue Index Quote Data and Yield Notes
CM.PR.K FixedReset Quote: 26.20 – 26.68
Spot Rate : 0.4800
Average : 0.3287

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.20
Bid-YTW : 2.81 %

BAM.PR.O OpRet Quote: 25.58 – 25.95
Spot Rate : 0.3700
Average : 0.2614

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Option Certainty
Maturity Date : 2013-06-30
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.58
Bid-YTW : 2.75 %

MFC.PR.A OpRet Quote: 25.42 – 25.73
Spot Rate : 0.3100
Average : 0.2059

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Soft Maturity
Maturity Date : 2015-12-18
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.42
Bid-YTW : 3.67 %

POW.PR.A Perpetual-Premium Quote: 25.44 – 25.74
Spot Rate : 0.3000
Average : 0.1979

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2012-08-10
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.44
Bid-YTW : -15.74 %

BAM.PR.K Floater Quote: 16.51 – 16.77
Spot Rate : 0.2600
Average : 0.1725

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2042-07-11
Maturity Price : 16.51
Evaluated at bid price : 16.51
Bid-YTW : 3.20 %

FTS.PR.C OpRet Quote: 25.51 – 25.85
Spot Rate : 0.3400
Average : 0.2745

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2012-08-10
Maturity Price : 25.25
Evaluated at bid price : 25.51
Bid-YTW : 0.05 %

One Response to “July 11, 2012”

  1. […] PerpetualDiscounts now yield 4.93%, equivalent to 6.41% at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long Corporates now yield about 4.25%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) is now about 215bp, a slight (and perhaps spurious) widening from the 210bp reported July 11. […]

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