Category: MAPF

MAPF

MAPF Portfolio Composition: August 2025

Turnover remained very low at 4% in August.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on August 29, 2025, was:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2025-08-29
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 11.9% 6.89% 12.61
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualDiscount 5.7% 5.65% 14.43
Fixed-Reset Discount 31.5% 6.09% 13.79
Insurance – Straight 22.4% 5.33% 15.00
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 7.5% 4.89% 2.24
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 8.6% 5.84% 14.31
Scraps – Ratchet 1.3% 6.97% 13.50
Scraps – FixedFloater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Floater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – OpRet 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – SplitShare 1.0% 5.87% 3.70
Scraps – PerpPrem 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpDisc 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Discount 10.5% 6.88% 12.92
Scraps – Insurance Straight 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Premium 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Ins non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Cash -0.5% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.00% 13.00
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.
The various “Scraps” indices include issues with a DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) or lower and issues with an Average Trading Value (calculated with HIMIPref™ methodology, which is relatively complex) of less than $25,000. The issues considered “Scraps” are subdivided into indices which reflect those of the main indices.
DeemedRetractibles were comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator. These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 in the case of banks or normally in the case of insurers and insurance holding companies, in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis and IAIS Says No To DeemedRetractions for the recent change in policy with respect to insurers.

Note that the estimate for the time this will become effective for insurers and insurance holding companies was extended by three years in April 2013, due to the delays in OSFI’s providing clarity on the issue and by a further five years in December, 2018; the estimate was eliminated in November. However, the distinctions are being kept because it is useful to distinguish insurance issues from others.

The name of this subindex has been changed to “Insurance Straight” as of November, 2020
Calculations of yield and related attributes of resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 2.98%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 2.67% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 4.95%

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:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2025-08-29
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 36.8%
Pfd-2 29.8%
Pfd-2(low) 21.1%
Pfd-3(high) 8.0%
Pfd-3 2.3%
Pfd-3(low) 2.4%
Pfd-4(high) 0%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash -0.5%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2025-08-29
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 3.0%
$50,000 – $100,000 59.2%
$100,000 – $200,000 17.6%
$200,000 – $300,000 19.7%
>$300,000 1.0%
Cash -0.5%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 3.5%
150-199bp 0.3%
200-249bp 40.6%
250-299bp 11.1%
300-349bp 0.4%
350-399bp 2.0%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 42.0%

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”.

Range MAPF Weight
Currently Floating 13.2%
0-1 Year 1.0%
1-2 Years 24.7%
2-3 Years 7.5%
3-4 Years 0%
4-5 Years 24.9%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 28.7%

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.

MAPF

MAPF Performance: July, 2025

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close July 31, 2025, was $11.8941.

Quotes at July month-end were of fair quality, but now without the occasional howler. The quote for MFC.PR.B, for instance, had to be adjusted for fund valuation purposes, with the bid adjusted from 20.65 to 21.97.

Performance was affected by poor performance from IFC.PR.C (-0.54%) and CM.PR.S (+1.06%), more than offset by contributions from FTS.P.M (+4.99%); SLF.PR.D (+5.28%); and TRP.PR.E (+9.56%) [small holdings are not considered for individual mention here].

FixedResets continue to yield slightly more, in general, than PerpetualDiscounts although the spread narrowed somewhat in June; on June 30, I reported median YTWs of 6.25% and 5.74%, respectively, for these two indices; compare with mean Current Yields of 5.54% and 5.65%, respectively.

Returns to July 31, 2025
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to RBCGAM
One Month +3.85% +3.19% +3.2%
Three Months +15.89% +11.40% +11.2%
One Year +24.51% +18.25% +17.5%
Two Years (annualized) +27.66% +19.96% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +16.22% +10.03% +9.4%
Four Years (annualized) +8.77% +5.54% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +16.67% +9.94% +9.3%
Six Years (annualized) +12.45% +7.75% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +7.52% +5.14% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +7.90% +5.15% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +9.95% +6.40% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +8.20% +5.48% +4.9%
Eleven Years (annualized) +6.34% +3.82%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +6.59% +3.90%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +6.22% +3.63%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +5.98% +3.67%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +6.61% +4.11%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.14% +4.35%  
Seventeen Years (annualized) +9.56% +4.44%  
Eighteen Years (annualized) +8.56% +3.68%  
Nineteen Years (annualized) +8.40%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +8.20%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.16%    
Twenty-Two Years (annualized) +8.64%    
Twenty-Three Years (annualized) +8.84%    
Twenty-Four Years (annualized) +8.95%    
MAPF returns assume reinvestment of distributions, and are shown after expenses but before fees.
The BMO Capital Markets “50” Preferred Share Index is no longer being calculated. The final performance report incorporating this venerable index was published as of December, 2020.
“TXPR” is the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index. It is calculated without accounting for fees, but does assume reinvestment of dividends.
CPD Returns are for the NAV and are after all fees and expenses. Reinvestment of dividends is assumed.
All fund and ETF returns shown below are after all fees and expenses
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Income Fund, Series F [NBC780] (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +%, +% and +%, respectively, according to National Bank Investments after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +%; five year is +%; ten year is +%.

Figures from Morningstar are no longer conveniently available.
Manulife Preferred Income Class Adv has been terminated by Manulife. The performance of this fund was last reported here in March, 2018.
Figures for Horizons GlobalX Active Preferred Share ETF (HPR) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +3.73%, +12.67% & +19.04%, respectively. Three year performance is +11.80%, five-year is +12.18%, ten year is +6.36%
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Fund Series F [NBC710] (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +%, +% and +% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +%; five-year is +%; ten-year is +%

Acccording to the fund’s fact sheet as of June 30, 2016, the fund’s inception date was October 30, 2015. I do not know how they justify this nonsensical statement, but will assume that prior performance is being suppressed in some perfectly legal manner that somebody at National considers ethical.

The last time Altamira Preferred Equity Fund’s performance was reported here was April, 2014; performance under the National Bank banner was first reported here May, 2014.
The figures for the NAV of BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +20.51% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +21.90%, three year is +11.29%, five year is +11.99%, ten year is +5.92%

Note that analysis of ZPR shows some doubt as to whether this fund is either "laddered" or an "index fund". However, there was a remarkable improvement in the laddering in the six months following the publication of my analysis.
Figures for Fiera Canadian Preferred Share Class Cg Series F, (formerly Natixis Canadian Preferred Share Class Series F) (formerly NexGen Canadian Preferred Share Tax Managed Fund) are no longer available as the Fund is now the property of Canoe Financial. The last reported performance for the merged fund was May 2020.
Figures for BMO Preferred Share Fund (advisor series) are not available as the fund has been terminated. This is as per an announcement by the bank on 2024-5-28. The last performance report for this awful fund was as of July 31, 2024.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are no longer available since the fund has been terminated. Performance was last reported for the fund to month-end, March 2023
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are no longer available since the fund has merged with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (FPR).

Performance for the fund was last reported here in September, 2016; the first report of unavailability was in October, 2016.
Figures for Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund (Class F) according to the company are +2.0%, +6.7% and +12.5% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +9.0%, five-year is +11.4%, ten-year is +4.8%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund F Class (F Class), as reported by the company are +3.12%, +11.19% and +16.62% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +18.73%, three-year is +9.39%, five-year is +9.10%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) are reported as +3.5%, +13.5% and +20.8% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +10.6%, five-year is +11.4%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are +3.5%, +12.2% and +19.4% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +12.5%; five-year is +13.5%
Figures for the Purpose Canadian Preferred Share Fund (Class F) are +3.18%, +11.26% and +17.52% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +10.28%; four-year is +5.70%; five-year is +13.31%; seven-year is +5.22%; ten-year is +6.39%.
Figures for the TD Active Preferred Share ETF (TPRF) are +%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two-year performance is +%, three-year is +%; five-year is +%.

Note that “The TD ETF may also hold common shares, government and corporate bonds, and other income-producing securities. … The TD ETF may invest in foreign securities to an extent that will vary from time to time but is not typically expected to exceed 5% of its assets at the time that foreign securities are purchased.

The non-preferred share components of the portfolio are relatively minor – as of their year-end 2023 report, they had $1.6-million in Canadian Natural Resources Limited common, $1.8-million in RBC common, $1.6-million in SLF common, and $1.75-million in Fortis common, totalling $6.75-million in a $220-million portfolio.

I take the view that the purpose of this mandate is to destroy, or at least deprecate, comparability. Banks hate comparability.

I must say, reporting by the banks was exceptionally poor this month. No data are yet available at the usual locations for the two National Bank preferred share funds in the table above; nor has the TD fund had a performance update. RBC just barely saved their bacon with respect to the two funds they report – they did not have July data as of late last night (August 8) when I checked, but it is available on the morning of August 9. The “Other People’s Money” department at banks is generally sub-standard, but this month is egregious. One would think that if anybody in Canada had the scale to automate absolutely everything and have little cron-job programmes running regularly to ensure that all necessary data was collected promptly and carefully inserted into its proper place (or an exception report generated after a proper interval and sent to the appropriate escalation level of management), it would be the banks … but this appears to be the purview of giant operations like Hymas Investment Management Inc.

The five-year Canada yield decreased, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) moving from 2.85% on June 30 to 3.09% at July month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) was 255bp on 2025-7-30, down significantly from the 280bp on 2025-6-25 (chart end-date 2025-07-11).

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly (despite recent narrowing) from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to a level of 506bp (as of 2025-7-30) … (chart end-date 2025-7-11):

…while at the same time the interest-equivalent spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -58bp (as of 2025-07-30) from its 2021-7-28 level of +170bp (chart end-date 2025-7-11):

There is no correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for either the Pfd-2 Group or for Pfd-3 Group issues.

There is no correlation for the Pfd-2 group but there is one for the Pfd-3 group (20%) between the Issue Reset Spread and 3-month performance for discounted FixedResets.

There is no correlation for the Pfd-2 Group but one for the Pfd-3 Group (19%) for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset:

… while the three-month returns vs. Term to Reset, shows no correlations for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group:

It should be noted that to some extent a dependence (of performance on term-to-reset) can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit (adverse effects) of higher (lower) projected dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. Equations for the relationship between correlation slope and change in GOC-5 were derived in the August 2022 PrefLetter.

Upward-sloping correlations of Performance vs. Term are to be expected when GOC-5 declines.

I keep talking about ‘Sustainable Income’ and it still exceeds – by a much smaller margin than previously – dividends that are currently being distributed. This is because Sustainable Income is the average yield-to-worst (YTW) of the portfolio when the YTW is calculated to perpetuity (or to redemption, of course, if the yield to redemption is lower), including resets at the current GOC-5 rate. The sharp increase in GOC-5 in the past few years has caused the difference between YTW and Current Yield to skyrocket, but one way or another I expect that these two values will become much closer – slowly at first, but quickening in the fairly near future. We have to wait for the reset date of the MAPF portfolio securities before we see a change in actual cash receipts – and, of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the rate used for estimation purposes now will be used for the actual calculation in the future (chart prepared as of 2025-7-11).

I will note that the fund’s current holdings of FixedResets are now paying dividends based on their previous reset at an average GOC-5 rate of 2.54% (weighted by shares held)

Calculation of MAPF Sustainable Income Per Unit
Month NAVPU Portfolio
Average
YTW		 Leverage
Divisor		 Securities
Average
YTW		 Capital
Gains
Multiplier		 Sustainable
Income
per
current
Unit
June, 2007 9.3114 5.16% 1.03 5.01% 1.3240 0.3524
September 9.1489 5.35% 0.98 5.46% 1.3240 0.3773
December, 2007 9.0070 5.53% 0.942 5.87% 1.3240 0.3993
March, 2008 8.8512 6.17% 1.047 5.89% 1.3240 0.3938
June 8.3419 6.034% 0.952 6.338% 1.3240 $0.3993
September 8.1886 7.108% 0.969 7.335% 1.3240 $0.4537
December, 2008 8.0464 9.24% 1.008 9.166% 1.3240 $0.5571
March 2009 $8.8317 8.60% 0.995 8.802% 1.3240 $0.5872
June 10.9846 7.05% 0.999 7.057% 1.3240 $0.5855
September 12.3462 6.03% 0.998 6.042% 1.3240 $0.5634
December 2009 10.5662 5.74% 0.981 5.851% 1.1141 $0.5549
March 2010 10.2497 6.03% 0.992 6.079% 1.1141 $0.5593
June 10.5770 5.96% 0.996 5.984% 1.1141 $0.5681
September 11.3901 5.43% 0.980 5.540% 1.1141 $0.5664
December 2010 10.7659 5.37% 0.993 5.408% 1.0298 $0.5654
March, 2011 11.0560 6.00% 0.994 5.964% 1.0298 $0.6403
June 11.1194 5.87% 1.018 5.976% 1.0298 $0.6453
September 10.2709 6.10%
Note		 1.001 6.106% 1.0298 $0.6090
December, 2011 10.0793 5.63%
Note		 1.031 5.805% 1.0000 $0.5851
March, 2012 10.3944 5.13%
Note		 0.996 5.109% 1.0000 $0.5310
June 10.2151 5.32%
Note		 1.012 5.384% 1.0000 $0.5500
September 10.6703 4.61%
Note		 0.997 4.624% 1.0000 $0.4934
December, 2012 10.8307 4.24% 0.989 4.287% 1.0000 $0.4643
March, 2013 10.9033 3.87% 0.996 3.886% 1.0000 $0.4237
June 10.3261 4.81% 0.998 4.80% 1.0000 $0.4957
September 10.0296 5.62% 0.996 5.643% 1.0000 $0.5660
December, 2013 9.8717 6.02% 1.008 5.972% 1.0000 $0.5895
March, 2014 10.2233 5.55% 0.998 5.561% 1.0000 $0.5685
June 10.5877 5.09% 0.998 5.100% 1.0000 $0.5395
September 10.4601 5.28% 0.997 5.296% 1.0000 $0.5540
December, 2014 10.5701 4.83% 1.009 4.787% 1.0000 $0.5060
March, 2015 9.9573 4.99% 1.001 4.985% 1.0000 $0.4964
June, 2015 9.4181 5.55% 1.002 5.539% 1.0000 $0.5217
September 7.8140 6.98% 0.999 6.987% 1.0000 $0.5460
December, 2015 8.1379 6.85% 0.997 6.871% 1.0000 $0.5592
March, 2016 7.4416 7.79% 0.998 7.805% 1.0000 $0.5808
June 7.6704 7.67% 1.011 7.587% 1.0000 $0.5819
September 8.0590 7.35% 0.993 7.402% 1.0000 $0.5965
December, 2016 8.5844 7.24% 0.990 7.313% 1.0000 $0.6278
March, 2017 9.3984 6.26% 0.994 6.298% 1.0000 $0.5919
June 9.5313 6.41% 0.998 6.423% 1.0000 $0.6122
September 9.7129 6.56% 0.998 6.573% 1.0000 $0.6384
December, 2017 10.0566 6.06% 1.004 6.036% 1.0000 $0.6070
March, 2018 10.2701 6.22% 1.007 6.177% 1.0000 $0.6344
June 10.2518 6.22% 0.995 6.251% 1.0000 $0.6408
September 10.2965 6.62% 1.018 6.503% 1.0000 $0.6696
December, 2018 8.6875 7.16% 0.997 7.182% 1.0000 $0.6240
March, 2019 8.4778 7.09% 1.007 7.041% 1.0000 $0.5969
June 8.0896 7.33% 0.996 7.359% 1.0000 $0.5953
September 7.7948 7.96% 0.998 7.976% 1.0000 $0.6217
December, 2019 8.0900 6.03% 0.995 6.060% 1.0000 $0.4903
March 5.5596 7.04% 1.006 6.998% 1.0000 $0.3891
June 6.3568 6.10% 0.9900 6.162% 1.0000 $0.3917
September 7.2852 5.32% 1.00 5.320% 1.0000 $0.3876
December, 2020 8.3947 4.46% 0.999 4.464% 1.0000 $0.3747
March, 2021 9.6473 4.48% 0.996 4.498% 1.0000 $0.4339
June 10.3712 3.92% 0.985 3.980% 1.0000 $0.4127
September 10.7572 4.08% 1.017 4.012% 1.0000 $0.4316
December, 2021 10.7432 4.31% 0.999 4.314% 1.0000 $0.4635
March, 2022 10.5040 5.53% 1.004 5.508% 1.0000 $0.5786
June 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
September 8.4093 8.10% 0.997 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6916
December, 2022 7.9921 8.47% 0.996 8.504% 1.0000 $0.6796
March, 2023 8.0788 7.90% 0.997 7.924% 1.0000 $0.6401
June 30 8.0197 9.19% 1.003 9.163% 1.0000 $0.7348
September 29 7.9922 9.86% 0.997 9.890% 1.0000 $0.7904
Decenber 29, 2023 8.4715 8.14% 1.002 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6882
March 28,2024 9.5892 7.60% 1.006 7.555% 1.0000 $0.7244
June 28 9.8516 7.32% 0.999 7.327% 1.0000 $0.7219
September 30 10.3641 6.55% 0.990 6.616% 1.0000 $0.6857
December 31,2024 11.0142 6.44% 0.992 6.492% 1.0000 $0.7150
March 31,2025 10.8891 6.22% 0.993 6.264% 1.0000 $0.6821
June 30 11.4529 6.10% 0.997 6.118% 1.0000 $0.7007
July,2025 11.8941 6.09% 1.005 6.060% 1.0000 $0.7207
NAVPU is shown after quarterly distributions of dividend income and annual distribution of capital gains.
Portfolio YTW includes cash (or margin borrowing), with an assumed interest rate of 0.00%
The Leverage Divisor indicates the level of cash in the account: if the portfolio is 1% in cash, the Leverage Divisor will be 0.99
Securities YTW divides “Portfolio YTW” by the “Leverage Divisor” to show the average YTW on the securities held; this assumes that the cash is invested in (or raised from) all securities held, in proportion to their holdings.
The Capital Gains Multiplier adjusts for the effects of Capital Gains Dividends. On 2009-12-31, there was a capital gains distribution of $1.989262 which is assumed for this purpose to have been reinvested at the final price of $10.5662. Thus, a holder of one unit pre-distribution would have held 1.1883 units post-distribution; the CG Multiplier reflects this to make the time-series comparable. Note that Dividend Distributions are not assumed to be reinvested.
Sustainable Income is the resultant estimate of the fund’s dividend income per current unit, before fees and expenses. Note that a “current unit” includes reinvestment of prior capital gains; a unitholder would have had the calculated sustainable income with only, say, 0.9 units in the past which, with reinvestment of capital gains, would become 1.0 current units.
DeemedRetractibles are comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator (definition refined in May, 2011). These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 (banks) or the Deemed Maturity date for insurers and insurance holding companies (see below)), in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis.

The same reasoning is also applied to FixedResets from these issuers, other than explicitly defined NVCC from banks.

In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction for insurance issues was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0. This resulted in a large drop in the yield calculated for these issues
The Deemed Maturity date for insurers was set at 2022-1-31 at the commencement of the process in February, 2011. It was extended to 2025-1-31 in April, 2013 and to 2030-1-31 in December, 2018. In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0.
Yields for September, 2011, to January, 2012, were calculated by imposing a cap of 10% on the yields of YLO issues held, in order to avoid their extremely high calculated yields distorting the calculation and to reflect the uncertainty in the marketplace that these yields will be realized. From February to September 2012, yields on these issues have been set to zero. All YLO issues held were sold in October 2012.

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

Canada Yields Assumed in Calculations
Month-end GOC-5 3-Month Bill
September, 2015 0.78% 0.40%
December, 2015 0.71% 0.46%
March, 2016 0.70% 0.44%
June 0.57% 0.47%
September 0.58% 0.53%
December, 2016 1.16% 0.47%
March, 2017 1.08% 0.55%
June 1.35% 0.69%
September 1.79% 0.97%
December, 2017 1.83% 1.00%
March, 2018 2.06% 1.08%
June 1.95% 1.22%
September 2.33% 1.55%
December, 2018 1.88% 1.65%
March, 2019 1.46% 1.66%
June 1.34% 1.66%
September 1.41% 1.66%
December, 2019 1.68% 1.68%
March, 2020 0.57% 0.21%
June 0.37% 0.21%
September 0.35% 0.14%
December, 2020 0.42% 0.08%
March, 2021 0.94% 0.09%
June 0.93% 0.13%
September 1.07% 0.13%
December, 2021 1.31% 0.16%
March, 2022 2.44% 0.53%
June 3.24% 2.11%
September 3.45% 3.60%
December, 2022 3.37% 4.35%
March, 2023 2.93% 4.44%
June 3.74% 5.00%
September 4.31% 5.21%
December, 2023 3.21% 5.13%
March, 2024 3.55% 5.06%
June 3.41% 4.71%
September 2.74% 3.94%
December, 2024 3.02% 3.19%
March, 2025 2.64% 2.66%
June 2.85% 2.68%
July, 2025 3.09% 2.68%
MAPF

MAPF Portfolio Composition: July, 2025

Turnover remained very low at 3% in July.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on July 31, 2025, was:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2025-07-31
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 11.4% 6.90% 12.65
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualDiscount 5.2% 5.70% 14.39
Fixed-Reset Discount 31.1% 6.12% 13.67
Insurance – Straight 22.3% 5.52% 14.62
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 8.4% 5.48% 14.66
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 9.3% 5.88% 14.30
Scraps – Ratchet 1.2% 7.23% 13.22
Scraps – FixedFloater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Floater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – OpRet 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpPrem 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpDisc 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Discount 10.6% 6.76% 13.17
Scraps – Insurance Straight 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Premium 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Ins non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Cash -0.5% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.09% 13.86
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.
The various “Scraps” indices include issues with a DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) or lower and issues with an Average Trading Value (calculated with HIMIPref™ methodology, which is relatively complex) of less than $25,000. The issues considered “Scraps” are subdivided into indices which reflect those of the main indices.
DeemedRetractibles were comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator. These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 in the case of banks or normally in the case of insurers and insurance holding companies, in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis and IAIS Says No To DeemedRetractions for the recent change in policy with respect to insurers.

Note that the estimate for the time this will become effective for insurers and insurance holding companies was extended by three years in April 2013, due to the delays in OSFI’s providing clarity on the issue and by a further five years in December, 2018; the estimate was eliminated in November. However, the distinctions are being kept because it is useful to distinguish insurance issues from others.

The name of this subindex has been changed to “Insurance Straight” as of November, 2020
Calculations of yield and related attributes of resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 3.09%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 2.68% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 4.95%

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:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2025-07-31
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 36.8%
Pfd-2 30.2%
Pfd-2(low) 20.8%
Pfd-3(high) 8.2%
Pfd-3 2.2%
Pfd-3(low) 2.3%
Pfd-4(high) 0%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash -0.5%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2025-07-31
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 2.9%
$50,000 – $100,000 58.6%
$100,000 – $200,000 20.0%
$200,000 – $300,000 18.1%
>$300,000 1.0%
Cash -0.5%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 1.0%
150-199bp 1.6%
200-249bp 42.8%
250-299bp 11.8%
300-349bp 0.4%
350-399bp 1.9%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 40.6%

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”.

Range MAPF Weight
Currently Floating 12.6%
0-1 Year 1.0%
1-2 Years 25.1%
2-3 Years 8.4%
3-4 Years 0%
4-5 Years 24.8%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 28.0%

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.

MAPF

MAPF Performance: June, 2025

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close June 30, 2025, was $11.4529 after a dividend distribution of $0.160267.

Quotes at June month-end were of fair quality, but now without the occasional howler. The quote for CU.PR.C, for instance, had to be adjusted for fund valuation purposes, with the bid adjusted from 22.06 to 23.59.

Performance was affected by poor performance from MFC.PR.B (+0.54%) and CM.PR.S (+1.29%), more than offset by contributions from CU.PR.C (+11.54% after adjustment); BN.PR.B (+7.88%); and TRP.PR.E (+5.14%) [small holdings are not considered for individual mention here].

FixedResets continue to yield slightly more, in general, than PerpetualDiscounts although the spread narrowed somewhat in June; on June 30, I reported median YTWs of 6.09% and 5.91%, respectively, for these two indices; compare with mean Current Yields of 5.55% and 5.78%, respectively.

Returns to June 30, 2025
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to RBCGAM
One Month +4.38% +2.77% +2.7%
Three Months +6.65% +4.59% +4.4%
One Year +23.12% +17.17% +16.5%
Two Years (annualized) +26.53% +18.95% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +13.15% +8.80% +8.2%
Four Years (annualized) +7.88% +4.93% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +18.28% +10.62% +10.0%
Six Years (annualized) +11.84% +7.42% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +7.10% +4.83% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +7.66% +4.88% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +9.92% +6.45% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +7.28% +4.71% +4.2%
Eleven Years (annualized) +5.95% +3.55%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +6.12% +3.54%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +6.12% +3.46%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +5.66% +3.50%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +6.54% +4.01%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.38% +4.36%  
Seventeen Years (annualized) +9.16% +4.10%  
Eighteen Years (annualized) +8.36% +3.50%  
Nineteen Years (annualized) +8.20%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +8.01%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.10%    
Twenty-Two Years (annualized) +8.63%    
Twenty-Three Years (annualized) +8.56%    
Twenty-Four Years (annualized) +8.84%    
MAPF returns assume reinvestment of distributions, and are shown after expenses but before fees.
The BMO Capital Markets “50” Preferred Share Index is no longer being calculated. The final performance report incorporating this venerable index was published as of December, 2020.
“TXPR” is the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index. It is calculated without accounting for fees, but does assume reinvestment of dividends.
CPD Returns are for the NAV and are after all fees and expenses. Reinvestment of dividends is assumed.
All fund and ETF returns shown below are after all fees and expenses
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Income Fund, Series F [NBC780] (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +3.18%, +4.45% and +18.34%, respectively, according to National Bank Investments after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +10.08%; five year is +12.73%; ten year is +6.21%.

Figures from Morningstar are no longer conveniently available.
Manulife Preferred Income Class Adv has been terminated by Manulife. The performance of this fund was last reported here in March, 2018.
Figures for Horizons Active Preferred Share ETF (HPR) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +3.10%, +4.95% & +17.11%, respectively. Three year performance is +10.37%, five-year is +12.93%, ten year is +5.61%
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Fund Series F [NBC710] (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +2.93%, +4.89% and +17.12% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +10.85%; five-year is +13.22%; ten-year is +5.84%

Acccording to the fund’s fact sheet as of June 30, 2016, the fund’s inception date was October 30, 2015. I do not know how they justify this nonsensical statement, but will assume that prior performance is being suppressed in some perfectly legal manner that somebody at National considers ethical.

The last time Altamira Preferred Equity Fund’s performance was reported here was April, 2014; performance under the National Bank banner was first reported here May, 2014.
The figures for the NAV of BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +18.50% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +21.01%, three year is +9.87%, five year is +12.93%, ten year is +4.99%

Note that analysis of ZPR shows some doubt as to whether this fund is either "laddered" or an "index fund". However, there was a remarkable improvement in the laddering in the six months following the publication of my analysis.
Figures for Fiera Canadian Preferred Share Class Cg Series F, (formerly Natixis Canadian Preferred Share Class Series F) (formerly NexGen Canadian Preferred Share Tax Managed Fund) are no longer available as the Fund is now the property of Canoe Financial. The last reported performance for the merged fund was May 2020.
Figures for BMO Preferred Share Fund (advisor series) are not available as the fund has been terminated. This is as per an announcement by the bank on 2024-5-28. The last performance report for this awful fund was as of July 31, 2024.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are no longer available since the fund has been terminated. Performance was last reported for the fund to month-end, March 2023
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are no longer available since the fund has merged with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (FPR).

Performance for the fund was last reported here in September, 2016; the first report of unavailability was in October, 2016.
Figures for Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund (Class F) according to the company are +1.9%, +2.5% and +12.8% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +8.1%, five-year is +12.1%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund F Class (F Class), as reported by the company are +2.58%, +4.36% and +16.50% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +18.59%, three-year is +8.81%, five-year is +10.62%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) are reported as +3.1%, +5.9% and +18.7% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +9.1%, five-year is +12.4%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are +2.8%, +4.5% and +18.5% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +11.1%; five-year is +14.2%
Figures for the Purpose Canadian Preferred Share Fund (Class F) are +2.68%, +4.59% and +15.33% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +8.55%; four-year is +5.23%; five-year is +14.18%; seven-year is +4.97%; ten-year is +6.35%.
Figures for the TD Active Preferred Share ETF (TPRF) are +2.96%, +5.62% and +18.82% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two-year performance is +21.26%, three-year is +10.52%; five-year is +16.00%.

Note that “The TD ETF may also hold common shares, government and corporate bonds, and other income-producing securities. … The TD ETF may invest in foreign securities to an extent that will vary from time to time but is not typically expected to exceed 5% of its assets at the time that foreign securities are purchased.

The non-preferred share components of the portfolio are relatively minor – as of their year-end 2023 report, they had $1.6-million in Canadian Natural Resources Limited common, $1.8-million in RBC common, $1.6-million in SLF common, and $1.75-million in Fortis common, totalling $6.75-million in a $220-million portfolio.

I take the view that the purpose of this mandate is to destroy, or at least deprecate, comparability. Banks hate comparability.

The five-year Canada yield decreased, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) moving from 2.83% on June 1 to 2.85% at month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) was 275bp on 2025-7-2, up sharply from the 295bp on 2025-6-4 (chart end-date 2025-06-13).

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly (despite recent narrowing) from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to a level of 489bp (as of 2025-7-2) … (chart end-date 2025-6-13):

…while at the same time the interest-equivalent spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -13bp (as of 2025-07-02) from its 2021-7-28 level of +170bp (chart end-date 2025-6-13:

There is a correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for the Pfd-2 Group (21%) but not for Pfd-3 Group issues.

There is a correlation for the Pfd-2 group (15%) but not for the Pfd-3 group between the Issue Reset Spread and 3-month performance for discounted FixedResets.

There is no significant correlation for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset:

… while the three-month returns vs. Term to Reset, shows no correlations for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group:

It should be noted that to some extent a dependence (of performance on term-to-reset) can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit (adverse effects) of higher (lower) projected dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. Equations for the relationship between correlation slope and change in GOC-5 were derived in the August 2022 PrefLetter.

Upward-sloping correlations of Performance vs. Term are to be expected when GOC-5 declines.

I keep talking about ‘Sustainable Income’ and it still exceeds – by a much smaller margin than previously – dividends that are currently being distributed. This is because Sustainable Income is the average yield-to-worst (YTW) of the portfolio when the YTW is calculated to perpetuity (or to redemption, of course, if the yield to redemption is lower), including resets at the current GOC-5 rate. The sharp increase in GOC-5 in the past few years has caused the difference between YTW and Current Yield to skyrocket, but one way or another I expect that these two values will become much closer – slowly at first, but quickening in the fairly near future. We have to wait for the reset date of the MAPF portfolio securities before we see a change in actual cash receipts – and, of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the rate used for estimation purposes now will be used for the actual calculation in the future (chart prepared as of 2025-6-13).

I will note that the fund’s current holdings of FixedResets are now paying dividends based on their previous reset at an average GOC-5 rate of 2.55% (weighted by shares held)

Calculation of MAPF Sustainable Income Per Unit
Month NAVPU Portfolio
Average
YTW		 Leverage
Divisor		 Securities
Average
YTW		 Capital
Gains
Multiplier		 Sustainable
Income
per
current
Unit
June, 2007 9.3114 5.16% 1.03 5.01% 1.3240 0.3524
September 9.1489 5.35% 0.98 5.46% 1.3240 0.3773
December, 2007 9.0070 5.53% 0.942 5.87% 1.3240 0.3993
March, 2008 8.8512 6.17% 1.047 5.89% 1.3240 0.3938
June 8.3419 6.034% 0.952 6.338% 1.3240 $0.3993
September 8.1886 7.108% 0.969 7.335% 1.3240 $0.4537
December, 2008 8.0464 9.24% 1.008 9.166% 1.3240 $0.5571
March 2009 $8.8317 8.60% 0.995 8.802% 1.3240 $0.5872
June 10.9846 7.05% 0.999 7.057% 1.3240 $0.5855
September 12.3462 6.03% 0.998 6.042% 1.3240 $0.5634
December 2009 10.5662 5.74% 0.981 5.851% 1.1141 $0.5549
March 2010 10.2497 6.03% 0.992 6.079% 1.1141 $0.5593
June 10.5770 5.96% 0.996 5.984% 1.1141 $0.5681
September 11.3901 5.43% 0.980 5.540% 1.1141 $0.5664
December 2010 10.7659 5.37% 0.993 5.408% 1.0298 $0.5654
March, 2011 11.0560 6.00% 0.994 5.964% 1.0298 $0.6403
June 11.1194 5.87% 1.018 5.976% 1.0298 $0.6453
September 10.2709 6.10%
Note		 1.001 6.106% 1.0298 $0.6090
December, 2011 10.0793 5.63%
Note		 1.031 5.805% 1.0000 $0.5851
March, 2012 10.3944 5.13%
Note		 0.996 5.109% 1.0000 $0.5310
June 10.2151 5.32%
Note		 1.012 5.384% 1.0000 $0.5500
September 10.6703 4.61%
Note		 0.997 4.624% 1.0000 $0.4934
December, 2012 10.8307 4.24% 0.989 4.287% 1.0000 $0.4643
March, 2013 10.9033 3.87% 0.996 3.886% 1.0000 $0.4237
June 10.3261 4.81% 0.998 4.80% 1.0000 $0.4957
September 10.0296 5.62% 0.996 5.643% 1.0000 $0.5660
December, 2013 9.8717 6.02% 1.008 5.972% 1.0000 $0.5895
March, 2014 10.2233 5.55% 0.998 5.561% 1.0000 $0.5685
June 10.5877 5.09% 0.998 5.100% 1.0000 $0.5395
September 10.4601 5.28% 0.997 5.296% 1.0000 $0.5540
December, 2014 10.5701 4.83% 1.009 4.787% 1.0000 $0.5060
March, 2015 9.9573 4.99% 1.001 4.985% 1.0000 $0.4964
June, 2015 9.4181 5.55% 1.002 5.539% 1.0000 $0.5217
September 7.8140 6.98% 0.999 6.987% 1.0000 $0.5460
December, 2015 8.1379 6.85% 0.997 6.871% 1.0000 $0.5592
March, 2016 7.4416 7.79% 0.998 7.805% 1.0000 $0.5808
June 7.6704 7.67% 1.011 7.587% 1.0000 $0.5819
September 8.0590 7.35% 0.993 7.402% 1.0000 $0.5965
December, 2016 8.5844 7.24% 0.990 7.313% 1.0000 $0.6278
March, 2017 9.3984 6.26% 0.994 6.298% 1.0000 $0.5919
June 9.5313 6.41% 0.998 6.423% 1.0000 $0.6122
September 9.7129 6.56% 0.998 6.573% 1.0000 $0.6384
December, 2017 10.0566 6.06% 1.004 6.036% 1.0000 $0.6070
March, 2018 10.2701 6.22% 1.007 6.177% 1.0000 $0.6344
June 10.2518 6.22% 0.995 6.251% 1.0000 $0.6408
September 10.2965 6.62% 1.018 6.503% 1.0000 $0.6696
December, 2018 8.6875 7.16% 0.997 7.182% 1.0000 $0.6240
March, 2019 8.4778 7.09% 1.007 7.041% 1.0000 $0.5969
June 8.0896 7.33% 0.996 7.359% 1.0000 $0.5953
September 7.7948 7.96% 0.998 7.976% 1.0000 $0.6217
December, 2019 8.0900 6.03% 0.995 6.060% 1.0000 $0.4903
March 5.5596 7.04% 1.006 6.998% 1.0000 $0.3891
June 6.3568 6.10% 0.9900 6.162% 1.0000 $0.3917
September 7.2852 5.32% 1.00 5.320% 1.0000 $0.3876
December, 2020 8.3947 4.46% 0.999 4.464% 1.0000 $0.3747
March, 2021 9.6473 4.48% 0.996 4.498% 1.0000 $0.4339
June 10.3712 3.92% 0.985 3.980% 1.0000 $0.4127
September 10.7572 4.08% 1.017 4.012% 1.0000 $0.4316
December, 2021 10.7432 4.31% 0.999 4.314% 1.0000 $0.4635
March, 2022 10.5040 5.53% 1.004 5.508% 1.0000 $0.5786
June 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
September 8.4093 8.10% 0.997 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6916
December, 2022 7.9921 8.47% 0.996 8.504% 1.0000 $0.6796
March, 2023 8.0788 7.90% 0.997 7.924% 1.0000 $0.6401
June 30 8.0197 9.19% 1.003 9.163% 1.0000 $0.7348
September 29 7.9922 9.86% 0.997 9.890% 1.0000 $0.7904
Decenber 29, 2023 8.4715 8.14% 1.002 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6882
March 28,2024 9.5892 7.60% 1.006 7.555% 1.0000 $0.7244
June 28 9.8516 7.32% 0.999 7.327% 1.0000 $0.7219
September 30 10.3641 6.55% 0.990 6.616% 1.0000 $0.6857
December 31,2024 11.0142 6.44% 0.992 6.492% 1.0000 $0.7150
March 31,2025 10.8891 6.22% 0.993 6.264% 1.0000 $0.6821
June 30,2025 11.4529 6.10% 0.997 6.118% 1.0000 $0.7007
NAVPU is shown after quarterly distributions of dividend income and annual distribution of capital gains.
Portfolio YTW includes cash (or margin borrowing), with an assumed interest rate of 0.00%
The Leverage Divisor indicates the level of cash in the account: if the portfolio is 1% in cash, the Leverage Divisor will be 0.99
Securities YTW divides “Portfolio YTW” by the “Leverage Divisor” to show the average YTW on the securities held; this assumes that the cash is invested in (or raised from) all securities held, in proportion to their holdings.
The Capital Gains Multiplier adjusts for the effects of Capital Gains Dividends. On 2009-12-31, there was a capital gains distribution of $1.989262 which is assumed for this purpose to have been reinvested at the final price of $10.5662. Thus, a holder of one unit pre-distribution would have held 1.1883 units post-distribution; the CG Multiplier reflects this to make the time-series comparable. Note that Dividend Distributions are not assumed to be reinvested.
Sustainable Income is the resultant estimate of the fund’s dividend income per current unit, before fees and expenses. Note that a “current unit” includes reinvestment of prior capital gains; a unitholder would have had the calculated sustainable income with only, say, 0.9 units in the past which, with reinvestment of capital gains, would become 1.0 current units.
DeemedRetractibles are comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator (definition refined in May, 2011). These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 (banks) or the Deemed Maturity date for insurers and insurance holding companies (see below)), in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis.

The same reasoning is also applied to FixedResets from these issuers, other than explicitly defined NVCC from banks.

In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction for insurance issues was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0. This resulted in a large drop in the yield calculated for these issues
The Deemed Maturity date for insurers was set at 2022-1-31 at the commencement of the process in February, 2011. It was extended to 2025-1-31 in April, 2013 and to 2030-1-31 in December, 2018. In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0.
Yields for September, 2011, to January, 2012, were calculated by imposing a cap of 10% on the yields of YLO issues held, in order to avoid their extremely high calculated yields distorting the calculation and to reflect the uncertainty in the marketplace that these yields will be realized. From February to September 2012, yields on these issues have been set to zero. All YLO issues held were sold in October 2012.

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

Canada Yields Assumed in Calculations
Month-end GOC-5 3-Month Bill
September, 2015 0.78% 0.40%
December, 2015 0.71% 0.46%
March, 2016 0.70% 0.44%
June 0.57% 0.47%
September 0.58% 0.53%
December, 2016 1.16% 0.47%
March, 2017 1.08% 0.55%
June 1.35% 0.69%
September 1.79% 0.97%
December, 2017 1.83% 1.00%
March, 2018 2.06% 1.08%
June 1.95% 1.22%
September 2.33% 1.55%
December, 2018 1.88% 1.65%
March, 2019 1.46% 1.66%
June 1.34% 1.66%
September 1.41% 1.66%
December, 2019 1.68% 1.68%
March, 2020 0.57% 0.21%
June 0.37% 0.21%
September 0.35% 0.14%
December, 2020 0.42% 0.08%
March, 2021 0.94% 0.09%
June 0.93% 0.13%
September 1.07% 0.13%
December, 2021 1.31% 0.16%
March, 2022 2.44% 0.53%
June 3.24% 2.11%
September 3.45% 3.60%
December, 2022 3.37% 4.35%
March, 2023 2.93% 4.44%
June 3.74% 5.00%
September 4.31% 5.21%
December, 2023 3.21% 5.13%
March, 2024 3.55% 5.06%
June 3.41% 4.71%
September 2.74% 3.94%
December, 2024 3.02% 3.19%
March, 2025 2.64% 2.66%
June, 2025 2.85% 2.68%
MAPF

MAPF Portfolio Composition: June, 2025

Turnover remained very low at 2% in June.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on June 30, 2025, was:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2025-06-30
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 11.2% 6.99% 12.59
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualDiscount 6.1% 5.82% 14.16
Fixed-Reset Discount 29.4% 6.27% 13.46
Insurance – Straight 22.5% 5.65% 14.47
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 8.6% 5.31% 14.94
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 9.2% 5.60% 14.75
Scraps – Ratchet 1.2% 7.51% 12.91
Scraps – FixedFloater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Floater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – OpRet 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpPrem 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpDisc 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Discount 9.7% 7.05% 12.80
Scraps – Insurance Straight 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Premium 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Ins non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Cash 0.3% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.10% 13.67
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.
The various “Scraps” indices include issues with a DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) or lower and issues with an Average Trading Value (calculated with HIMIPref™ methodology, which is relatively complex) of less than $25,000. The issues considered “Scraps” are subdivided into indices which reflect those of the main indices.
DeemedRetractibles were comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator. These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 in the case of banks or normally in the case of insurers and insurance holding companies, in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis and IAIS Says No To DeemedRetractions for the recent change in policy with respect to insurers.

Note that the estimate for the time this will become effective for insurers and insurance holding companies was extended by three years in April 2013, due to the delays in OSFI’s providing clarity on the issue and by a further five years in December, 2018; the estimate was eliminated in November. However, the distinctions are being kept because it is useful to distinguish insurance issues from others.

The name of this subindex has been changed to “Insurance Straight” as of November, 2020
Calculations of yield and related attributes of resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of XXX%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of XXX% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of XXX%

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:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2025-06-30
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 35.6%
Pfd-2 32.6%
Pfd-2(low) 19.6%
Pfd-3(high) 7.5%
Pfd-3 2.2%
Pfd-3(low) 2.2%
Pfd-4(high) 0%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash 0.3%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2025-06-30
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 3.4%
$50,000 – $100,000 48.0%
$100,000 – $200,000 27.7%
$200,000 – $300,000 7.0%
>$300,000 13.7%
Cash 0.3%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 0.9%
150-199bp 1.4%
200-249bp 40.8%
250-299bp 11.6%
300-349bp 0.4%
350-399bp 1.8%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 43.0%

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”.

Range MAPF Weight
Currently Floating 12.3%
0-1 Year 0.9%
1-2 Years 24.2%
2-3 Years 8.6%
3-4 Years 0%
4-5 Years 23.3%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 30.7%

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.

MAPF

MAPF Performance: December, 2024

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close December 31, 2024, was $10.8629 after a dividend distribution of 0.151255.

The fund did not pay a capital gains distribution, as realized capital gains fell just short of sufficient to eliminate the capital loss that has been accumulated since 2012(!). Interesting figures for this year end and last year’s are:

  Year-end
2023		 Year-end
2024
NAVPU 8.4715 10.8629
Loss carry-forward, per Unit -0.47 -1.27
Realized Capital Gain, per Unit -0.80 1.19
Unrealized Capital Gain, per Unit -0.45 0.76

What a year it was!

Performance in December was affected by poor performance from CM.PR.S (+1.25%, its second straight month of poor relative performance), MFC.PR.B (+1.52%, its third straight month of poor relative performance) and SLF.PR.D (+1.98%, its second straight month of poor relative performance), which was more than offset by good performance from IFC.PR.C (+6.97%) and several issues held in size too small to be considered for mention here.

FixedResets continue to yield more, in general, than PerpetualDiscounts although the spread has narrowed considerably in the past year; on December 31, I reported median YTWs of 6.53% and 6.11%, respectively, for these two indices; compare with mean Current Yields of 5.34% and 5.97%, respectively.

Returns to December 31, 2024
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month +2.96% +2.59% N/A
Three Months +6.27% +3.49% N/A
One Year +35.58% +24.70% +23.88%
Two Years (annualized) +23.22% +14.92% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +5.70% +2.66% +2.10%
Four Years (annualized) +12.00% +6.60% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +11.90% +6.51% +5.90%
Six Years (annualized) +9.45% +6.00% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +6.44% +3.89% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +8.23% +5.06% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +8.56% +5.27% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +5.45% +3.05% +2.53%
Eleven Years (annualized) +6.08% +3.38%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +5.19% +2.87%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +5.76% +3.07%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +5.47% +3.26%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +6.16% +3.55%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +9.18% +4.88%  
Seventeen Years (annualized) +8.37% +3.46%  
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.78%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.74%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.65%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +7.91%    
Twenty-Two Years (annualized) +8.96%    
Twenty-Three Years (annualized) +8.61%    
MAPF returns assume reinvestment of distributions, and are shown after expenses but before fees.
The BMO Capital Markets “50” Preferred Share Index is no longer being calculated. The final performance report incorporating this venerable index was published as of December, 2020.
“TXPR” is the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index. It is calculated without accounting for fees, but does assume reinvestment of dividends.
CPD Returns are for the NAV and are after all fees and expenses. Reinvestment of dividends is assumed.
All fund and ETF returns shown below are after all fees and expenses
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Income Fund, Series F [NBC780] (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +2.88%, +4.58% and +29.32%, respectively, according to National Bank Investments after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +3.70%; five year is +8.56%; ten year is +4.91%.

Figures from Morningstar are no longer conveniently available.
Manulife Preferred Income Class Adv has been terminated by Manulife. The performance of this fund was last reported here in March, 2018.
Figures for Global X Active Preferred Share ETF (HPR) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +2.66%, +4.49% & +28.06%, respectively. Three year performance is +3.72%, five-year is +8.09%, ten year is +4.09%
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Fund Series F [NBC710] (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +2.69%, +4.50% and +29.07% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +4.15%; five-year is +8.49%; ten-year is +4.27%

Acccording to the fund’s fact sheet as of June 30, 2016, the fund’s inception date was October 30, 2015. I do not know how they justify this nonsensical statement, but will assume that prior performance is being suppressed in some perfectly legal manner that somebody at National considers ethical.

The last time Altamira Preferred Equity Fund’s performance was reported here was April, 2014; performance under the National Bank banner was first reported here May, 2014.
The figures for the NAV of BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +26.65% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +16.40%, three year is +3.83%, five year is +7.95%, ten year is +2.81%

Note that analysis of ZPR shows some doubt as to whether this fund is either "laddered" or an "index fund". However, there was a remarkable improvement in the laddering in the six months following the publication of my analysis.
Figures for Fiera Canadian Preferred Share Class Cg Series F, (formerly Natixis Canadian Preferred Share Class Series F) (formerly NexGen Canadian Preferred Share Tax Managed Fund) are no longer available as the Fund is now the property of Canoe Financial. The last reported performance for the merged fund was May 2020.
Figures for BMO Preferred Share Fund (advisor series) are not available as the fund has been terminated. This is as per an announcement by the bank on 2024-5-28. The last performance report for this awful fund was as of July 31, 2024.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are no longer available since the fund has been terminated. Performance was last reported for the fund to month-end, March 2023
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are no longer available since the fund has merged with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (FPR).

Performance for the fund was last reported here in September, 2016; the first report of unavailability was in October, 2016.
Figures for Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund (Class F) according to the company are +2.1%, +1.9% and +22.2% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +2.7%, five-year is +7.3%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund F Class (F Class), as reported by the company are +2.32%, +3.37% and +24.48% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +14.87%, three-year is +2.64%, five-year is +6.62%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) are reported as +%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +%, five-year is +%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are +2.6%, +4.3% and +26.8% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +4.7%; five-year is +9.2%
Figures for the Purpose Canadian Preferred Share Fund (Class F) are +2.16%, +4.84% and +25.34% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +3.09%; four-year is +9.42%; five-year is +8.72%; seven-year is +4.09%; ten-year is +6.16%.
Figures for the TD Active Preferred Share ETF (TPRF) are +2.36%, +4.17% and +28.41% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two-year performance is +16.03%, three-year is +4.72%; five-year is +9.66%.

Note that “The TD ETF may also hold common shares, government and corporate bonds, and other income-producing securities. … The TD ETF may invest in foreign securities to an extent that will vary from time to time but is not typically expected to exceed 5% of its assets at the time that foreign securities are purchased.

The non-preferred share components of the portfolio are relatively minor – as of their year-end 2023 report, they had $1.6-million in Canadian Natural Resources Limited common, $1.8-million in RBC common, $1.6-million in SLF common, and $1.75-million in Fortis common, totalling $6.75-million in a $220-million portfolio.

I take the view that the purpose of this mandate is to destroy, or at least deprecate, comparability. Banks hate comparability.

The five-year Canada yield decreased, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) moving from 3.07% at October month-end to 3.02% at November month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) was 330bp on 2025-01-02, narrowing from the 340bp on 2024-11-27 (chart end-date 2024-12-13).

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly (despite recent narrowing) from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to a level of 553bp (as of 2024-12-31) … (chart end-date 2024-12-13):

…while at the same time the interest-equivalent spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -55bp (as of 2024-12-31) from its 2021-7-28 level of +170bp (chart end-date 2024-12-13):

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for either the Pfd-2 or Pfd-3 Group issues.

There is no significant correlation for either the Pfd-2 group or the Pfd-3 group between the Issue Reset Spread and 3-month performance for discounted FixedResets.

There is no significant correlation for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset:

… while the three-month returns vs. Term to Reset, shows a correlation for both the Pfd-2 Group (20%) and the Pfd-3 Group (19%):

It should be noted that to some extent a dependence (of performance on term-to-reset) can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit (adverse effects) of higher (lower) projected dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. Equations for the relationship between correlation slope and change in GOC-5 were derived in the August 2022 PrefLetter.

Upward-sloping correlations of Performance vs. Term are to be expected when GOC-5 declines.

I keep talking about ‘Sustainable Income’ and nowadays it’s far higher than the dividends that are currently being distributed. This is because Sustainable Income is the average yield-to-worst (YTW) of the portfolio when the YTW is calculated to perpetuity (or to redemption, of course, if the yield to redemption is lower), including resets at the current GOC-5 rate. The sharp increase in GOC-5 in the past few years has caused the difference between YTW and Current Yield to skyrocket, but one way or another I expect that these two values will become much closer – slowly at first, but quickening in the fairly near future. We have to wait for the reset date of the MAPF portfolio securities before we see a change in actual cash receipts – and, of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the rate used for estimation purposes now will be used for the actual calculation in the future (chart prepared as of 2024-12-13).

I will note that the fund’s current holdings of FixedResets are now paying dividends based on their previous reset at an average GOC-5 rate of 2.21% (weighted by shares held). This is a sharp increase from the 1.81% reported last month; the rise is due largely to the previously mentioned migration out of FFH.PR.I, which last reset in accordance with a GOC-5 rate of 0.48%.

Calculation of MAPF Sustainable Income Per Unit
Month NAVPU Portfolio
Average
YTW		 Leverage
Divisor		 Securities
Average
YTW		 Capital
Gains
Multiplier		 Sustainable
Income
per
current
Unit
June, 2007 9.3114 5.16% 1.03 5.01% 1.3240 0.3524
September 9.1489 5.35% 0.98 5.46% 1.3240 0.3773
December, 2007 9.0070 5.53% 0.942 5.87% 1.3240 0.3993
March, 2008 8.8512 6.17% 1.047 5.89% 1.3240 0.3938
June 8.3419 6.034% 0.952 6.338% 1.3240 $0.3993
September 8.1886 7.108% 0.969 7.335% 1.3240 $0.4537
December, 2008 8.0464 9.24% 1.008 9.166% 1.3240 $0.5571
March 2009 $8.8317 8.60% 0.995 8.802% 1.3240 $0.5872
June 10.9846 7.05% 0.999 7.057% 1.3240 $0.5855
September 12.3462 6.03% 0.998 6.042% 1.3240 $0.5634
December 2009 10.5662 5.74% 0.981 5.851% 1.1141 $0.5549
March 2010 10.2497 6.03% 0.992 6.079% 1.1141 $0.5593
June 10.5770 5.96% 0.996 5.984% 1.1141 $0.5681
September 11.3901 5.43% 0.980 5.540% 1.1141 $0.5664
December 2010 10.7659 5.37% 0.993 5.408% 1.0298 $0.5654
March, 2011 11.0560 6.00% 0.994 5.964% 1.0298 $0.6403
June 11.1194 5.87% 1.018 5.976% 1.0298 $0.6453
September 10.2709 6.10%
Note		 1.001 6.106% 1.0298 $0.6090
December, 2011 10.0793 5.63%
Note		 1.031 5.805% 1.0000 $0.5851
March, 2012 10.3944 5.13%
Note		 0.996 5.109% 1.0000 $0.5310
June 10.2151 5.32%
Note		 1.012 5.384% 1.0000 $0.5500
September 10.6703 4.61%
Note		 0.997 4.624% 1.0000 $0.4934
December, 2012 10.8307 4.24% 0.989 4.287% 1.0000 $0.4643
March, 2013 10.9033 3.87% 0.996 3.886% 1.0000 $0.4237
June 10.3261 4.81% 0.998 4.80% 1.0000 $0.4957
September 10.0296 5.62% 0.996 5.643% 1.0000 $0.5660
December, 2013 9.8717 6.02% 1.008 5.972% 1.0000 $0.5895
March, 2014 10.2233 5.55% 0.998 5.561% 1.0000 $0.5685
June 10.5877 5.09% 0.998 5.100% 1.0000 $0.5395
September 10.4601 5.28% 0.997 5.296% 1.0000 $0.5540
December, 2014 10.5701 4.83% 1.009 4.787% 1.0000 $0.5060
March, 2015 9.9573 4.99% 1.001 4.985% 1.0000 $0.4964
June, 2015 9.4181 5.55% 1.002 5.539% 1.0000 $0.5217
September 7.8140 6.98% 0.999 6.987% 1.0000 $0.5460
December, 2015 8.1379 6.85% 0.997 6.871% 1.0000 $0.5592
March, 2016 7.4416 7.79% 0.998 7.805% 1.0000 $0.5808
June 7.6704 7.67% 1.011 7.587% 1.0000 $0.5819
September 8.0590 7.35% 0.993 7.402% 1.0000 $0.5965
December, 2016 8.5844 7.24% 0.990 7.313% 1.0000 $0.6278
March, 2017 9.3984 6.26% 0.994 6.298% 1.0000 $0.5919
June 9.5313 6.41% 0.998 6.423% 1.0000 $0.6122
September 9.7129 6.56% 0.998 6.573% 1.0000 $0.6384
December, 2017 10.0566 6.06% 1.004 6.036% 1.0000 $0.6070
March, 2018 10.2701 6.22% 1.007 6.177% 1.0000 $0.6344
June 10.2518 6.22% 0.995 6.251% 1.0000 $0.6408
September 10.2965 6.62% 1.018 6.503% 1.0000 $0.6696
December, 2018 8.6875 7.16% 0.997 7.182% 1.0000 $0.6240
March, 2019 8.4778 7.09% 1.007 7.041% 1.0000 $0.5969
June 8.0896 7.33% 0.996 7.359% 1.0000 $0.5953
September 7.7948 7.96% 0.998 7.976% 1.0000 $0.6217
December, 2019 8.0900 6.03% 0.995 6.060% 1.0000 $0.4903
March 5.5596 7.04% 1.006 6.998% 1.0000 $0.3891
June 6.3568 6.10% 0.9900 6.162% 1.0000 $0.3917
September 7.2852 5.32% 1.00 5.320% 1.0000 $0.3876
December, 2020 8.3947 4.46% 0.999 4.464% 1.0000 $0.3747
March, 2021 9.6473 4.48% 0.996 4.498% 1.0000 $0.4339
June 10.3712 3.92% 0.985 3.980% 1.0000 $0.4127
September 10.7572 4.08% 1.017 4.012% 1.0000 $0.4316
December, 2021 10.7432 4.31% 0.999 4.314% 1.0000 $0.4635
March, 2022 10.5040 5.53% 1.004 5.508% 1.0000 $0.5786
June 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
September 8.4093 8.10% 0.997 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6916
December, 2022 7.9921 8.47% 0.996 8.504% 1.0000 $0.6796
March, 2023 8.0788 7.90% 0.997 7.924% 1.0000 $0.6401
June 30 8.0197 9.19% 1.003 9.163% 1.0000 $0.7348
September 29 7.9922 9.86% 0.997 9.890% 1.0000 $0.7904
Decenber 29, 2023 8.4715 8.14% 1.002 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6882
March 28,2024 9.5892 7.60% 1.006 7.555% 1.0000 $0.7244
June 28 9.8516 7.32% 0.999 7.327% 1.0000 $0.7219
September 30 10.3641 6.55% 0.990 6.616% 1.0000 $0.6857
December 31,2024 10.8629 6.44% 0.994 6.492% 1.0000 $0.7150
NAVPU is shown after quarterly distributions of dividend income and annual distribution of capital gains.
Portfolio YTW includes cash (or margin borrowing), with an assumed interest rate of 0.00%
The Leverage Divisor indicates the level of cash in the account: if the portfolio is 1% in cash, the Leverage Divisor will be 0.99
Securities YTW divides “Portfolio YTW” by the “Leverage Divisor” to show the average YTW on the securities held; this assumes that the cash is invested in (or raised from) all securities held, in proportion to their holdings.
The Capital Gains Multiplier adjusts for the effects of Capital Gains Dividends. On 2009-12-31, there was a capital gains distribution of $1.989262 which is assumed for this purpose to have been reinvested at the final price of $10.5662. Thus, a holder of one unit pre-distribution would have held 1.1883 units post-distribution; the CG Multiplier reflects this to make the time-series comparable. Note that Dividend Distributions are not assumed to be reinvested.
Sustainable Income is the resultant estimate of the fund’s dividend income per current unit, before fees and expenses. Note that a “current unit” includes reinvestment of prior capital gains; a unitholder would have had the calculated sustainable income with only, say, 0.9 units in the past which, with reinvestment of capital gains, would become 1.0 current units.
DeemedRetractibles are comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator (definition refined in May, 2011). These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 (banks) or the Deemed Maturity date for insurers and insurance holding companies (see below)), in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis.

The same reasoning is also applied to FixedResets from these issuers, other than explicitly defined NVCC from banks.

In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction for insurance issues was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0. This resulted in a large drop in the yield calculated for these issues
The Deemed Maturity date for insurers was set at 2022-1-31 at the commencement of the process in February, 2011. It was extended to 2025-1-31 in April, 2013 and to 2030-1-31 in December, 2018. In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0.
Yields for September, 2011, to January, 2012, were calculated by imposing a cap of 10% on the yields of YLO issues held, in order to avoid their extremely high calculated yields distorting the calculation and to reflect the uncertainty in the marketplace that these yields will be realized. From February to September 2012, yields on these issues have been set to zero. All YLO issues held were sold in October 2012.

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

Canada Yields Assumed in Calculations
Month-end GOC-5 3-Month Bill
September, 2015 0.78% 0.40%
December, 2015 0.71% 0.46%
March, 2016 0.70% 0.44%
June 0.57% 0.47%
September 0.58% 0.53%
December, 2016 1.16% 0.47%
March, 2017 1.08% 0.55%
June 1.35% 0.69%
September 1.79% 0.97%
December, 2017 1.83% 1.00%
March, 2018 2.06% 1.08%
June 1.95% 1.22%
September 2.33% 1.55%
December, 2018 1.88% 1.65%
March, 2019 1.46% 1.66%
June 1.34% 1.66%
September 1.41% 1.66%
December, 2019 1.68% 1.68%
March, 2020 0.57% 0.21%
June 0.37% 0.21%
September 0.35% 0.14%
December, 2020 0.42% 0.08%
March, 2021 0.94% 0.09%
June 0.93% 0.13%
September 1.07% 0.13%
December, 2021 1.31% 0.16%
March, 2022 2.44% 0.53%
June 3.24% 2.11%
September 3.45% 3.60%
December, 2022 3.37% 4.35%
March, 2023 2.93% 4.44%
June 3.74% 5.00%
September 4.31% 5.21%
December, 2023 3.21% 5.13%
March, 2024 3.55% 5.06%
June 3.41% 4.71%
September 2.74% 3.94%
December, 2024 3.02% 3.19%
MAPF

MAPF Portfolio Composition: December, 2024

Turnover ticked up to about 11% in December, driven largely by a migration from FFH.PR.I (which performed very well following the announcement of the FFH.PR.C / FFH.PR.D redemption) in PerpetualDiscount issues.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on December 31, 2024, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2024-12-31
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 2.4% 7.94% 11.49
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualDiscount 7.9% 6.09% 13.80
Fixed-Reset Discount 36.8% 6.80% 12.90
Insurance – Straight 19.2% 5.74% 14.32
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 8.7% 5.50% 14.65
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 10.2% 6.12% 14.08
Scraps – Ratchet 1.1% 9.95% 10.35
Scraps – FixedFloater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Floater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – OpRet 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpPrem 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpDisc 3.2% 6.33% 13.46
Scraps – FR Discount 9.7% 7.67% 12.11
Scraps – Insurance Straight 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Premium 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Ins non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Cash 0.8% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.44% 13.29
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.
The various “Scraps” indices include issues with a DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) or lower and issues with an Average Trading Value (calculated with HIMIPref™ methodology, which is relatively complex) of less than $25,000. The issues considered “Scraps” are subdivided into indices which reflect those of the main indices.
DeemedRetractibles were comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator. These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 in the case of banks or normally in the case of insurers and insurance holding companies, in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis and IAIS Says No To DeemedRetractions for the recent change in policy with respect to insurers.

Note that the estimate for the time this will become effective for insurers and insurance holding companies was extended by three years in April 2013, due to the delays in OSFI’s providing clarity on the issue and by a further five years in December, 2018; the estimate was eliminated in November. However, the distinctions are being kept because it is useful to distinguish insurance issues from others.

The name of this subindex has been changed to “Insurance Straight” as of November, 2020
Calculations of yield and related attributes of resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 3.02%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 3.19% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 5.45%

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:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2024-12-31
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 34.4%
Pfd-2 31.0%
Pfd-2(low) 23.0%
Pfd-3(high) 7.4%
Pfd-3 1.1%
Pfd-3(low) 2.1%
Pfd-4(high) 0.3%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash 0.8%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.
A position held in INE.PR.A is not rated by DBRS nor by S&P, but has been included as “Pfd-4(high)” in the above table on the basis of its last S&P rating of P-4(high) and its BB rating from Fitch. A “BB” rating would normally map to Pfd-3, but the company’s disdain for the two major preferred share agencies makes me nervous.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2024-12-31
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 4.4%
$50,000 – $100,000 30.6%
$100,000 – $200,000 29.2%
$200,000 – $300,000 27.6%
>$300,000 7.4%
Cash 0.8%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 1.0%
150-199bp 0%
200-249bp 44.3%
250-299bp 18.0%
300-349bp 0.4%
350-399bp 1.8%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 34.6%

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”.

Range MAPF Weight
Currently Floating 3.5%
0-1 Year 7.3%
1-2 Years 13.6%
2-3 Years 14.7%
3-4 Years 8.7%
4-5 Years 21.2%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 31.0%

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.

MAPF

MAPF Performance: November, 2024

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close November 29, 2024, was $10.6980.

Quotes at November month-end were of much better quality than they were in October.

Performance was affected by poor performance from SLF.PR.D (+0.04%), MFC.PR.B (+0.96%, following last month’s poor performance) and CM.PR.S (+1.57%, following last month’s outperformance), more than offset by contributions from FFH.PR.I (+17.99%, following last month’s outperformance and presumably due to the foreshadowed redemption of FFH.PR.C & FFH.PR.D); FTS.PR.M (+6.37%, following last month’s underperformance); and BN.PR.R (+5.18%, following last month’s outperformance); as well as by the recovery of IFC.PR.C and POW.PR.D from last month’s bogus but nevertheless expensive quotes purchased from the Toronto Exchange [small holdings are not considered for individual mention here].

FixedResets continue to yield more, in general, than PerpetualDiscounts although the spread has narrowed considerably in the past year; on November 29, I reported median YTWs of 6.67% and 6.21%, respectively, for these two indices; compare with mean Current Yields of 5.43% and 6.05%, respectively.

Returns to November 29, 2024
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month +5.57% +2.29% N/A
Three Months +3.81% +1.36% N/A
One Year +32.47% +22.55% +%
Two Years (annualized) +19.96% +12.47% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +4.59% +2.24% +%
Four Years (annualized) +12.82% +6.55% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +12.33% +6.49% +%
Six Years (annualized) +8.39% +5.27% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +6.01% +3.52% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +8.59% +5.18% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +8.45% +5.24% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +5.17% +2.75% +%
Eleven Years (annualized) +5.65% +3.00%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +5.03% +2.73%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +5.59% +2.97%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +5.22% +3.07%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +6.06% +3.51%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +10.06% +5.17%  
Seventeen Years (annualized) +8.46% +3.38%  
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.67%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.61%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.55%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +7.89%    
Twenty-Two Years (annualized) +8.83%    
Twenty-Three Years (annualized) +8.35%    
MAPF returns assume reinvestment of distributions, and are shown after expenses but before fees.
The BMO Capital Markets “50” Preferred Share Index is no longer being calculated. The final performance report incorporating this venerable index was published as of December, 2020.
“TXPR” is the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index. It is calculated without accounting for fees, but does assume reinvestment of dividends.
CPD Returns are for the NAV and are after all fees and expenses. Reinvestment of dividends is assumed.
All fund and ETF returns shown below are after all fees and expenses
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Income Fund, Series F [NBC780] (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +%, +% and +%, respectively, according to National Bank Investments after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +%; five year is +%; ten year is +%.

Figures from Morningstar are no longer conveniently available.
Manulife Preferred Income Class Adv has been terminated by Manulife. The performance of this fund was last reported here in March, 2018.
Figures for Horizons Active Preferred Share ETF (HPR) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are -%, +% & +%, respectively. Three year performance is +%, five-year is +%, ten year is +%
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Fund Series F [NBC710] (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +%, +% and +% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +%; five-year is +%; ten-year is +%

Acccording to the fund’s fact sheet as of June 30, 2016, the fund’s inception date was October 30, 2015. I do not know how they justify this nonsensical statement, but will assume that prior performance is being suppressed in some perfectly legal manner that somebody at National considers ethical.

The last time Altamira Preferred Equity Fund’s performance was reported here was April, 2014; performance under the National Bank banner was first reported here May, 2014.
The figures for the NAV of BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +%, three year is +%, five year is +%, ten year is +%

Note that analysis of ZPR shows some doubt as to whether this fund is either "laddered" or an "index fund". However, there was a remarkable improvement in the laddering in the six months following the publication of my analysis.
Figures for Fiera Canadian Preferred Share Class Cg Series F, (formerly Natixis Canadian Preferred Share Class Series F) (formerly NexGen Canadian Preferred Share Tax Managed Fund) are no longer available as the Fund is now the property of Canoe Financial. The last reported performance for the merged fund was May 2020.
Figures for BMO Preferred Share Fund (advisor series) are not available as the fund has been terminated. This is as per an announcement by the bank on 2024-5-28. The last performance report for this awful fund was as of July 31, 2024.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are no longer available since the fund has been terminated. Performance was last reported for the fund to month-end, March 2023
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are no longer available since the fund has merged with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (FPR).

Performance for the fund was last reported here in September, 2016; the first report of unavailability was in October, 2016.
Figures for Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund (Class F) according to the company are -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +%, five-year is +%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund F Class (F Class), as reported by the company are -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +%, three-year is +%, five-year is +%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) are reported as -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +%, five-year is +%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +%; five-year is +%
Figures for the Purpose Canadian Preferred Share Fund (Class F) are -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +%; four-year is +%; five-year is +%; seven-year is +%; ten-year is +%.
Figures for the TD Active Preferred Share ETF (TPRF) are -%, +% and +% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two-year performance is +%, three-year is +%; five-year is +%.

Note that “The TD ETF may also hold common shares, government and corporate bonds, and other income-producing securities. … The TD ETF may invest in foreign securities to an extent that will vary from time to time but is not typically expected to exceed 5% of its assets at the time that foreign securities are purchased.

The non-preferred share components of the portfolio are relatively minor – as of their year-end 2023 report, they had $1.6-million in Canadian Natural Resources Limited common, $1.8-million in RBC common, $1.6-million in SLF common, and $1.75-million in Fortis common, totalling $6.75-million in a $220-million portfolio.

I take the view that the purpose of this mandate is to destroy, or at least deprecate, comparability. Banks hate comparability.

The five-year Canada yield decreased, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) moving from 3.07% at October month-end to 3.02% at November month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) was 340bp on 2024-11-27, up sharply from the 305bp on 2024-10-30 (chart end-date 2024-11-8).

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly (despite recent narrowing) from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to a level of 580bp (as of 2024-11-27) … (chart end-date 2024-11-08):

…while at the same time the interest-equivalent spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -77bp (as of 2024-11-27) from its 2021-7-28 level of +170bp (chart end-date 2024-11-08):

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for either the Pfd-2 or Pfd-3 Group issues.

There is no significant correlation for either the Pfd-2 group or the Pfd-3 group between the Issue Reset Spread and 3-month performance for discounted FixedResets.

There is no significant correlation for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset:

… while the three-month returns vs. Term to Reset, shows no correlations for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group:

It should be noted that to some extent a dependence (of performance on term-to-reset) can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit (adverse effects) of higher (lower) projected dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. Equations for the relationship between correlation slope and change in GOC-5 were derived in the August 2022 PrefLetter.

Upward-sloping correlations of Performance vs. Term are to be expected when GOC-5 declines.

I keep talking about ‘Sustainable Income’ and nowadays it’s far higher than the dividends that are currently being distributed. This is because Sustainable Income is the average yield-to-worst (YTW) of the portfolio when the YTW is calculated to perpetuity (or to redemption, of course, if the yield to redemption is lower), including resets at the current GOC-5 rate. The sharp increase in GOC-5 in the past few years has caused the difference between YTW and Current Yield to skyrocket, but one way or another I expect that these two values will become much closer – slowly at first, but quickening in the fairly near future. We have to wait for the reset date of the MAPF portfolio securities before we see a change in actual cash receipts – and, of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the rate used for estimation purposes now will be used for the actual calculation in the future (chart prepared as of 2024-11-8).

I will note that the fund’s current holdings of FixedResets are now paying dividends based on their previous reset at an average GOC-5 rate of 1.81% (weighted by shares held), although note that the fund holds a sizable position in TRP.PR.E that will not earn a dividend at the new rate until the new year.

Calculation of MAPF Sustainable Income Per Unit
Month NAVPU Portfolio
Average
YTW		 Leverage
Divisor		 Securities
Average
YTW		 Capital
Gains
Multiplier		 Sustainable
Income
per
current
Unit
June, 2007 9.3114 5.16% 1.03 5.01% 1.3240 0.3524
September 9.1489 5.35% 0.98 5.46% 1.3240 0.3773
December, 2007 9.0070 5.53% 0.942 5.87% 1.3240 0.3993
March, 2008 8.8512 6.17% 1.047 5.89% 1.3240 0.3938
June 8.3419 6.034% 0.952 6.338% 1.3240 $0.3993
September 8.1886 7.108% 0.969 7.335% 1.3240 $0.4537
December, 2008 8.0464 9.24% 1.008 9.166% 1.3240 $0.5571
March 2009 $8.8317 8.60% 0.995 8.802% 1.3240 $0.5872
June 10.9846 7.05% 0.999 7.057% 1.3240 $0.5855
September 12.3462 6.03% 0.998 6.042% 1.3240 $0.5634
December 2009 10.5662 5.74% 0.981 5.851% 1.1141 $0.5549
March 2010 10.2497 6.03% 0.992 6.079% 1.1141 $0.5593
June 10.5770 5.96% 0.996 5.984% 1.1141 $0.5681
September 11.3901 5.43% 0.980 5.540% 1.1141 $0.5664
December 2010 10.7659 5.37% 0.993 5.408% 1.0298 $0.5654
March, 2011 11.0560 6.00% 0.994 5.964% 1.0298 $0.6403
June 11.1194 5.87% 1.018 5.976% 1.0298 $0.6453
September 10.2709 6.10%
Note		 1.001 6.106% 1.0298 $0.6090
December, 2011 10.0793 5.63%
Note		 1.031 5.805% 1.0000 $0.5851
March, 2012 10.3944 5.13%
Note		 0.996 5.109% 1.0000 $0.5310
June 10.2151 5.32%
Note		 1.012 5.384% 1.0000 $0.5500
September 10.6703 4.61%
Note		 0.997 4.624% 1.0000 $0.4934
December, 2012 10.8307 4.24% 0.989 4.287% 1.0000 $0.4643
March, 2013 10.9033 3.87% 0.996 3.886% 1.0000 $0.4237
June 10.3261 4.81% 0.998 4.80% 1.0000 $0.4957
September 10.0296 5.62% 0.996 5.643% 1.0000 $0.5660
December, 2013 9.8717 6.02% 1.008 5.972% 1.0000 $0.5895
March, 2014 10.2233 5.55% 0.998 5.561% 1.0000 $0.5685
June 10.5877 5.09% 0.998 5.100% 1.0000 $0.5395
September 10.4601 5.28% 0.997 5.296% 1.0000 $0.5540
December, 2014 10.5701 4.83% 1.009 4.787% 1.0000 $0.5060
March, 2015 9.9573 4.99% 1.001 4.985% 1.0000 $0.4964
June, 2015 9.4181 5.55% 1.002 5.539% 1.0000 $0.5217
September 7.8140 6.98% 0.999 6.987% 1.0000 $0.5460
December, 2015 8.1379 6.85% 0.997 6.871% 1.0000 $0.5592
March, 2016 7.4416 7.79% 0.998 7.805% 1.0000 $0.5808
June 7.6704 7.67% 1.011 7.587% 1.0000 $0.5819
September 8.0590 7.35% 0.993 7.402% 1.0000 $0.5965
December, 2016 8.5844 7.24% 0.990 7.313% 1.0000 $0.6278
March, 2017 9.3984 6.26% 0.994 6.298% 1.0000 $0.5919
June 9.5313 6.41% 0.998 6.423% 1.0000 $0.6122
September 9.7129 6.56% 0.998 6.573% 1.0000 $0.6384
December, 2017 10.0566 6.06% 1.004 6.036% 1.0000 $0.6070
March, 2018 10.2701 6.22% 1.007 6.177% 1.0000 $0.6344
June 10.2518 6.22% 0.995 6.251% 1.0000 $0.6408
September 10.2965 6.62% 1.018 6.503% 1.0000 $0.6696
December, 2018 8.6875 7.16% 0.997 7.182% 1.0000 $0.6240
March, 2019 8.4778 7.09% 1.007 7.041% 1.0000 $0.5969
June 8.0896 7.33% 0.996 7.359% 1.0000 $0.5953
September 7.7948 7.96% 0.998 7.976% 1.0000 $0.6217
December, 2019 8.0900 6.03% 0.995 6.060% 1.0000 $0.4903
March 5.5596 7.04% 1.006 6.998% 1.0000 $0.3891
June 6.3568 6.10% 0.9900 6.162% 1.0000 $0.3917
September 7.2852 5.32% 1.00 5.320% 1.0000 $0.3876
December, 2020 8.3947 4.46% 0.999 4.464% 1.0000 $0.3747
March, 2021 9.6473 4.48% 0.996 4.498% 1.0000 $0.4339
June 10.3712 3.92% 0.985 3.980% 1.0000 $0.4127
September 10.7572 4.08% 1.017 4.012% 1.0000 $0.4316
December, 2021 10.7432 4.31% 0.999 4.314% 1.0000 $0.4635
March, 2022 10.5040 5.53% 1.004 5.508% 1.0000 $0.5786
June 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
September 8.4093 8.10% 0.997 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6916
December, 2022 7.9921 8.47% 0.996 8.504% 1.0000 $0.6796
March, 2023 8.0788 7.90% 0.997 7.924% 1.0000 $0.6401
June 30 8.0197 9.19% 1.003 9.163% 1.0000 $0.7348
September 29 7.9922 9.86% 0.997 9.890% 1.0000 $0.7904
Decenber 29, 2023 8.4715 8.14% 1.002 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6882
March 28,2024 9.5892 7.60% 1.006 7.555% 1.0000 $0.7244
June 28 9.8516 7.32% 0.999 7.327% 1.0000 $0.7219
September 30 10.3641 6.55% 0.990 6.616% 1.0000 $0.6857
November 29,2024 10.6980 6.62% 0.994 6.660% 1.0000 $0.7125
NAVPU is shown after quarterly distributions of dividend income and annual distribution of capital gains.
Portfolio YTW includes cash (or margin borrowing), with an assumed interest rate of 0.00%
The Leverage Divisor indicates the level of cash in the account: if the portfolio is 1% in cash, the Leverage Divisor will be 0.99
Securities YTW divides “Portfolio YTW” by the “Leverage Divisor” to show the average YTW on the securities held; this assumes that the cash is invested in (or raised from) all securities held, in proportion to their holdings.
The Capital Gains Multiplier adjusts for the effects of Capital Gains Dividends. On 2009-12-31, there was a capital gains distribution of $1.989262 which is assumed for this purpose to have been reinvested at the final price of $10.5662. Thus, a holder of one unit pre-distribution would have held 1.1883 units post-distribution; the CG Multiplier reflects this to make the time-series comparable. Note that Dividend Distributions are not assumed to be reinvested.
Sustainable Income is the resultant estimate of the fund’s dividend income per current unit, before fees and expenses. Note that a “current unit” includes reinvestment of prior capital gains; a unitholder would have had the calculated sustainable income with only, say, 0.9 units in the past which, with reinvestment of capital gains, would become 1.0 current units.
DeemedRetractibles are comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator (definition refined in May, 2011). These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 (banks) or the Deemed Maturity date for insurers and insurance holding companies (see below)), in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis.

The same reasoning is also applied to FixedResets from these issuers, other than explicitly defined NVCC from banks.

In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction for insurance issues was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0. This resulted in a large drop in the yield calculated for these issues
The Deemed Maturity date for insurers was set at 2022-1-31 at the commencement of the process in February, 2011. It was extended to 2025-1-31 in April, 2013 and to 2030-1-31 in December, 2018. In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0.
Yields for September, 2011, to January, 2012, were calculated by imposing a cap of 10% on the yields of YLO issues held, in order to avoid their extremely high calculated yields distorting the calculation and to reflect the uncertainty in the marketplace that these yields will be realized. From February to September 2012, yields on these issues have been set to zero. All YLO issues held were sold in October 2012.

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

Canada Yields Assumed in Calculations
Month-end GOC-5 3-Month Bill
September, 2015 0.78% 0.40%
December, 2015 0.71% 0.46%
March, 2016 0.70% 0.44%
June 0.57% 0.47%
September 0.58% 0.53%
December, 2016 1.16% 0.47%
March, 2017 1.08% 0.55%
June 1.35% 0.69%
September 1.79% 0.97%
December, 2017 1.83% 1.00%
March, 2018 2.06% 1.08%
June 1.95% 1.22%
September 2.33% 1.55%
December, 2018 1.88% 1.65%
March, 2019 1.46% 1.66%
June 1.34% 1.66%
September 1.41% 1.66%
December, 2019 1.68% 1.68%
March, 2020 0.57% 0.21%
June 0.37% 0.21%
September 0.35% 0.14%
December, 2020 0.42% 0.08%
March, 2021 0.94% 0.09%
June 0.93% 0.13%
September 1.07% 0.13%
December, 2021 1.31% 0.16%
March, 2022 2.44% 0.53%
June 3.24% 2.11%
September 3.45% 3.60%
December, 2022 3.37% 4.35%
March, 2023 2.93% 4.44%
June 3.74% 5.00%
September 4.31% 5.21%
December, 2023 3.21% 5.13%
March, 2024 3.55% 5.06%
June 3.41% 4.71%
September 2.74% 3.94%
November, 2024 3.02% 3.44%
MAPF

MAPF Portfolio Composition: November, 2024

Turnover remained low at 6% in November.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on November 29, 2024, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2024-11-29
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 0% N/A N/A
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualDiscount 6.7% 6.20% 13.57
Fixed-Reset Discount 43.0% 6.98% 12.75
Insurance – Straight 16.4% 5.84% 14.21
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 9.0% 5.56% 14.45
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 9.6% 6.51% 13.59
Scraps – Ratchet 1.1% 10.54% 9.85
Scraps – FixedFloater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Floater 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – OpRet 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – SplitShare 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpPrem 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – PerpDisc 3.6% 6.47% 13.17
Scraps – FR Discount 10.0% 7.74% 11.90
Scraps – Insurance Straight 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – FR Premium 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Scraps – Ins non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
Cash 0.6% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.62% 13.09
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.
The various “Scraps” indices include issues with a DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) or lower and issues with an Average Trading Value (calculated with HIMIPref™ methodology, which is relatively complex) of less than $25,000. The issues considered “Scraps” are subdivided into indices which reflect those of the main indices.
DeemedRetractibles were comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator. These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 in the case of banks or normally in the case of insurers and insurance holding companies, in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis and IAIS Says No To DeemedRetractions for the recent change in policy with respect to insurers.

Note that the estimate for the time this will become effective for insurers and insurance holding companies was extended by three years in April 2013, due to the delays in OSFI’s providing clarity on the issue and by a further five years in December, 2018; the estimate was eliminated in November. However, the distinctions are being kept because it is useful to distinguish insurance issues from others.

The name of this subindex has been changed to “Insurance Straight” as of November, 2020
Calculations of yield and related attributes of resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 3.02%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 3.44% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 5.95%

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:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2024-11-29
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 30.6%
Pfd-2 29.3%
Pfd-2(low) 28.4%
Pfd-3(high) 7.5%
Pfd-3 1.1%
Pfd-3(low) 2.2%
Pfd-4(high) 0.3%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash 0.6%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.
A position held in INE.PR.A is not rated by DBRS nor by S&P, but has been included as “Pfd-4(high)” in the above table on the basis of its last S&P rating of P-4(high) and its BB rating from Fitch. A “BB” rating would normally map to Pfd-3, but the company’s disdain for the two major preferred share agencies makes me nervous.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2024-11-29
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 4.8%
$50,000 – $100,000 31.3%
$100,000 – $200,000 36.9%
$200,000 – $300,000 9.8%
>$300,000 16.5%
Cash 0.6%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 1.0%
150-199bp 0%
200-249bp 46.6%
250-299bp 21.8%
300-349bp 0.4%
350-399bp 1.8%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 28.4%

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”.

Range MAPF Weight
Currently Floating 1.1%
0-1 Year 12.0%
1-2 Years 25.2%
2-3 Years 15.0%
3-4 Years 9.0%
4-5 Years 10.4%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 27.3%

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.

MAPF

MAPF Performance: October, 2024

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close October 31, 2024, was $10.1335.

Quotes were of poor quality on October 31, mainly affecting IFC.PR.C and POW.PR.D.

Performance was affected by these issues and MFC.PR.B (-3.16%) and FTS.PR.M (-2.78%), mitigated by FFH.PR.I (+2.72%), BN.PR.R (+1.03%) and CM.PR.S (+0.65%) [small holdings are not considered for individual mention here].

FixedResets continue to yield more, in general, than PerpetualDiscounts although the spread has narrowed considerably in the past year; on September 30, I reported median YTWs of 7.09% and 6.14%, respectively, for these two indices; compare with mean Current Yields of 5.55% and 6.07%, respectively.

Returns to October 31, 2024
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month -2.22% -1.38% N/A
Three Months +1.66% +1.77% N/A
One Year +40.10% +31.15% +30.24%
Two Years (annualized) +17.34% +10.84% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +2.06% +0.96% +0.42%
Four Years (annualized) +13.84% +7.30% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +11.20% +6.26% +5.66%
Six Years (annualized) +5.86% +3.80% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +5.34% +3.28% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +7.91% +4.80% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +7.79% +4.82% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +4.75% +2.60% +2.08%
Eleven Years (annualized) +5.18% +2.91%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +4.63% +2.55%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +5.12% +2.81%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +4.92% +2.93%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +5.94% +3.51%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +9.02% +4.25%  
Seventeen Years (annualized) +8.10% +3.16%  
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.45%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.39%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.34%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +7.71%    
Twenty-Two Years (annualized) +8.50%    
Twenty-Three Years (annualized) +8.06%    
MAPF returns assume reinvestment of distributions, and are shown after expenses but before fees.
The BMO Capital Markets “50” Preferred Share Index is no longer being calculated. The final performance report incorporating this venerable index was published as of December, 2020.
“TXPR” is the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index. It is calculated without accounting for fees, but does assume reinvestment of dividends.
CPD Returns are for the NAV and are after all fees and expenses. Reinvestment of dividends is assumed.
All fund and ETF returns shown below are after all fees and expenses
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Income Fund, Series F [NBC780] (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +%, +% and +%, respectively, according to National Bank Investments after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +%; five year is +%; ten year is +%.

Figures from Morningstar are no longer conveniently available.
Manulife Preferred Income Class Adv has been terminated by Manulife. The performance of this fund was last reported here in March, 2018.
Figures for Horizons Active Preferred Share ETF (HPR) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are -0.67%, +1.69% & +33.85%, respectively. Three year performance is +1.80%, five-year is +7.99%, ten year is +3.62%
Figures for NBI Preferred Equity Fund Series F [NBC710] (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +%, +% and +% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +%; five-year is +%; ten-year is +%

Acccording to the fund’s fact sheet as of June 30, 2016, the fund’s inception date was October 30, 2015. I do not know how they justify this nonsensical statement, but will assume that prior performance is being suppressed in some perfectly legal manner that somebody at National considers ethical.

The last time Altamira Preferred Equity Fund’s performance was reported here was April, 2014; performance under the National Bank banner was first reported here May, 2014.
The figures for the NAV of BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +32.69% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +11.64%, three year is +1.68%, five year is +7.65%, ten year is +2.19%

Note that analysis of ZPR shows some doubt as to whether this fund is either "laddered" or an "index fund". However, there was a remarkable improvement in the laddering in the six months following the publication of my analysis.
Figures for Fiera Canadian Preferred Share Class Cg Series F, (formerly Natixis Canadian Preferred Share Class Series F) (formerly NexGen Canadian Preferred Share Tax Managed Fund) are no longer available as the Fund is now the property of Canoe Financial. The last reported performance for the merged fund was May 2020.
Figures for BMO Preferred Share Fund (advisor series) are not available as the fund has been terminated. This is as per an announcement by the bank on 2024-5-28. The last performance report for this awful fund was as of July 31, 2024.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are no longer available since the fund has been terminated. Performance was last reported for the fund to month-end, March 2023
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are no longer available since the fund has merged with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (FPR).

Performance for the fund was last reported here in September, 2016; the first report of unavailability was in October, 2016.
Figures for Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund (Class F) according to the company are -0.8%, +1.5% and +29.0% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +1.4%, five-year is +7.2%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund F Class (F Class), as reported by the company are -1.23%, +1.83% and +30.98% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +11.42%, three-year is +0.95%, five-year is +6.37%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) are reported as -0.7%, +1.9% and +34.7% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +0.7%, five-year is +7.1%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are -1.3%, +1.6% and +31.9% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +2.6%; five-year is +9.0%
Figures for the Purpose Canadian Preferred Share Fund (Class F) are -0.04%, +2.10% and +30.94% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +0.85%; four-year is +11.49%; five-year is +8.96%; seven-year is +3.45%; ten-year is +5.43%.
Figures for the TD Active Preferred Share ETF (TPRF) are -0.84%, +2.12% and +35.43% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two-year performance is +12.46%, three-year is +2.76%; five-year is +9.89%.

Note that “The TD ETF may also hold common shares, government and corporate bonds, and other income-producing securities. … The TD ETF may invest in foreign securities to an extent that will vary from time to time but is not typically expected to exceed 5% of its assets at the time that foreign securities are purchased.

The non-preferred share components of the portfolio are relatively minor – as of their year-end 2023 report, they had $1.6-million in Canadian Natural Resources Limited common, $1.8-million in RBC common, $1.6-million in SLF common, and $1.75-million in Fortis common, totalling $6.75-million in a $220-million portfolio.

I take the view that the purpose of this mandate is to destroy, or at least deprecate, comparability. Banks hate comparability.

The five-year Canada yield increased, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) moving from 2.74% at September month-end to 3.07% at October month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) was 305bp on 2024-10-30, very near the 300bp on 2024-10-2 (chart end-date 2024-10-11).

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly (despite recent narrowing) from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to a level of 608bp (as of 2024-10-30) … (chart end-date 2024-10-11):

…while at the same time the interest-equivalent spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -116bp (as of 2024-10-30) from its 2021-7-28 level of +170bp (chart end-date 2024-10-11):

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for either the Pfd-2 or Pfd-3 Group issues.

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 3-month performance for discounted FixedResets for the Pfd-2 but there is one for Pfd-3 Group (13%).

There is significant correlation for the Pfd-2 Group (24%) but not for the Pfd-3 Group for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset:

… while the three-month returns vs. Term to Reset, shows no correlations for either the Pfd-2 Group or the Pfd-3 Group:

It should be noted that to some extent a dependence (of performance on term-to-reset) can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit (adverse effects) of higher (lower) projected dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. Equations for the relationship between correlation slope and change in GOC-5 were derived in the August 2022 PrefLetter.

Upward-sloping correlations of Performance vs. Term are to be expected when GOC-5 declines.

I keep talking about ‘Sustainable Income’ and nowadays it’s far higher than the dividends that are currently being distributed. This is because Sustainable Income is the average yield-to-worst (YTW) of the portfolio when the YTW is calculated to perpetuity (or to redemption, of course, if the yield to redemption is lower), including resets at the current GOC-5 rate. The sharp increase in GOC-5 in the past few years has caused the difference between YTW and Current Yield to skyrocket, but one way or another I expect that these two values will become much closer – slowly at first, but quickening in the fairly near future. We have to wait for the reset date of the MAPF portfolio securities before we see a change in actual cash receipts – and, of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the rate used for estimation purposes now will be used for the actual calculation in the future (chart prepared as of 2024-10-11).

I will note that the fund’s current holdings of FixedResets are now paying dividends based on their previous reset at an average GOC-5 rate of 1.79% (weighted by shares held), although note that the fund holds a sizable position in TRP.PR.E that will not earn a dividend at the new rate until the new year.

Calculation of MAPF Sustainable Income Per Unit
Month NAVPU Portfolio
Average
YTW		 Leverage
Divisor		 Securities
Average
YTW		 Capital
Gains
Multiplier		 Sustainable
Income
per
current
Unit
June, 2007 9.3114 5.16% 1.03 5.01% 1.3240 0.3524
September 9.1489 5.35% 0.98 5.46% 1.3240 0.3773
December, 2007 9.0070 5.53% 0.942 5.87% 1.3240 0.3993
March, 2008 8.8512 6.17% 1.047 5.89% 1.3240 0.3938
June 8.3419 6.034% 0.952 6.338% 1.3240 $0.3993
September 8.1886 7.108% 0.969 7.335% 1.3240 $0.4537
December, 2008 8.0464 9.24% 1.008 9.166% 1.3240 $0.5571
March 2009 $8.8317 8.60% 0.995 8.802% 1.3240 $0.5872
June 10.9846 7.05% 0.999 7.057% 1.3240 $0.5855
September 12.3462 6.03% 0.998 6.042% 1.3240 $0.5634
December 2009 10.5662 5.74% 0.981 5.851% 1.1141 $0.5549
March 2010 10.2497 6.03% 0.992 6.079% 1.1141 $0.5593
June 10.5770 5.96% 0.996 5.984% 1.1141 $0.5681
September 11.3901 5.43% 0.980 5.540% 1.1141 $0.5664
December 2010 10.7659 5.37% 0.993 5.408% 1.0298 $0.5654
March, 2011 11.0560 6.00% 0.994 5.964% 1.0298 $0.6403
June 11.1194 5.87% 1.018 5.976% 1.0298 $0.6453
September 10.2709 6.10%
Note		 1.001 6.106% 1.0298 $0.6090
December, 2011 10.0793 5.63%
Note		 1.031 5.805% 1.0000 $0.5851
March, 2012 10.3944 5.13%
Note		 0.996 5.109% 1.0000 $0.5310
June 10.2151 5.32%
Note		 1.012 5.384% 1.0000 $0.5500
September 10.6703 4.61%
Note		 0.997 4.624% 1.0000 $0.4934
December, 2012 10.8307 4.24% 0.989 4.287% 1.0000 $0.4643
March, 2013 10.9033 3.87% 0.996 3.886% 1.0000 $0.4237
June 10.3261 4.81% 0.998 4.80% 1.0000 $0.4957
September 10.0296 5.62% 0.996 5.643% 1.0000 $0.5660
December, 2013 9.8717 6.02% 1.008 5.972% 1.0000 $0.5895
March, 2014 10.2233 5.55% 0.998 5.561% 1.0000 $0.5685
June 10.5877 5.09% 0.998 5.100% 1.0000 $0.5395
September 10.4601 5.28% 0.997 5.296% 1.0000 $0.5540
December, 2014 10.5701 4.83% 1.009 4.787% 1.0000 $0.5060
March, 2015 9.9573 4.99% 1.001 4.985% 1.0000 $0.4964
June, 2015 9.4181 5.55% 1.002 5.539% 1.0000 $0.5217
September 7.8140 6.98% 0.999 6.987% 1.0000 $0.5460
December, 2015 8.1379 6.85% 0.997 6.871% 1.0000 $0.5592
March, 2016 7.4416 7.79% 0.998 7.805% 1.0000 $0.5808
June 7.6704 7.67% 1.011 7.587% 1.0000 $0.5819
September 8.0590 7.35% 0.993 7.402% 1.0000 $0.5965
December, 2016 8.5844 7.24% 0.990 7.313% 1.0000 $0.6278
March, 2017 9.3984 6.26% 0.994 6.298% 1.0000 $0.5919
June 9.5313 6.41% 0.998 6.423% 1.0000 $0.6122
September 9.7129 6.56% 0.998 6.573% 1.0000 $0.6384
December, 2017 10.0566 6.06% 1.004 6.036% 1.0000 $0.6070
March, 2018 10.2701 6.22% 1.007 6.177% 1.0000 $0.6344
June 10.2518 6.22% 0.995 6.251% 1.0000 $0.6408
September 10.2965 6.62% 1.018 6.503% 1.0000 $0.6696
December, 2018 8.6875 7.16% 0.997 7.182% 1.0000 $0.6240
March, 2019 8.4778 7.09% 1.007 7.041% 1.0000 $0.5969
June 8.0896 7.33% 0.996 7.359% 1.0000 $0.5953
September 7.7948 7.96% 0.998 7.976% 1.0000 $0.6217
December, 2019 8.0900 6.03% 0.995 6.060% 1.0000 $0.4903
March 5.5596 7.04% 1.006 6.998% 1.0000 $0.3891
June 6.3568 6.10% 0.9900 6.162% 1.0000 $0.3917
September 7.2852 5.32% 1.00 5.320% 1.0000 $0.3876
December, 2020 8.3947 4.46% 0.999 4.464% 1.0000 $0.3747
March, 2021 9.6473 4.48% 0.996 4.498% 1.0000 $0.4339
June 10.3712 3.92% 0.985 3.980% 1.0000 $0.4127
September 10.7572 4.08% 1.017 4.012% 1.0000 $0.4316
December, 2021 10.7432 4.31% 0.999 4.314% 1.0000 $0.4635
March, 2022 10.5040 5.53% 1.004 5.508% 1.0000 $0.5786
June 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
September 8.4093 8.10% 0.997 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6916
December, 2022 7.9921 8.47% 0.996 8.504% 1.0000 $0.6796
March, 2023 8.0788 7.90% 0.997 7.924% 1.0000 $0.6401
June 30 8.0197 9.19% 1.003 9.163% 1.0000 $0.7348
September 29 7.9922 9.86% 0.997 9.890% 1.0000 $0.7904
Decenber 29, 2023 8.4715 8.14% 1.002 8.124% 1.0000 $0.6882
March 28,2024 9.5892 7.60% 1.006 7.555% 1.0000 $0.7244
June 28 9.8516 7.32% 0.999 7.327% 1.0000 $0.7219
September 30 10.3641 6.55% 0.990 6.616% 1.0000 $0.6857
October 31,2024 10.1335 7.11% 1.004 7.082% 1.0000 $0.7176
NAVPU is shown after quarterly distributions of dividend income and annual distribution of capital gains.
Portfolio YTW includes cash (or margin borrowing), with an assumed interest rate of 0.00%
The Leverage Divisor indicates the level of cash in the account: if the portfolio is 1% in cash, the Leverage Divisor will be 0.99
Securities YTW divides “Portfolio YTW” by the “Leverage Divisor” to show the average YTW on the securities held; this assumes that the cash is invested in (or raised from) all securities held, in proportion to their holdings.
The Capital Gains Multiplier adjusts for the effects of Capital Gains Dividends. On 2009-12-31, there was a capital gains distribution of $1.989262 which is assumed for this purpose to have been reinvested at the final price of $10.5662. Thus, a holder of one unit pre-distribution would have held 1.1883 units post-distribution; the CG Multiplier reflects this to make the time-series comparable. Note that Dividend Distributions are not assumed to be reinvested.
Sustainable Income is the resultant estimate of the fund’s dividend income per current unit, before fees and expenses. Note that a “current unit” includes reinvestment of prior capital gains; a unitholder would have had the calculated sustainable income with only, say, 0.9 units in the past which, with reinvestment of capital gains, would become 1.0 current units.
DeemedRetractibles are comprised of all Straight Perpetuals (both PerpetualDiscount and PerpetualPremium) issued by BMO, BNS, CM, ELF, GWO, HSB, IAG, MFC, NA, RY, SLF and TD, which are not exchangable into common at the option of the company or the regulator (definition refined in May, 2011). These issues are analyzed as if their prospectuses included a requirement to redeem at par on or prior to 2022-1-31 (banks) or the Deemed Maturity date for insurers and insurance holding companies (see below)), in addition to the call schedule explicitly defined. See the Deemed Retractible Review: September 2016 for the rationale behind this analysis.

The same reasoning is also applied to FixedResets from these issuers, other than explicitly defined NVCC from banks.

In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction for insurance issues was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0. This resulted in a large drop in the yield calculated for these issues
The Deemed Maturity date for insurers was set at 2022-1-31 at the commencement of the process in February, 2011. It was extended to 2025-1-31 in April, 2013 and to 2030-1-31 in December, 2018. In November, 2019, the assumption of DeemedRetraction was cancelled in the wake of the IAIS decision included in ICS 2.0.
Yields for September, 2011, to January, 2012, were calculated by imposing a cap of 10% on the yields of YLO issues held, in order to avoid their extremely high calculated yields distorting the calculation and to reflect the uncertainty in the marketplace that these yields will be realized. From February to September 2012, yields on these issues have been set to zero. All YLO issues held were sold in October 2012.

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

Canada Yields Assumed in Calculations
Month-end GOC-5 3-Month Bill
September, 2015 0.78% 0.40%
December, 2015 0.71% 0.46%
March, 2016 0.70% 0.44%
June 0.57% 0.47%
September 0.58% 0.53%
December, 2016 1.16% 0.47%
March, 2017 1.08% 0.55%
June 1.35% 0.69%
September 1.79% 0.97%
December, 2017 1.83% 1.00%
March, 2018 2.06% 1.08%
June 1.95% 1.22%
September 2.33% 1.55%
December, 2018 1.88% 1.65%
March, 2019 1.46% 1.66%
June 1.34% 1.66%
September 1.41% 1.66%
December, 2019 1.68% 1.68%
March, 2020 0.57% 0.21%
June 0.37% 0.21%
September 0.35% 0.14%
December, 2020 0.42% 0.08%
March, 2021 0.94% 0.09%
June 0.93% 0.13%
September 1.07% 0.13%
December, 2021 1.31% 0.16%
March, 2022 2.44% 0.53%
June 3.24% 2.11%
September 3.45% 3.60%
December, 2022 3.37% 4.35%
March, 2023 2.93% 4.44%
June 3.74% 5.00%
September 4.31% 5.21%
December, 2023 3.21% 5.13%
March, 2024 3.55% 5.06%
June 3.41% 4.71%
September 2.74% 3.94%
October, 2024 3.07% 3.50%