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MAPF Performance: August, 2022

Saturday, September 10th, 2022

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close August 31, 2022, was $9.2303.

Performance was hurt by the fund’s holdings in MFC.PR.B (-2.52%) and MFC.PR.C (-2.48%), but helped by CF.PR.A (+8.33%), TRP.PR.A (+7.11%) and TRP.PR.D (+6.69%).

There is still a pronounced ‘risk-off’ sentiment in the market as interest rates rise, but I feel it is only a matter of time before investors start paying attention to the fundamental risk of these instruments compared to their eye-popping interest-equivalent yields. I have often pointed out that a major long-term decline in the market appears to have been triggered by the reset of TRP.PR.A to 3.266% in December, 2014, a 29% reduction from its issue level of 4.60%; this was the first large, widely held issue to be severely affected by the decline in 5-year government yields and served as a wake-up call to those who hadn’t been paying attention. Perhaps this issue will play a similar role in December 2024; given a GOC-5 yield of 3.29% it is currently forecast to reset to 5.21%, a jump of 50% from its current level of 3.479%. Time will tell!

Returns to August 31, 2022
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month +3.42% +1.12% N/A
Three Months -6.65% -4.45% N/A
One Year -9.91% -6.81% -7.26%
Two Years (annualized) +16.00% +7.99% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +12.27% +7.34% +6.74%
Four Years (annualized) +2.12% +1.68% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +3.94% +2.71% +2.13%
Six Years (annualized) +7.15% +4.63% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +6.29% +4.33% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +3.17% +1.63% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +4.05% +2.18% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +3.53% +1.85% +1.36%
Eleven Years (annualized) +3.59% +2.16%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +4.48% +2.66%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +4.86% +2.92%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +8.00% +3.17%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +7.35% +2.50%  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.10%    
Seventeen Years (annualized) +7.03%    
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.00%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.56%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +8.07%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.03%    
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.
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Income Fund (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +0.82%, -5.47% and -8.25%, respectively, according to Globe & Mail / Fundata after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +8.45%; five year is +3.54%; ten year is +2.77%.

Note that I am using the figures from the “Download Basic” button rather than the linked page itself. The two figures do not agree, but the figures from the former choice are at least labelled with the end-date.

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 +1.28%, -4.80% & -7.27%, respectively. Three year performance is +9.06%, five-year is +2.81%, ten year is +2.63%
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Fund (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +1.28%, -4.73% and -7.28% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +9.31%; five-year is +2.97%.

Note that I am using the figures from the “Download Basic” button rather than the linked page itself. The two figures do not agree, but the figures from the former choice are at least labelled with the end-date.

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 S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is -5.28% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +11.21%, three year is +9.25%, five year is +3.08%.
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) according to BMO are +0.89%, -4.56% and -8.78% for the past one-, three- and twelve-months, respectively. Two year performance is +5.77%; three year is +5.97%; five-year is +0.19%.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are -6.87% for the past twelve months. The three-year figure is +7.37%; five years is +2.37%; ten-year is +1.71%
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 +1.2%, -4.6% and -6.3% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +8.5%, five-year is +2.1%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund A Class (A Class), as reported by the company are +1.32%, -4.42% and -7.67% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +7.91%, three-year is +7.13%, five-year is +1.90%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) as reported by Morningstar are +1.79%, -4.06% and -6.23% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +9.16%; five-year is +2.69%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are +0.9%, -4.4% and -6.4% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +10.2%; five-year is +3.7%

Commentary to be added shortly!

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
August, 2022 9.2303 7.26% 0.993 7.311% 1.0000 $0.6748
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%
August, 2022 3.29% 3.24%

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MAPF Portfolio Composition: August, 2022

Saturday, September 10th, 2022

Turnover ticked up marginally to 6% in August. Market volumes have been very low for quite some time, having never really recovered from the usual summer decline in 2021.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on August 31, 2022, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2022-8-31
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 6.4% 6.41% 13.25
Fixed-Reset Discount 48.5% 7.41% 12.75
Insurance – Straight 1.9% 5.94% 14.06
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 30.5% 7.10% 13.21
Scraps – Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
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 12.0% 8.12% 11.99
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 +0.7% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 7.26% 12.77
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 resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 3.29%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 3.24% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 4.70%

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 2022-8-31
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 43.1%
Pfd-2 11.3%
Pfd-2(low) 33.0%
Pfd-3(high) 3.5%
Pfd-3 5.1%
Pfd-3(low) 1.2%
Pfd-4(high) 1.2%
Pfd-4 0.9%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash +0.7%
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.
A position is held in CF.PR.A which is no longer rated by DBRS, but has been included in the table with a deemed rating of Pfd-4; the final DBRS rating was Pfd-4(high), but I’m taking it down a notch for reporting purposes because the lack of a rating makes me nervous.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2022-8-31
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 51.6%
$50,000 – $100,000 28.8%
$100,000 – $200,000 17.8%
$200,000 – $300,000 1.2%
>$300,000 0%
Cash +0.7%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 21.6%
150-199bp 29.2%
200-249bp 28.9%
250-299bp 6.7%
300-349bp 2.8%
350-399bp 3.9%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 9.0%

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 0%
0-1 Year 9.0%
1-2 Years 8.8%
2-3 Years 31.2%
3-4 Years 36.7%
4-5 Years 5.5%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 9.0%

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.

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MAPF Performance : July, 2022

Monday, August 8th, 2022

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close July 29, 2022, was $8.9251.

Performance was hurt by the fund’s holdings in CVE.PR.G (-7.52%); FTS.PR.K (-7.26%) and TRP.PR.E (-7.22%). There was no major pattern apparent in the relative performance of the issues held.

There is still a pronounced ‘risk-off’ sentiment in the market as interest rates rise, but I feel it is only a matter of time before investors start paying attention to the fundamental risk of these instruments compared to their eye-popping interest-equivalent yields.

Returns to July 29, 2022
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month -4.15% -0.25% N/A
Three Months -3.90% -0.77% N/A
One Year -10.82% -6.87% -7.31%
Two Years (annualized) +17.35% +9.85% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +8.81% +5.51% +4.91%
Four Years (annualized) +1.42% +1.60% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +3.19% +2.33% +1.74%
Six Years (annualized) +6.94% +4.63% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +4.94% +3.59% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +2.85% +1.58% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +3.56% +1.93% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +3.40% +1.78% +1.29%
Eleven Years (annualized) +3.35% +2.00%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +4.33% +2.68%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +5.15% +3.08%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +8.18% +3.27%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +7.09% +2.46  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +6.99%    
Seventeen Years (annualized) +6.85%    
Eighteen Years (annualized) +6.88%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.49%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.78%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +7.95%    
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.
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Income Fund (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are -0.49%, -1.49% and -7.97%, respectively, according to Globe & Mail / Fundata after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +6.66%; five year is +3.22%; ten year is +2.72%

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 -0.19%, -1.25% & -7.53%, respectively. Three year performance is +6.67%, five-year is +2.34%, ten year is +2.54%
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Fund (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are -0.05%, -1.29% and -7.58% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +6.85%; five-year is +2.51%.

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 S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is -5.89% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +13.04%, three year is +6.87%, five year is +2.50%.
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) according to BMO are -0.01%, -0.87% and -0.69% for the past one-, three- and twelve-months, respectively. Two year performance is +7.88%; three year is +3.64%; five-year is -0.21%.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are -6.81% for the past twelve months. The three-year figure is +5.60%; five years is +1.97%; ten-year is +1.66%
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 -0.4%, -0.9% and -6.5% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +5.8%, five-year is +1.7%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund A Class (A Class), as reported by the company are -0.88%, -1.38% and -8.55% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +8.68%, three-year is +4.19%, five-year is +0.64%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) as reported by Morningstar are -0.71%, -0.88% and -6.89% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +6.58%; five-year is +2.05%
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 +%

Prior yield increases reversed in July, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) falling from 3.24% at June month-end to 2.69% at July month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) has recently popped up to 320bp and is very volatile:

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to its current level of 518bp …

…while at the same time the spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to 4bp from its 2021-7-28 level of 170bp.

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, which is normal because there is a lot of noise in this inefficient market.

However, the normally moderate correlations between Issue Reset Spread and three-month performance have disappeared again in this month’s check:

Surprisingly, there was no significant correlation for either groups for 1-Month performance against term-to-reset, despite the overall change in the GOC-5 rate of 55bp (from 3.24% to 2.69%, almost exactly reversing June’s change) during the period:

… and for three-month performance, poor correlations of 12% for both Pfd-2 and Pfd-3 were observed; this was actually better than expected as the GOC-5 change for the three months was negligible, from 2.68% to 2.69%:

It should be noted that to some extent such a dependence can be justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit of presumably higher dividend rates sooner as a result of higher GOC-5 yields and therefore, perhaps, for longer. In this case, however, there has been no significant change in GOC-5 over the three-month period, so it would appear that interest rate anticipation has had an effect over this time.

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
July, 2022 8.9251 6.86% 1.006 6.819% 1.0000 $0.6086
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%
July, 2022 2.69% 2.68%

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MAPF Portfolio Composition : July, 2022

Saturday, August 6th, 2022

Turnover remained low at 3% in July. Market volumes have been very low for quite some time, having never really recovered from the usual summer decline in 2021.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on July 29, 2022, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2022-7-29
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 6.6% 6.34% 13.36
Fixed-Reset Discount 50.9% 6.91% 13.24
Insurance – Straight 0.1% 5.76% 14.24
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 31.4% 6.44% 13.93
Scraps – Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
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 11.7% 7.74% 12.31
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% 6.86% 13.44
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 resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 2.69%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 2.68% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 4.70%

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 2022-7-29
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 43.3%
Pfd-2 12.4%
Pfd-2(low) 33.3%
Pfd-3(high) 3.3%
Pfd-3 5.0%
Pfd-3(low) 1.3%
Pfd-4(high) 1.2%
Pfd-4 0.9%
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.
A position is held in CF.PR.A which is no longer rated by DBRS, but has been included in the table with a deemed rating of Pfd-4; the final DBRS rating was Pfd-4(high), but I’m taking it down a notch for reporting purposes because the lack of a rating makes me nervous.

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2022-7-29
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 52.5%
$50,000 – $100,000 29.5%
$100,000 – $200,000 18.7%
$200,000 – $300,000 0%
>$300,000 0%
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 23.0%
150-199bp 29.8%
200-249bp 28.3%
250-299bp 6.8%
300-349bp 2.1%
350-399bp 3.8%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 6.1%

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 0%
0-1 Year 9.1%
1-2 Years 7.0%
2-3 Years 33.0%
3-4 Years 38.0%
4-5 Years 6.8%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 6.1%

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.

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MAPF Performance : June 2022

Sunday, July 3rd, 2022

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close June 30, 2022, was $9.3115 after a dividend distribution of 0.099935 per Unit.

I was relieved to see that the quotes acquired normally from the Toronto Exchange were actually relatively good this month.

There is still a pronounced ‘risk-off’ sentiment in the market as interest rates rise, but I feel it is only a matter of time before investors start paying attention to the fundamental risk of these instruments compared to their eye-popping interest-equivalent yields.

Returns to June 30, 2022
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month -5.83% -5.27% N/A
Three Months -10.40% -7.52% N/A
One Year -6.51% -5.88% -6.33%
Two Years (annualized) +26.42% +13.40% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +10.54% +6.06% +5.44%
Four Years (annualized) +2.78% +1.96% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +4.49% +2.60% +2.03%
Six Years (annualized) +8.34% +5.29% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +4.86% +3.01% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +3.37% +1.65% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +3.87% +1.84% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +4.09% +1.91% +1.41%
Eleven Years (annualized) +3.70% +2.10%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +4.95% +2.85%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +6.08% +3.36%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +8.33% +3.12%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +7.43% +2.47  
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.29%    
Seventeen Years (annualized) +7.13%    
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.28%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +7.93%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.89%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.24%    
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.
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Income Fund (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +%, -% and -%, respectively, according to Globe & Mail / Fundata 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 -5.82%, -8.52% & -6.29%, respectively. Three year performance is +7.30%, five-year is +2.70%, ten year is +2.65%
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Fund (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +%, -% and -% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +%; five-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 S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is -4.44% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +17.69%, three year is +7.54%, five year is +2.92%.
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) according to BMO are -5.39%, -8.17% and -7.89% for the past one-, three- and twelve-months, respectively. Two year performance is +12.05%; three year is +4.19%; five-year is -0.05%.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are -5.90% for the past twelve months. The three-year figure is +6.11%; five years is +2.30%; ten-year is +1.80%
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 -5.3%, -7.5% and -5.3% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +6.5%, five-year is +2.0%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund A Class (A Class), as reported by the company are -4.97%, -8.11% and -7.06% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +12.48%, three-year is +4.98%, five-year is +1.04%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) as reported by Morningstar are -5.07%, -7.11% and -5.13% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +7.33%; five-year is +2.55%
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 +%

The pace of yield increases resumed speed in June, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) rising from 2.71% at May month-end to 3.24% at June month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) has recently declined to 256bp and is very volatile:

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to its current level of 493bp …

…while at the same time the spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -45bp from its 2021-7-28 level of 170bp.

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets for Pfd-2 Group issues, which is normal because there is a lot of noise in this inefficient market; there is a small (12%) correlation for the Pfd-3 Group.

However, the normally moderate correlations between Issue Reset Spread and three-month performance have disappeared in this month’s check:

There was significant correlation for both groups (20% and 14%) for 1-Month performance against term-to-rest not surpising, since the overall change in the GOC-5 rate was an impressive 53bp (from 2.71% to 3.24%) during the period:

… and for three-month performance, last month’s correlations of 27% and 18% for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3 respectively, have changed to 39% and 28%; the GOC change was 80bp, from 2.44% to 3.24%:

It should be noted that to some extent such a dependence is justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit of presumably higher dividend rates sooner and therefore, perhaps, for longer. However, it seems that this effect merely mitigates the larger influence of ‘risk-off’ behaviour in the market.

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, 2022 9.3115 7.04% 0.993 7.090% 1.0000 $0.6672
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, 2022 3.24% 2.11%

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MAPF Portfolio Composition : June 2022

Sunday, July 3rd, 2022

Turnover remained low at 4% in June. Market volumes have been very low for quite some time, having never really recovered from the usual summer decline.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on June 30, 2022, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2022-6-30
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 6.4% 6.25% 13.53
Fixed-Reset Discount 50.3% 7.14% 13.09
Insurance – Straight 0.1% 5.91% 14.05
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 31.0% 6.87% 13.52
Scraps – Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
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 11.6% 7.97% 12.23
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 +0.7% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 7.04% 13.06
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 resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 3.24%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 2.11% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 3.70%

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 2022-6-30
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 41.6%
Pfd-2 12.4%
Pfd-2(low) 33.7%
Pfd-3(high) 3.2%
Pfd-3 5.1%
Pfd-3(low) 1.2%
Pfd-4(high) 2.1%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash +0.7%
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 2022-6-30
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 39.9%
$50,000 – $100,000 35.4%
$100,000 – $200,000 23.3%
$200,000 – $300,000 0.7%
>$300,000 0%
Cash +0.7%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 22.5%
150-199bp 30.0%
200-249bp 29.7%
250-299bp 4.5%
300-349bp 2.1%
350-399bp 4.0%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 7.2%

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 0%
0-1 Year 9.2%
1-2 Years 7.1%
2-3 Years 20.4%
3-4 Years 41.8%
4-5 Years 14.3%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 7.2%

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.

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MAPF Performance : May 2022

Monday, June 20th, 2022

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close May 31, 2022, was $9.9943.

I apologize for the late publication of this post. Month-end quotes, purchased at great expense from the Toronto Exchange, were even more horrible than they usually are, to the point that they simply could not be used without correction. This required purchase of quite a few “Trades & Quotes” quotations, which are far more expensive, for which the TMX was estimating a cost of over $40 per ticker; in addition, the on-line ordering system told me at one point that I could not order the data and that I should contact Data Sales. Getting all this sorted out was extremely time-consuming; but in the end I received data that was within the bounds of reason in aggregate and cost much less than the official estimate. On the bright side, I now have a contact name for a person at the Exchange who has authority to decide to sell ‘closing quotes’ (as of 4pm) as distinct from the current ‘last quotes’ (which are the closing quotes after quite a few orders have been cancelled subsequent to 4pm). So I’ll be writing a letter in the next few weeks and will keep Assiduous Readers advised of any progress.

Returns to May 31, 2022
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month +6.47% +5.01% N/A
Three Months -4.22% -2.65% N/A
One Year +1.49% -0.87% -1.36%
Two Years (annualized) +32.38% +18.77% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +13.15% +8.27% +7.65%
Four Years (annualized) +4.50% +3.42% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +6.71% +4.30% +3.75%
Six Years (annualized) +9.16% +6.13% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +5.22% +3.34% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +4.33% +2.51% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +4.13% +2.20% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +4.69% +2.54% +2.03%
Eleven Years (annualized) +4.21% +2.61%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +5.95% +3.53%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +6.97% +3.90%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +8.28% +3.20%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +7.90%    
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.73%    
Seventeen Years (annualized) +7.58%    
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.72%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +8.40%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +8.30%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.68%    
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.
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Income Fund (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are +5.07%, -3.17% and -0.92%, respectively, according to Globe & Mail / Fundata after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +9.60%; five year is +5.27%; ten year is +3.51%

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 +5.05%, -3.16% & -0.89%, respectively. Three year performance is +9.61%, five-year is +4.57%, ten year is +3.34%
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Fund (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are +4.94%, -3.29% and -1.01% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +9.79%; five-year is +4.72%.

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 S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is +0.29% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +23.29%, three year is +9.66%, five year is +4.74%.
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) according to BMO are +4.79%, -3.12% and -3.21% for the past one-, three- and twelve-months, respectively. Two year performance is +17.63%; three year is +6.40%; five-year is +1.53%.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are -1.29% for the past twelve months. The three-year figure is +8.12%; five years is +3.98%; ten-year is +2.36%
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 +5.1%, -2.3% and +0.2% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +8.3%, five-year is +3.7%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund A Class (A Class), as reported by the company are +4.69%, -3.57% and -2.33% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +17.29%, three-year is +6.92%, five-year is +2.69%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) as reported by Morningstar are -%, -% 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 +4.4%, -2.9% and 0.0% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +10.7%; five-year is +5.5%

The pace of yield changes slowed markedly in May, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) rising slightly from 2.68% at April month-end to 2.71% at May month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) has been bouncing around the 300bp level recently and is very volatile:

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to its current level of 493bp …

…while at the same time the spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to 7bp from its 2021-7-28 level of 170bp.

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets, which is normal because there is a lot of noise in this inefficient market:

However, the normally moderate correlations between Issue Reset Spread and three-month performance have disappeared in this month’s check:

Last month, there were correlations of 26% and 28% for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3, respectively, but this month there is no significant correlation for either group – not surpising, since the overall change in the GOC-5 rate was only 3bp during the period:

… but for three-month performance, last month’s correlations of 60% and 44% for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3 respectively, have changed to 27% and 18%:

It should be noted that to some extent such a dependence is justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit of presumably higher dividend rates sooner and therefore, perhaps, for longer. If the hypothesis is correct, however, then why should the issues be going down at all? The contradiction can be resolved only by making inreasingly specific adverse assumptions.

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
May, 2022 9.9943 6.16% 1.007 6.117% 1.0000 $0.6114
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%
May, 2022 2.71% 1.48%

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MAPF Portfolio Composition : May, 2022

Saturday, June 18th, 2022

Turnover declined to 3% in May. Market volumes have been very low for quite some time, having never really recovered from the usual summer decline.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on May 31, 2022, were:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2022-5-31
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 6.1% 6.24% 13.43
Fixed-Reset Discount 51.4% 6.08% 14.33
Insurance – Straight 0% N/A N/A
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 31.6% 5.81% 14.85
Scraps – Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
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 11.6% 7.07% 13.09
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 -0.7% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.16% 14.40
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 resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 2.71%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 1.48% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 3.20%

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 2022-5-31
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 44.4%
Pfd-2 10.5%
Pfd-2(low) 34.2%
Pfd-3(high) 3.3%
Pfd-3 5.1%
Pfd-3(low) 1.2%
Pfd-4(high) 2.0%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash -0.7%
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 2022-5-31
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 37.4%
$50,000 – $100,000 35.7%
$100,000 – $200,000 21.1%
$200,000 – $300,000 2.6%
>$300,000 3.8%
Cash -0.7%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 23.0%
150-199bp 30.9%
200-249bp 30.1%
250-299bp 4.6%
300-349bp 2.0%
350-399bp 3.9%
400-449bp 0%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 5.4%

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 0%
0-1 Year 9.3%
1-2 Years 7.0%
2-3 Years 17.6%
3-4 Years 34.6%
4-5 Years 22.1%
5-6 Years 3.8%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 5.4%

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.

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MAPF Performance: April, 2022

Saturday, May 7th, 2022

Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund’s Net Asset Value per Unit as of the close April 29, 2022, was $9.3869.

Returns to April 29, 2022
Period MAPF TXPR*
Total Return		 CPD – according to Blackrock
One Month -10.63% -7.04% N/A
Three Months -13.45% -9.38% N/A
One Year -0.54% -2.65% -3.13%
Two Years (annualized) +28.11% +14.91% N/A
Three Years (annualized) +8.93% +5.45% +4.84%
Four Years (annualized) +3.10% +2.41% N/A
Five Years (annualized) +5.14% +2.94% +2.37%
Six Years (annualized) +8.31% +5.36% N/A
Seven Years (annualized) +4.23% +2.55% N/A
Eight Years (annualized) +3.68% +1.82% N/A
Nine Years (annualized) +3.42% +1.62% N/A
Ten Years (annualized) +3.97% +1.98% +1.48%
Eleven Years (annualized) +3.97% +2.28%  
Twelve Years (annualized) +5.49% +3.20%  
Thirteen Years (annualized) +7.09% +3.83%  
Fourteen Years (annualized) +7.91% +2.95%  
Fifteen Years (annualized) +7.39%    
Sixteen Years (annualized) +7.34%    
Seventeen Years (annualized) +7.29%    
Eighteen Years (annualized) +7.42%    
Nineteen Years (annualized) +8.30%    
Twenty Years (annualized) +7.96%    
Twenty-One Years (annualized) +8.34%    
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.
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Income Fund (formerly Omega Preferred Equity) (which are after all fees and expenses) for 1-, 3- and 12-months are -7.59%, -10.54% and -1.89%, respectively, according to Globe & Mail / Fundata after all fees & expenses. Three year performance is +6.78%; five year is +3.99%; ten year is +2.96%

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 -7.54%, -10.19% & -2.14%, respectively. Three year performance is +6.59%, five-year is +3.17%, ten year is +2.78%
Figures for National Bank Preferred Equity Fund (formerly Altamira Preferred Equity Fund) are -7.54%, -10.16% and -1.90% for one-, three- and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +6.78%; five-year is +3.34%.

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 S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR) is -1.20% for the past twelve months. Two year performance is +18.74%, three year is +6.58%, five year is +3.24%.
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) according to BMO are -7.37%, -9.66% and 5.23% for the past one-, three- and twelve-months, respectively. Two year performance is +13.59%; three year is +3.41%; five-year is +0.18%.
Figures for PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class, Series F (PPS) are -2.73% for the past twelve months. The three-year figure is +5.51%; five years is +2.64%; ten-year is +1.85%
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 -7.1%, -9.8% and -0.7% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three year performance is +5.2%, five-year is +2.3%.
Figures for the Desjardins Canadian Preferred Share Fund A Class (A Class), as reported by the company are -7.64%, -10.31% and -3.54% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Two year performance is +13.66%, three-year is +4.06%, five-year is +1.35%
Figures for the RBC Canadian Preferred Share ETF (RPF) as reported by Morningstar are -6.95%, -9.56% and -1.84% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +6.20%; five-year is +2.91%
Figures for the Dynamic Active Preferred Shares ETF (DXP) are -7.0%, -9.7% and -0.2% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. Three-year performance is +8.0%; five-year is +4.2%

It was a wild month, with the five-year Canada yield (“GOC-5”) rising from 2.44% at March month-end to 2.68% at April month-end.

The Seniority Spread (between long-term corporate bonds and interest-equivalent PerpetualDiscounts) has been bouncing around the 300bp level recently and is very volatile:

The situation with FixedResets is interesting, with the spread between GOC-5 and the interest-adjusted FixedReset (Discount) rate widening significantly from its 2021-11-10 low of 344bp to its current level of 519bp …

…while at the same time the spread between FixedReset (Discounts) and PerpetualDiscounts has narrowed to -1bp from its 2021-7-28 level of 170bp.

There is no significant correlation between the Issue Reset Spread and 1-month performance for discounted FixedResets, which is normal because there is a lot of noise in this inefficient market:

However, as is also normal, there are moderate correlations (23% and 18%, for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3 issues, respectively) between Issue Reset Spread and three-month performance (the noise cancels out, to some extent):

In last month’s performance review, I noted that there was no significant correlation between performance and term-to-reset, despite a few anecdotal outliers. This month, the tables have turned, for both one-month (correlations of 26% and 28% for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3, respectively):

… and for three-month performance (correlations of an astonishing 60% and 44% for Pfd-2 and Pfd-3 respectively):

This leads to a hypothesis that investors consider the current increase in government yields to be a temporary phenomenon that must be jumped on immediately in order to make any profit; but it should be noted that to some extent such a dependence is justified as the nearer-term issues will receive the benefit of presumably higher dividend rates sooner and therefore, perhaps, for longer. If the hypothesis is correct, however, then why should the issues be going down at all? The contradiction can be resolved only by making inreasingly specific adverse assumptions.

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
April, 2022 9.3869 6.44% 1.000 6.440% 1.0000 $0.6045
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%
April, 2022 2.68% 1.34%

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MAPF Portfolio Composition: April, 2022

Monday, May 2nd, 2022

Turnover remained steady at 6% in March. Market volumes have been very low for quite some time, having never really recovered from the usual summer decline.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on April 29, 2022 was as follows:

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2022-4-29
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 6.5% 6.19% 13.58
Fixed-Reset Discount 50.9% 6.43% 13.80
Insurance – Straight 0% N/A N/A
FloatingReset 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Premium 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Bank non-NVCC 0% N/A N/A
FixedReset Insurance non-NVCC 31.0% 6.20% 14.29
Scraps – Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
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 11.7% 7.22% 12.88
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 -0.0% 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.44% 13.83
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 resettable instruments are performed assuming a constant GOC-5 rate of 2.68%, a constant 3-Month Bill rate of 1.24% and a constant Canada Prime Rate of 3.20%

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 2022-4-29
DBRS Rating MAPF Weighting
Pfd-1 0
Pfd-1(low) 0
Pfd-2(high) 44.7%
Pfd-2 9.4%
Pfd-2(low) 34.3%
Pfd-3(high) 3.3%
Pfd-3 5.0%
Pfd-3(low) 1.3%
Pfd-4(high) 2.1%
Pfd-4 0%
Pfd-4(low) 0%
Pfd-5(high) 0%
Pfd-5 0%
Cash -0.0%
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 2022-4-29
Average Daily Trading MAPF Weighting
<$50,000 19.2%
$50,000 – $100,000 57.4%
$100,000 – $200,000 21.1%
$200,000 – $300,000 2.3%
>$300,000 0%
Cash -0.0%
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding.

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Range MAPF Weight
<100bp 0%
100-149bp 22.4%
150-199bp 30.3%
200-249bp 31.2%
250-299bp 3.7%
300-349bp 1.3%
350-399bp 3.8%
400-449bp 0.9%
450-499bp 0%
500-549bp 0%
550-599bp 0%
>= 600bp 0%
Undefined 6.4%

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 0%
0-1 Year 16.0%
1-2 Years 5.9%
2-3 Years 17.9%
3-4 Years 33.2%
4-5 Years 20.6%
5-6 Years 0%
>6 Years 0%
Not Floating Rate 6.4%

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.

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