Category: Market Action

There are high level worries about the Hong Kong property market:

Hong Kong home prices are the highest relative to shares of the city’s publicly-traded developers in almost two decades. For Bocom International Holdings Co. analyst Alfred Lau, that’s a sign that the property market’s about to drop as much as 20 percent.
…
While home values kept rising in August, sales showed signs of a slowdown. The number of transactions tumbled 37 percent from a year earlier amid concern about China’s economic outlook and the prospect of higher borrowing costs as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates. Analysts including JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Cusson Leung and Morgan Stanley’s Praveen K. Choudhary are calling for Hong Kong property prices to slide as much as 10 percent next year.
…
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said in a report Friday the risk of a “downward adjustment” in home prices is increasing amid volatility in global and domestic financial markets.

One wonders what implications that will have for Vancouver and, to a lesser extent, for Toronto.

We may see more rights offerings in Canada:

On September 24, 2015, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced the adoption of a streamlined prospectus-exempt rights offering process, which is aimed at providing reporting issuers with greater access to this prospectus exemption. Rights offerings permit issuers to distribute to their existing securityholders rights to purchase securities, generally at a discount to the prevailing market price. These offerings are often viewed as a fair way to raise capital because they protect existing investors from dilution. The rights offering prospectus exemption has historically not been frequently used in Canada, owing to the time and cost associated with the current regime. Under the new regime, none of the materials provided to securityholders will be reviewed by regulators prior to their use, substantially reducing the time frame in which an issuer can complete a rights offering. The new rights offering prospectus exemption will be available only to reporting issuers (other than investment funds) issuing an existing class of securities.

The process for completing a rights offering under the streamlined new prospectus exemption and the required documentation are set out below.

• •Prior to the commencement of the exercise period for the rights, the issuer files a rights offering notice on SEDAR and sends it to all securityholders resident in Canada holding the class of securities to be issued on the exercise of the rights. The notice contains only basic information about the offering, such as the size of the offering, the steps required to participate in the offering and how to access the rights offering circular electronically. The CSA does not expect a rights offering notice to be longer than two pages.
• •Concurrently with the filing of the rights offering notice, the issuer files a rights offering circular on SEDAR (the issuer is not required to send the circular to securityholders). The rights offering circular includes, in question-and-answer format, limited disclosure regarding the distribution, such as information relating to the particulars of the offering, the sources and uses of funds available after the offering and insider participation in the offering. The issuer must also disclose in the circular any material facts or material changes that have not yet been disclosed and include a statement that there are no undisclosed material facts or materials changes in respect of the issuer. The circular also must be certified not to contain a misrepresentation by the issuer’s CEO, CFO and two of its directors. The CSA does not expect a rights offering circular to be longer than 10 pages.
• •The exercise period for the rights must be at least 21 days but not more than 90 days.
• •On the closing date of the offering, the issuer must issue and file on SEDAR a news release setting out, among other things, the aggregate proceeds of the distribution and the number of securities issued under the basic subscription privilege, any additional subscription privilege and stand-by commitment.

Under this new rights offering prospectus exemption, the permitted dilution under an exempt rights offering will be increased from the current 25% to 100% in any 12-month period, which should make the exemption more attractive to smaller issuers. Rights offerings that result in greater dilution will have to be conducted by way of a prospectus.
…
We expect that the new rights offering prospectus exemption will be well received by reporting issuers because it should reduce the time and cost associated with rights offerings, thereby making such offerings a more practical means of raising capital. Issuers that are not reporting issuers and that wish to raise capital from existing securityholders will now have to rely on the existing shareholder exemption or one of the other exemptions available under Canadian provincial securities laws, such as the accredited investor exemption or the private issuer exemption.

DBRS downgraded 31 European banks due to removal of systemic support:

DBRS Ratings Limited and DBRS Inc., collectively DBRS, have downgraded the senior debt and deposit ratings of 31 banking groups in Europe that had previously benefited from some uplift for systemic support. The short-term debt ratings of 13 banking groups were also downgraded. At the same time, positive fundamental trends have led to an upgrade of the Intrinsic Assessment of 10 banks, which has offset the removal of support uplift for these banks.

These rating actions conclude the reviews that were initiated on 20 May 2015. They reflect DBRS’s view that developments in European regulation and legislation mean that there is less certainty about the likelihood of timely systemic support. Overall, DBRS views this as negative for European banks’ senior bondholders, whilst noting that certain fundamental improvements – particularly in capitalisation – have offset some of the impact from these developments.

DBRS has reviewed and changed the support assessment for 46 banking groups to reflect DBRS’s view of the reduction in the predictability of systemic support. This has led to the removal of systemic support uplift from the senior debt ratings for a total of 31 banking groups, removing 1 notch of uplift from 29 banks and 2 notches of uplift from 2 banks. At the same time the Intrinsic Assessments (IAs) of 10 banks were raised by 1 notch, offsetting the impact of the removal of support uplift. In addition, the senior debt ratings of 5 banks were unaffected by the change in the support assessment, because their Intrinsic Assessments were already at the same level as or higher than the respective sovereign rating.

HSBC Holdings and hence HSBC Bank Canada, proud issuer of HSB.PR.C and HSB.PR.D, was caught in the sweep but preferred share ratings are unaffected:

DBRS Limited (collectively with DBRS Ratings Limited and DBRS Inc., DBRS) has today downgraded the Long-Term Deposits and Senior Debt of HSBC Bank Canada to A (high) from AA (low) and its Subordinated Debt ratings to “A” from A (high). The trend is now Stable. Today’s rating actions follow DBRS’s lowering of the ratings of HSBC Holdings plc, HSBC Bank Canada’s ultimate parent. DBRS has also removed the ratings from Under Review with Negative Implications, where they were placed on May 20, 2015. There is no change to the Short-Term Instruments rating nor to the Non-Cumulative Preferred Shares Class I rating of HSBC Bank Canada as a result of today’s actions.

Today’s rating actions are driven by DBRS’s having downgraded the senior debt and deposit ratings of a number of banking groups in Europe, including HSBC Holdings plc, that had previously benefited from some uplift for systemic support. These rating actions conclude the review that was initiated on May 20, 2015, and reflect DBRS’s view that developments in European regulation and legislation mean that there is less certainty about the likelihood of timely systemic support. Given HSBC Bank Canada’s position in HSBC’s global franchise, DBRS has assigned an SA1 designation to the bank, which implies strong and predictable support from the parent, should it be required. As a supported rating with a SA1 designation, HSBC Bank Canada’s rating will generally move in tandem with HSBC Holdings plc’s rating.

As part of a continuing series on well-known Canadian preferred share investors, PrefBlog proudly introduces the Wicked Witch of the East:

In a startling turn of events, not all classes of Canadian preferred share had a bad day today, as PerpetualDiscounts were off 23bp, FixedResets down 69bp and DeemedRetractibles gained 12bp. The Performance Highlights table continues to be absurdly long. Volume was very high.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

Implied Volatility jumped again today.

TRP.PR.B, which resets 2020-6-30 at +235, is bid at 11.67 to be $0.55 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $0.64 cheap at its bid price of 11.87.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility edging upward.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.H, resetting at +313bp on 2017-3-19, bid at 22.75 to be 0.48 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 20.79 to be 0.73 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible. Note that the pending new issue has been added with a price of 25.00; the valuation effects of the rate floor have been ignored.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 15.30 to be $0.77 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 19.90 and appears to be $1.02 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 19.65, looks $0.65 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 16.45 and is $0.51 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -1.03%, with one outlier above 0.00%. The distribution is bimodal, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.46% and other issues averaging -0.43%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.5999 %	1,649.7
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.5999 %	2,884.4
Floater	4.50 %	4.54 %	61,917	16.33	3	-0.5999 %	1,753.7
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0129 %	2,761.4
SplitShare	4.50 %	4.73 %	64,991	3.02	4	0.0129 %	3,236.2
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0129 %	2,525.0
Perpetual-Premium	5.83 %	5.88 %	68,604	13.98	8	-0.2162 %	2,459.8
Perpetual-Discount	5.72 %	5.78 %	71,482	14.18	30	-0.2278 %	2,487.9
FixedReset	5.19 %	4.71 %	179,113	15.19	75	-0.6938 %	1,960.5
Deemed-Retractible	5.27 %	5.15 %	97,431	5.46	33	0.1216 %	2,520.7
FloatingReset	2.65 %	4.55 %	62,346	5.83	9	-0.5407 %	2,055.8

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
BAM.PF.B	FixedReset	-4.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 17.61 Evaluated at bid price : 17.61 Bid-YTW : 5.11 %
BIP.PR.A	FixedReset	-4.51 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 20.10 Evaluated at bid price : 20.10 Bid-YTW : 5.49 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	-3.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.20 Bid-YTW : 7.12 %
TRP.PR.D	FixedReset	-2.92 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 16.60 Evaluated at bid price : 16.60 Bid-YTW : 5.01 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	-2.89 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 18.50 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 5.20 %
MFC.PR.K	FixedReset	-2.73 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.52 Bid-YTW : 7.20 %
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	-2.60 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 18.75 Evaluated at bid price : 18.75 Bid-YTW : 5.22 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-2.51 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 18.25 Evaluated at bid price : 18.25 Bid-YTW : 4.44 %
BAM.PF.F	FixedReset	-2.35 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.50 Evaluated at bid price : 19.50 Bid-YTW : 4.94 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	-2.34 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 12.50 Bid-YTW : 10.27 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	-2.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 17.10 Evaluated at bid price : 17.10 Bid-YTW : 4.94 %
BAM.PR.R	FixedReset	-2.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 15.31 Evaluated at bid price : 15.31 Bid-YTW : 5.20 %
RY.PR.I	FixedReset	-2.21 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.47 Bid-YTW : 4.35 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-2.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 12.82 Evaluated at bid price : 12.82 Bid-YTW : 4.53 %
RY.PR.D	Deemed-Retractible	-2.10 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.28 Bid-YTW : 5.15 %
CU.PR.C	FixedReset	-2.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.00 Bid-YTW : 4.32 %
BAM.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	-2.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.74 Evaluated at bid price : 19.74 Bid-YTW : 6.06 %
MFC.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.98 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.75 Bid-YTW : 5.31 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.93 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.30 Bid-YTW : 6.52 %
BAM.PR.K	Floater	-1.79 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 10.40 Evaluated at bid price : 10.40 Bid-YTW : 4.55 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.79 Bid-YTW : 6.23 %
BAM.PF.G	FixedReset	-1.73 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.90 Evaluated at bid price : 19.90 Bid-YTW : 4.86 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.69 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 22.41 Evaluated at bid price : 22.71 Bid-YTW : 5.48 %
TD.PF.E	FixedReset	-1.61 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 21.40 Evaluated at bid price : 21.40 Bid-YTW : 4.34 %
TRP.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.58 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.26 Evaluated at bid price : 19.26 Bid-YTW : 4.93 %
FTS.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 12.97 Evaluated at bid price : 12.97 Bid-YTW : 4.47 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-1.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.10 Bid-YTW : 9.56 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 14.51 Evaluated at bid price : 14.51 Bid-YTW : 4.92 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	-1.35 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.50 Bid-YTW : 6.18 %
CU.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.25 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.75 Evaluated at bid price : 19.75 Bid-YTW : 5.77 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.20 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.87 Bid-YTW : 3.98 %
BAM.PR.M	Perpetual-Discount	-1.20 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.83 Evaluated at bid price : 19.83 Bid-YTW : 6.03 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.17 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 14.35 Evaluated at bid price : 14.35 Bid-YTW : 4.27 %
HSE.PR.E	FixedReset	-1.16 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 21.35 Evaluated at bid price : 21.35 Bid-YTW : 5.17 %
PWF.PR.O	Perpetual-Premium	-1.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 24.78 Evaluated at bid price : 25.07 Bid-YTW : 5.88 %
ELF.PR.G	Perpetual-Discount	-1.13 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 21.01 Evaluated at bid price : 21.01 Bid-YTW : 5.67 %
POW.PR.C	Perpetual-Premium	-1.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 24.49 Evaluated at bid price : 24.72 Bid-YTW : 5.88 %
HSE.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 13.22 Evaluated at bid price : 13.22 Bid-YTW : 4.90 %
IFC.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.34 Bid-YTW : 9.40 %
PWF.PR.L	Perpetual-Discount	-1.01 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 22.20 Evaluated at bid price : 22.47 Bid-YTW : 5.76 %
BMO.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.01 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 20.61 Evaluated at bid price : 20.61 Bid-YTW : 4.44 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.10 Bid-YTW : 9.24 %
GWO.PR.L	Deemed-Retractible	1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.31 Bid-YTW : 6.08 %
MFC.PR.L	FixedReset	1.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.66 Bid-YTW : 7.20 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.52 Bid-YTW : 6.88 %
W.PR.H	Perpetual-Discount	1.38 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 23.20 Evaluated at bid price : 23.50 Bid-YTW : 5.86 %
CM.PR.Q	FixedReset	1.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 20.80 Evaluated at bid price : 20.80 Bid-YTW : 4.30 %
PWF.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	1.72 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 22.71 Evaluated at bid price : 23.00 Bid-YTW : 5.80 %
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 20.40 Evaluated at bid price : 20.40 Bid-YTW : 4.39 %
BMO.PR.Z	Perpetual-Discount	1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 22.83 Evaluated at bid price : 23.21 Bid-YTW : 5.46 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 19.24 Evaluated at bid price : 19.24 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
RY.PR.F	Deemed-Retractible	1.92 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.98 Bid-YTW : 4.57 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	2.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 16.35 Evaluated at bid price : 16.35 Bid-YTW : 4.71 %
HSE.PR.C	FixedReset	2.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 20.80 Evaluated at bid price : 20.80 Bid-YTW : 4.90 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
FTS.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	137,700	Desjardins crossed 135,400 at 21.75. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 21.33 Evaluated at bid price : 21.60 Bid-YTW : 5.73 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	91,136	Desjardins bought two blocks from RBC, 66,700 and 10,700, both at 20.85. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.79 Bid-YTW : 6.23 %
TD.PR.Y	FixedReset	67,277	Desjardins crossed 56,200 at 24.30. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.11 Bid-YTW : 3.78 %
CU.PR.I	FixedReset	64,000	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 23.15 Evaluated at bid price : 25.00 Bid-YTW : 4.41 %
GWO.PR.S	Deemed-Retractible	56,011	RBC crossed 38,900 at 22.80. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.88 Bid-YTW : 6.52 %
BNS.PR.A	FloatingReset	47,890	TD crossed 44,100 at 22.20. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.33 Bid-YTW : 4.40 %
There were 58 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
RY.PR.D	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 24.28 – 24.94 Spot Rate : 0.6600 Average : 0.4225 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.28 Bid-YTW : 5.15 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	Quote: 17.10 – 17.90 Spot Rate : 0.8000 Average : 0.6233 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 17.10 Evaluated at bid price : 17.10 Bid-YTW : 4.94 %
RY.PR.I	FixedReset	Quote: 23.47 – 23.98 Spot Rate : 0.5100 Average : 0.3404 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.47 Bid-YTW : 4.35 %
W.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 23.25 – 24.00 Spot Rate : 0.7500 Average : 0.5852 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 22.98 Evaluated at bid price : 23.25 Bid-YTW : 6.03 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	Quote: 23.87 – 24.30 Spot Rate : 0.4300 Average : 0.2787 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.87 Bid-YTW : 3.98 %
PWF.PR.O	Perpetual-Premium	Quote: 25.07 – 25.50 Spot Rate : 0.4300 Average : 0.2882 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-29 Maturity Price : 24.78 Evaluated at bid price : 25.07 Bid-YTW : 5.88 %

Here’s a story that brings together two themes frequently highlighted on PrefBlog – the difficulty of pricing corporate bonds and the incompetence of traders as investors:

Canada’s C$112 billion ($84 billion) Public Sector Pension Investment Board sued Saba in New York state court on Friday, saying the firm “artificially manipulated” the value of its investment by marking down a significant portion of the fund’s portfolio after the retirement plan asked for all its money back, only to boost the value of the assets the following month.

The lawsuit is another setback to Weinstein, 42, the former co-chief of Deutsche Bank AG’s credit business, who posted three straight years of losses before making 5.2 percent this year through August. Assets at New York-based Saba, which Weinstein started in 2009, have slumped more than two-thirds from a peak of $5.5 billion three years ago and some senior partners have left the firm.
…
The pension board, represented by law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, said it asked Saba for its money back at the end of the first quarter after the fund couldn’t explain why it had suffered losses, and rejected a request to return its capital in three installments to keep other investors from finding out.

At the time, Saba held McClatchy Co. bonds that were hard to sell, according to the suit. The pension fund claimed that Saba changed the way it priced the debt before it returned the money. Normally, the hedge fund would use independent pricing services or brokers who regularly traded the bonds and had valued them at 50 cents to 60 cents on the dollar.

Instead, the retirement plan said Saba used a different process, which “purportedly produced materially depressed bids,” pricing the bonds at 31 cents as of March 31. Within a month, Saba returned to its usual pricing methodology and the bonds were marked in the 50s, the pension plan said.

Increasing the Fed Funds rate won’t be easy for the Fed:

In the past, the central bank kept the fed funds rate at or near the target chosen by policy makers by injecting or draining bank reserves from the system via the New York Fed’s trading desk. The amounts of cash involved were small and the Fed was pretty good at hitting its desired rate. Not anymore.

Three rounds of so-called quantitative easing from 2008 to 2014, in which the Fed bought bonds to support the economy, has swamped banks with cash — deposited with them by investors who sold bonds to the Fed. That added $2.6 trillion of reserves in excess of requirements to banks’ accounts held at the Fed. It also boosted the size of the Fed’s own balance sheet to $4.5 trillion, a five-fold increase from pre-crisis levels.

With so much cash and little need for banks to borrow in the fed funds market, the Fed has lost the ability to lift the funds rate in the way that it did before the crisis. It has also decided for now against selling the bonds back to investors, which would shrink its own balance sheet and extinguish the excess reserves.
…
Their main innovation, an overnight reverse repurchase agreement facility, is a powerful solution, but heavy usage may cause problems for banks trying to comply with new regulations installed in the wake of the financial crisis, said Zoltan Pozsar, director of U.S. economics at Credit Suisse Securities USA LLC in New York.

The facility promises to drain reserves from the banks by encouraging investors to withdraw the deposits created when they sold bonds to the Fed, and place the cash in money-market mutual funds.

Through overnight reverse repos, the Fed can borrow the cash from money funds at a specified rate and post securities as collateral, unwinding the trades the next day. In effect, the Fed will be borrowing back the money it created to buy the bonds while cutting out the middlemen in the banking system.

The problem: Banks aren’t sure exactly how much of their deposits they will cede to money-market funds once the Fed starts raising rates, or whose money or how fast. All of those things are important to understand for banks trying to stay in compliance with the liquidity coverage ratio, a major new pillar of global post-crisis banking regulation.
…
The liquidity rule requires banks to hold more cash and other “high-quality liquid assets” like Treasuries and government-backed mortgage bonds against their deposit base to protect themselves from runs. Because they can hold less cash against retail deposits than investor deposits, they will probably raise retail-deposit rates aggressively to hang on to these customers, according to [director of U.S. economics at Credit Suisse Securities USA LLC in New York Zoltan] Pozsar, who previously studied the plumbing of the post-crisis financial system in positions at the New York Fed and U.S. Treasury.

“They are going to fight for retail deposits like you’ve never seen them fight for retail deposits before,” Pozsar said. “That is going to be basically the defining feature of this hiking cycle.”

The upshot: Credit will become more expensive faster than in previous tightening cycles as banks pass higher deposit costs on to borrowers in an effort to maintain profitability.

In another article:

In a recent note, Credit Suisse analysts Zoltan Pozsar and James Sweeney highlight the potential impact on bank deposits and the potential for turbulence as the Fed approaches its “historic liftoff from the zero lower bound.” At issue are the non-operating accounts held by big institutional investors, which the analysts estimate equate to about 60 percent of the $1.1 trillion in deposits held by U.S. financial institutions.

For banks with lots of HQLA reserves and high-quality assets, the prospect of a bunch of hot money departing for the greener pastures of money market funds may not prove very worrisome. In fact, as deposits depart, such banks may find their balance sheets benefiting from a surplus of capital with which they can do all sorts of amusing things, such as buy back their stock and debt or (gasp!) raise deposit rates.

But for banks that haven’t loaded up on stickier funding or higher-quality assets to offset their non-operating deposits, well, things have the potential to become more interesting. As Pozsar and Sweeney put it: “A rising tide – rising interest rates – may not lift all boats as is typically the case during hiking cycles.”
…
Banks whose non-operating deposits eclipse their reserves do have a few levers they can pull to try to stem outflows, including paying depositors higher rates or lending out securities from their HQLA portfolios. But the point here should be clear. Two grand experiments, one conducted in the technical backwaters of monetary policy and the other operating in the realm of new banking rules, are about to collide.

So how to get new deposits? Here’s one way:

Since the 1950s, the U.K. has been issuing “premium bonds” that come with a chance to win a million-pound jackpot. An experiment at a South African bank 10 years ago boosted customers’ savings by 38 percent.

Now, D2D Fund, a nonprofit group focused on developing savings tools for low-income groups, has been pushing the idea in the U.S. It helped start “prize-linked savings” accounts at credit unions, which could take advantage of a loophole in federal law that allowed the contests. It also lobbied legislators to undo federal and state laws that banned cash giveaways by banks. President Barack Obama signed the American Savings Promotion Act on Dec. 18. A change in Virginia law took effect in July.

Brian Plum, Blue Ridge Bank’s 35-year-old president, was ready and waiting. He’d read about the concept last year and was eager to try it. He saw it as a way to help customers save more while also attracting new customers and new deposits to the $260-million asset bank.

Each month, the bank has a drawing with one $200 winner and four $50 winners. At the end of the year, it will give away a jackpot of $5,000. Customers get one drawing entry for every $25 increase in their account balance. To encourage savings, the bank allows only one withdrawal from a jackpot savings account per month, or else depositors pay a $5 withdrawal fee.

Another idea might be free toasters!

Bank of Montreal has released a report titled BMO Global Asset Management 2015 ETF Outlook, which is remarkable for its Panglossian insouciance regarding EFT liquidity:

Exchange traded funds have recently been in the news with questions about their liquidity. They have been called out as victims of their own success, growing rapidly and possibly outsizing less-liquid asset classes. The Volcker Rule, which restricts U.S. banks (and foreign banks operating in the United States) from engaging in certain types of speculative trading, may have caused fixed-income dealer trading inventory to drop. For asset classes like high yield bonds, this may mean less support from traditional sources like banks in the event of a liquidity crisis, leaving investors to wonder how an ETF will perform.
…
We believe all this attention is missing the point. Exchange traded funds are an access vehicle for an asset class – they provide additional benefits of liquidity, tradability, and diversification. This is particularly so for over-the-counter asset classes like bonds.

Investors looking for income, high returns, or portfolio benefits may decide high-yield bonds are appropriate. By trading an established ETF, the natural liquidity between buyers and sellers on the exchange may make the trade more efficient. If one investor is looking to buy and another is looking to sell, they can meet in the middle instead of each buying directly into the investment vehicle. Rather than sourcing bonds or buying into a fund with a daily opening, ETF investors can profit from intraday liquidity on the exchange and full transparency of trading costs through the market bid and ask prices. Importantly, ETFs are also backed by market makers who provide additional liquidity by holding and creating shares of the ETF. One-sided flows may affect the underlying asset classes in direct trading, but as market makers hedge their investment risk through the underlying holdings, the diversification across issues and issuers in ETFs reduces their impact.

As a test case of a market in crisis, we can look back to the high yield market in 2007. The liquidity crisis essentially froze trading in the underlying bonds. Meanwhile, as measured by SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (ticker JNK), ETFs continued to trade, acting as a price discovery vehicle for the asset class.

The ETF did trade at a significant discount of up to 8.7%, and later at a premium of up to 9.9%, which means the market price moved away from the net asset value (NAV). However, since the NAV was not reflecting actual bond trades, the ETF reflected the true value in the marketplace. Importantly, while trading spreads may have widened as a reflection of market uncertainty, investors that needed to buy or sell high yield bonds were able to do so via the ETF, rather than through the underlying portfolio.

The WSJ points out:

The downside: ETF investors can end up with a lower return than they expected if, for instance, they buy at a sizable premium to NAV but end up selling at a smaller one. This year, through June 30, JNK returned 6.1% based on its NAV but 5.8% based on its price, according to Morningstar. The gap is wider, 6.1% vs. 5.1%, for HYG.

… and as I noted on September 4:

So I’ll take solace in the growing recognition that circuit-breakers do not work as intended. Sadly, the response to ‘rules not working’ appears to be ‘more rules’:

When stocks were halted on Aug. 24, the result caused mayhem for many large ETFs because they became unmoored from their underlying share prices. The result was exaggerated swings in ETF prices, in excess of 40 per cent in some cases.

And, more seriously, Barclay’s musings reported on September 10, with the highlight:

The relationship between ETFs, funds and crisis liquidity has been a hot issue. Barclays weighs in with some musings on ‘first-mover’ advantage:

Illiquidity in corporate bonds would in theory spell bad news for bond funds that promise investors the ability to immediately get out of their positions. The concern here is that once investors get a whiff of an impending mass selloff in bonds, they could potentially rush for the exits to try to get ahead of it.

With liquidity already low, that could put massive pressure on debt prices. Those who manage to squeeze through the keyhole first get rewarded for their speed but end up exacerbating this downward spiral. The slowest investors, meanwhile, get left with a portfolio of bonds that’s potentially much reduced in price.

By how much, you ask? Barclays estimates about 2 percent for funds that hold junk-rated corporate debt (boldface ours):
…

It is disgraceful that BMO’s trained seals have not addressed these serious concerns forthrightly. But hey, this is Canada and the banks have a federally approved hegemony over the entire financial system, so suck it up.

Meanwhile, Silver Bullion Trust has released yet another vituperative letter to unitholders (emphasis from original):

As you may know, Sprott recently announced a fourth extension of their inadequate, hostile offer to acquire your Units. They have made no improvement to the terms of their offer, which is now set to expire on October 9, 2015. The reason for this latest extension is clear: despite bombarding Unitholders with a drawn out smear campaign against Silver Bullion Trust (“SBT”), its Trustees and its administrator, and despite paying brokers to convince their clients to tender, the vast majority of Unitholders have so far rejected Sprott’s offer. Sprott’s offer cannot succeed unless 662/3% of the Units are actually tendered, which has not been achieved.

Over the next few weeks, Sprott will undoubtedly continue to harass you and spread misinformation. Don’t be fooled, the facts haven’t changed: retaining your SBT Units remains a clearly superior alternative to Sprott’s inadequate offer, which is solely driven by their desperate desire to increase their assets under management and reverse the precipitous decline in their fee revenue, which has dropped by almost 40%1 since 2012.

There’s a new discussion paper out from the Bank of Canada, by Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Miguel Molico and Ben Tomlin titled On the Nexus of Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: Recent Developments and Research:

Because financial and macroeconomic conditions are tightly interconnected, financial stability considerations are an important element of any monetary policy framework. Yet, the circumstances under which it would be appropriate for the Bank to use monetary policy to lean against financial risks need to be more fully specified (Côté 2014). The extent to which financial stability concerns should be taken into account by monetary policy will be a priority topic of research at the Bank for the renewal of the inflation-control target agreement in 2016. This paper reviews four considerations of interest, taking stock of key domestic and international developments and knowledge gained over the past few years: (i) Canada and other countries have made significant progress in the implementation of micro- and macroprudential regulatory reforms, and limited existing research finds that most of these policies were effective in reducing the potential need for leaning by monetary policy; (ii) the effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism depends on the state of the financial system, implying that financial system conditions need to be taken into account by monetary policy; (iii) although exceptionally low interest rates and other forms of monetary stimulus are sometimes needed to support growth and achieve inflation-target mandates, they may lead to excessive risk-taking activities and therefore contribute to the buildup of financial imbalances; and (iv) coordination of monetary and macroprudential policies for dealing with imbalances may, in some circumstances, be beneficial. The paper concludes by identifying future areas of research to further clarify the role of monetary policy in addressing financial stability risks.

I haven’t had time to review this paper thoroughly yet, but a quick read gives me the impression it’s intended to provide a scrap of respectability for mission creep and central planning by our Wise Masters in Ottawa. Assiduous Readers will remember that “macroprudential” is the Central Planners’ jargon for credit rationing, as discussed in the post Ultra-low or negative interest rates: what they mean for financial stability and growth.

It was a pretty awful day for equities:

Evidence of industrial weakness in China renewed anxiety about a global slowdown, sending Freeport-McMoRan Inc. tumbling 9.1 percent as copper dropped to the lowest in a month. Energy shares lost 3.6 percent as oil prices slid. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index sank 6 percent following its worst week since 2011. Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. fell more than 3.8 percent as investors sold some of the year’s better performers. Alcoa Inc. rose 5.7 percent after saying it will split into two companies.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 2.6 percent to 1,881.77 at 4 p.m. in New York, down for a fifth consecutive session to the lowest since Aug. 25. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 312.78 points, or 1.9 percent, to 16,001.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 3 percent, while the Russell 2000 Index slumped 2.9 percent to an 11-month low. About 8.4 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges Monday, 15 percent above the three-month average.

And even worse for commodities:

Investors are reacting to diminished demand from China and an end to the cheap-money era provided by the Federal Reserve. A Bloomberg index of commodity futures has fallen 50 percent since a 2011 high, and eight of the 10 worst performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year are commodities-related businesses.

Now it all seems to be coming apart at once. Alcoa Inc., the biggest U.S. aluminum producer, said it would break itself into two companies amid a glut stemming from booming production. Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced it would abandon its drilling campaign in U.S. Arctic waters after spending $7 billion. And the carnage culminated Monday with Glencore Plc, the commodities powerhouse that came to symbolize the era with its initial public offering in 2011 and bold acquisition of a rival in 2013, falling by as much as 31 percent in London trading.

And portfolio managers who live by the sword, die by the sword:

Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb, managers of the $7.8 billion Sequoia Fund, suffered a paper loss of about $1.2 billion after shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals plunged.

The drug maker fell as much as 20 percent after Democrats in the U.S. House asked to subpoena the company for documents relating to drug price increases, the latest move by politicians seeking to curb prices on acquired drugs.

Ruane Cunniff, Valeant’s largest owner, held 33.9 million shares of the drug company as of June 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Valeant fell $35.79, or 18 percent, in New York trading at 2:23 pm, which translates to a loss for the money manager of $1.21 billion. The calculation assumes the money manager has not added or sold shares.
…
Valeant represented 29 percent of the fund’s holdings as of June 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The fund outperformed 99 percent of rivals this year and 97 percent over the past five years.

Valeant shares, including reinvested dividends, have climbed almost seven-fold over the past five years.

And Fed officials are still jawboning the market:

The Federal Reserve will probably raise interest rates later this year and tighten policy gradually thereafter, New York Fed President William C. Dudley said, echoing the sentiment of Chair Janet Yellen that an uncertain global outlook won’t postpone liftoff into 2016.

“The economy is doing pretty well,” Dudley said Monday at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal in New York. “My expectation is that we probably will raise interest rates later this year.” Dudley said he expected growth in the second half will be a little bit weaker than in the first half, when the U.S. grew around 2.25 percent on an annualized basis.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams, speaking later on Monday, made a similar argument. Their remarks line up with Yellen, who said Sept. 24 she felt it likely the Fed would increase rates this year for the first time in almost a decade.

Meanwhile, Canadian preferred share investors were having lunch with their brokers:

It was an incredibly awful day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts down 103bp, FixedResets losing an amazing 245bp and DeemedRetractibles off a mere 86bp. Let’s not even talk about the Performance Highlights table, it’s ridiculous. Volume was high.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.76%, equivalent to 7.49% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates continue to yield about 4.2%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread is now about 330bp. Let’s put that figure into perspective, shall we? I show only a five week period in the past fifteen years of Seniority Spreads exceeding this figure – from 2008-11-26 to 2018-12-24, inclusive. Spreads approached this figure in May, 2010, but did not breach the 330bp level.

We’ve also got FixedResets yield 4.77% … call it GOC-5 +400bp, give or take. This is ludicrous! In my listing of investment-grade FixedResets in the September PrefLetter, there was nothing with an Issue Reset Spread of as much as that; the highest spread was HSE.PR.E with a spread of +357. This has since been surpassed by the BAM new issue 5.00%+417M500, but still!

The market isn’t doing this on credit problems, or even concerns about credit problems, which would at least make some sense. I don’t know what’s driving this crash any more, although I can mutter nostrums such as ‘fear’ and ‘negative sentiment’ with the best of them. I have to think that this is an amazing buying opportunity … but as a buddy of mine used to like to say ‘One more buying opportunity … and I’ll be broke!’

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

Implied Volatility jumped again today.

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 17.50 to be $0.57 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $0.83 cheap at its bid price of 11.83.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility jumping.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.H, resetting at +313bp on 2017-3-19, bid at 23.21 to be 0.71 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 21.16 to be 0.57 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible. Note that the pending new issue has been added with a price of 25.00; the valuation effects of the rate floor have been ignored.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 15.70 to be $0.77 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 20.25 and appears to be $1.00 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 19.80, looks $0.79 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.K, with a spread of +205bp and resetting 2019-3-1, is bid at 16.01 and is $0.50 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -1.04%, with two outliers above 0.00%. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.58% and other issues averaging -0.29%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

Other Canadian preferred share investors were examining their statements:

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.3485 %	1,659.6
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.3485 %	2,901.8
Floater	4.48 %	4.47 %	61,062	16.48	3	0.3485 %	1,764.3
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.2130 %	2,761.0
SplitShare	4.50 %	4.92 %	65,822	3.03	4	-0.2130 %	3,235.7
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.2130 %	2,524.7
Perpetual-Premium	5.81 %	5.82 %	60,640	14.07	8	-0.9740 %	2,465.1
Perpetual-Discount	5.69 %	5.76 %	72,206	14.22	30	-1.0303 %	2,493.6
FixedReset	5.15 %	4.77 %	173,723	15.27	75	-2.4533 %	1,974.2
Deemed-Retractible	5.28 %	5.13 %	95,269	5.46	33	-0.8641 %	2,517.7
FloatingReset	2.63 %	4.46 %	61,997	5.84	9	-1.2200 %	2,067.0

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
TD.PF.D	FixedReset	-5.70 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.50 Evaluated at bid price : 20.50 Bid-YTW : 4.43 %
MFC.PR.L	FixedReset	-5.48 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.45 Bid-YTW : 7.35 %
TD.PF.E	FixedReset	-5.43 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.45 Evaluated at bid price : 21.75 Bid-YTW : 4.25 %
RY.PR.M	FixedReset	-5.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.74 Evaluated at bid price : 19.74 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	-5.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.05 Bid-YTW : 6.11 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	-4.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.16 Bid-YTW : 6.00 %
CM.PR.Q	FixedReset	-4.83 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.51 Evaluated at bid price : 20.51 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	-4.71 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.04 Evaluated at bid price : 20.04 Bid-YTW : 4.47 %
TD.PF.A	FixedReset	-4.62 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.60 Evaluated at bid price : 18.60 Bid-YTW : 4.39 %
BMO.PR.W	FixedReset	-4.61 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.22 Evaluated at bid price : 18.22 Bid-YTW : 4.41 %
TD.PF.B	FixedReset	-4.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.60 Evaluated at bid price : 18.60 Bid-YTW : 4.37 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	-4.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.78 Bid-YTW : 6.00 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	-4.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 17.50 Evaluated at bid price : 17.50 Bid-YTW : 4.82 %
RY.PR.H	FixedReset	-4.17 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.62 Evaluated at bid price : 18.62 Bid-YTW : 4.37 %
RY.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	-4.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.37 Evaluated at bid price : 22.66 Bid-YTW : 5.54 %
BAM.PF.E	FixedReset	-4.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 17.75 Evaluated at bid price : 17.75 Bid-YTW : 5.12 %
CM.PR.O	FixedReset	-4.04 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.75 Evaluated at bid price : 18.75 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
TRP.PR.D	FixedReset	-3.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 17.10 Evaluated at bid price : 17.10 Bid-YTW : 4.86 %
NA.PR.W	FixedReset	-3.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.27 Evaluated at bid price : 18.27 Bid-YTW : 4.48 %
CM.PR.P	FixedReset	-3.70 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 17.97 Evaluated at bid price : 17.97 Bid-YTW : 4.44 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	-3.64 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.55 Bid-YTW : 7.44 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	-3.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.90 Evaluated at bid price : 18.90 Bid-YTW : 4.50 %
RY.PR.Z	FixedReset	-3.56 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.71 Evaluated at bid price : 18.71 Bid-YTW : 4.30 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	-3.54 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.17 Bid-YTW : 7.89 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-3.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 13.10 Evaluated at bid price : 13.10 Bid-YTW : 4.43 %
RY.PR.O	Perpetual-Discount	-3.45 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.28 Evaluated at bid price : 22.65 Bid-YTW : 5.49 %
BMO.PR.S	FixedReset	-3.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.01 Evaluated at bid price : 19.01 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	-3.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.03 Bid-YTW : 7.05 %
BNS.PR.D	FloatingReset	-3.38 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.60 Bid-YTW : 6.38 %
FTS.PR.H	FixedReset	-3.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 13.16 Evaluated at bid price : 13.16 Bid-YTW : 4.41 %
BMO.PR.Y	FixedReset	-3.30 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.82 Evaluated at bid price : 20.82 Bid-YTW : 4.39 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	-3.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 16.50 Evaluated at bid price : 16.50 Bid-YTW : 4.69 %
PWF.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-3.21 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.34 Evaluated at bid price : 22.61 Bid-YTW : 5.90 %
MFC.PR.M	FixedReset	-3.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.44 Bid-YTW : 6.83 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	-3.13 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.26 Evaluated at bid price : 18.26 Bid-YTW : 4.45 %
BAM.PF.G	FixedReset	-3.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.25 Evaluated at bid price : 20.25 Bid-YTW : 4.77 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-2.97 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 16.01 Evaluated at bid price : 16.01 Bid-YTW : 4.82 %
GWO.PR.L	Deemed-Retractible	-2.83 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.05 Bid-YTW : 6.23 %
BAM.PF.F	FixedReset	-2.82 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.97 Evaluated at bid price : 19.97 Bid-YTW : 4.82 %
GWO.PR.I	Deemed-Retractible	-2.79 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.59 Bid-YTW : 7.16 %
MFC.PR.K	FixedReset	-2.76 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.04 Bid-YTW : 6.83 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	-2.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.25 Bid-YTW : 7.06 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-2.72 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.30 Bid-YTW : 9.38 %
TRP.PR.B	FixedReset	-2.59 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 11.65 Evaluated at bid price : 11.65 Bid-YTW : 4.49 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-2.59 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.70 Bid-YTW : 6.25 %
BAM.PF.B	FixedReset	-2.58 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.51 Evaluated at bid price : 18.51 Bid-YTW : 4.85 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 14.71 Evaluated at bid price : 14.71 Bid-YTW : 4.85 %
PWF.PR.R	Perpetual-Premium	-2.51 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.64 Evaluated at bid price : 24.10 Bid-YTW : 5.79 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.49 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.40 Evaluated at bid price : 18.40 Bid-YTW : 5.11 %
GWO.PR.H	Deemed-Retractible	-2.42 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.37 Bid-YTW : 7.03 %
TRP.PR.G	FixedReset	-2.39 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.57 Evaluated at bid price : 19.57 Bid-YTW : 4.85 %
BMO.PR.Z	Perpetual-Discount	-2.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.48 Evaluated at bid price : 22.80 Bid-YTW : 5.56 %
GWO.PR.G	Deemed-Retractible	-2.30 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.52 Bid-YTW : 6.68 %
POW.PR.B	Perpetual-Discount	-2.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.69 Evaluated at bid price : 22.93 Bid-YTW : 5.84 %
MFC.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	-2.25 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.82 Bid-YTW : 7.20 %
MFC.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	-2.15 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.01 Bid-YTW : 7.58 %
RY.PR.F	Deemed-Retractible	-2.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.51 Bid-YTW : 4.92 %
HSE.PR.G	FixedReset	-2.00 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.68 Evaluated at bid price : 22.05 Bid-YTW : 4.97 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-1.99 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.72 Evaluated at bid price : 18.72 Bid-YTW : 4.32 %
FTS.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.98 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.80 Evaluated at bid price : 19.80 Bid-YTW : 4.39 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.95 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.56 Bid-YTW : 6.06 %
BMO.PR.Q	FixedReset	-1.94 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.25 Bid-YTW : 5.94 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.91 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.74 Evaluated at bid price : 23.10 Bid-YTW : 5.38 %
BNS.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.85 Bid-YTW : 6.41 %
POW.PR.D	Perpetual-Discount	-1.85 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.48 Evaluated at bid price : 21.74 Bid-YTW : 5.76 %
SLF.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.92 Bid-YTW : 8.64 %
CU.PR.G	Perpetual-Discount	-1.83 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.80 Evaluated at bid price : 19.80 Bid-YTW : 5.75 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	-1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.05 Evaluated at bid price : 19.05 Bid-YTW : 5.04 %
W.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	-1.79 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.32 Evaluated at bid price : 23.60 Bid-YTW : 6.05 %
SLF.PR.E	Deemed-Retractible	-1.71 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.15 Bid-YTW : 7.46 %
TD.PR.T	FloatingReset	-1.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.63 Bid-YTW : 4.46 %
POW.PR.A	Perpetual-Premium	-1.67 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.95 Evaluated at bid price : 24.20 Bid-YTW : 5.79 %
HSE.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.55 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.33 Evaluated at bid price : 20.33 Bid-YTW : 5.02 %
IGM.PR.B	Perpetual-Premium	-1.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 24.55 Evaluated at bid price : 24.84 Bid-YTW : 5.93 %
TD.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.50 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.23 Bid-YTW : 3.68 %
CU.PR.E	Perpetual-Discount	-1.43 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.34 Evaluated at bid price : 21.34 Bid-YTW : 5.81 %
SLF.PR.A	Deemed-Retractible	-1.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.02 Bid-YTW : 7.15 %
MFC.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.21 Bid-YTW : 5.04 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 14.52 Evaluated at bid price : 14.52 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
PWF.PR.K	Perpetual-Discount	-1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.57 Evaluated at bid price : 21.83 Bid-YTW : 5.76 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.34 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.90 Bid-YTW : 6.63 %
BMO.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.89 Bid-YTW : 3.75 %
GWO.PR.S	Deemed-Retractible	-1.30 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.80 Bid-YTW : 6.56 %
RY.PR.W	Perpetual-Discount	-1.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.12 Evaluated at bid price : 23.38 Bid-YTW : 5.29 %
W.PR.H	Perpetual-Discount	-1.18 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.22 Evaluated at bid price : 23.52 Bid-YTW : 5.96 %
CU.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %
BNS.PR.A	FloatingReset	-1.10 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.45 Bid-YTW : 4.30 %
BNS.PR.B	FloatingReset	-1.10 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.56 Bid-YTW : 4.63 %
TD.PR.S	FixedReset	-1.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.00 Bid-YTW : 3.67 %
CU.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.40 Evaluated at bid price : 19.40 Bid-YTW : 4.23 %
CU.PR.D	Perpetual-Discount	-1.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 21.45 Evaluated at bid price : 21.45 Bid-YTW : 5.78 %
HSE.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.04 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 13.36 Evaluated at bid price : 13.36 Bid-YTW : 4.85 %
IFC.PR.A	FixedReset	1.04 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.50 Bid-YTW : 9.26 %
PWF.PR.L	Perpetual-Discount	3.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.44 Evaluated at bid price : 22.70 Bid-YTW : 5.70 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
NA.PR.M	Deemed-Retractible	320,275	Called for redemption. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2015-10-28 Maturity Price : 25.50 Evaluated at bid price : 25.81 Bid-YTW : -0.29 %
BNS.PR.M	Deemed-Retractible	112,933	RBC crossed 100,000 at 25.16. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.00 Bid-YTW : 4.66 %
CU.PR.I	FixedReset	74,489	TD crossed 30,000 at 25.15. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 23.19 Evaluated at bid price : 25.12 Bid-YTW : 4.38 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	44,170	Scotia crossed 36,600 at 21.70. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.78 Bid-YTW : 6.00 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	24,950	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.90 Bid-YTW : 6.63 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	24,300	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.26 Evaluated at bid price : 18.26 Bid-YTW : 4.45 %
There were 44 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
RY.PR.M	FixedReset	Quote: 19.74 – 20.79 Spot Rate : 1.0500 Average : 0.7348 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 19.74 Evaluated at bid price : 19.74 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
CM.PR.O	FixedReset	Quote: 18.75 – 19.49 Spot Rate : 0.7400 Average : 0.4815 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 18.75 Evaluated at bid price : 18.75 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	Quote: 21.05 – 21.79 Spot Rate : 0.7400 Average : 0.4926 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.05 Bid-YTW : 6.11 %
PWF.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 22.61 – 23.45 Spot Rate : 0.8400 Average : 0.5973 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.34 Evaluated at bid price : 22.61 Bid-YTW : 5.90 %
RY.PR.O	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 22.65 – 23.28 Spot Rate : 0.6300 Average : 0.3890 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-28 Maturity Price : 22.28 Evaluated at bid price : 22.65 Bid-YTW : 5.49 %
RY.PR.F	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 24.51 – 25.09 Spot Rate : 0.5800 Average : 0.3629 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.51 Bid-YTW : 4.92 %

Swap spreads are below zero:

At the height of the financial crisis, the unprecedented decline in swap rates below Treasury yields was seen as an anomaly. The phenomenon is now widespread.

Swap rates are what companies, investors and traders pay to exchange fixed interest payments for floating ones. That rate falling below Treasury yields — the spread between the two being negative — is illogical in the eyes of most market observers, because it theoretically signals that traders view the credit of banks as superior to that of the U.S. government.

Back in 2009, it was only negative in the 30-year maturity, a temporary offshoot of deleveraging and market swings following the credit crisis. These days, swap spreads are near or below zero across maturities.
…
If the flip to negative spreads persists, it would signal that its roots are in regulators’ efforts to head off another financial crisis, according to Kohli.

Regulatory moves such as higher capital requirements have led banks to curtail market-making, crimping liquidity and driving repurchase agreement rates above bank funding benchmarks. Repo rates factor into Treasuries pricing because they’re considered the cost of financing positions in government debt.

There’s a very peculiar suggestion regarding ETF trading:

A group of high-frequency trading firms advised U.S. regulators on how to prevent a repeat of the wild Aug. 24 trading session that roiled hundreds of securities, leaving exchange-traded funds’ prices out of sync with the values of their assets.

In a Sept. 24 letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the industry group Modern Markets Initiative proposed three main solutions to prevent problems with prices of ETFs: clarifying rules for canceling trades, loosening short-selling restrictions so arbitragers can better hedge, and protecting small investors by preventing their ETF orders from executing when the price of those securities becomes detached from their underlying stocks.
…
Finally, the Modern Markets Initiative letter proposed protecting retail investors during times when ETFs diverge from their underlying stocks. If, for example, the ETF’s price is 5 percent or more away from the NAV, small investors’ orders wouldn’t be executed.

Huh? Restricting retail access to the marketplace? Well, just about anything’s possible these days…

After yesterday‘s massive losses, a lot of preferred share investors were hoping the market would come back. Be careful what you wish for …

The Canadian preferred share market was crushed again today, with PerpetualDiscounts down 74bp, FixedResets losing 97bp and DeemedRetractibles off 34bp; numbers that look mild only in comparison with yesterday. The Performance Highlights table is, of course, horrific and dominated by losing FixedResets, although a number of issues bounced back from yesterday’s quotes far enough to make it onto the good part of the table. Volume was very heavy and notable for blocks of NVCC non-compliant bank FloatingResets.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

Implied Volatility jumped today.

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 18.56 to be $1.00 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.07 cheap at its bid price of 12.12.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility falling back a little after yesterday’s jump.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.J, resetting at +261bp on 2018-3-19, bid at 21.71 to be 0.38 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 22.24 to be 0.30 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible. Note that the pending new issue has been added with a price of 25.00; the valuation effects of the rate floor have been ignored.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 15.70 to be $1.14 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 20.90 and appears to be $1.31 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 20.20, looks $0.70 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.K, with a spread of +205bp and resetting 2019-3-1, is bid at 16.50 and is $0.48 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.98%, with three outliers above 0.00%. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.45% and other issues averaging -0.32%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.8629 %	1,653.8
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.8629 %	2,891.7
Floater	4.49 %	4.48 %	61,265	16.45	3	0.8629 %	1,758.2
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0737 %	2,766.9
SplitShare	4.49 %	4.90 %	65,029	3.04	4	-0.0737 %	3,242.6
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0737 %	2,530.0
Perpetual-Premium	5.75 %	4.24 %	59,600	0.08	8	0.2690 %	2,489.4
Perpetual-Discount	5.63 %	5.71 %	71,309	14.28	30	-0.7389 %	2,519.6
FixedReset	5.02 %	4.65 %	180,238	15.37	75	-0.9669 %	2,023.9
Deemed-Retractible	5.23 %	5.09 %	95,901	5.48	33	-0.3399 %	2,539.6
FloatingReset	2.56 %	4.36 %	60,575	5.87	9	0.4915 %	2,092.6

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	-5.95 %	This is real enough! The issue traded 7,935 shares today in a range of 19.60-21.00, with a series of seventeen trades totalling 4,500 shares starting at 3:20pm at 20.10 declining slowly but surely down to 19.60. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.60 Evaluated at bid price : 19.60 Bid-YTW : 4.37 %
TRP.PR.G	FixedReset	-4.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.05 Evaluated at bid price : 20.05 Bid-YTW : 4.76 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-4.54 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.25 Bid-YTW : 5.92 %
PWF.PR.L	Perpetual-Discount	-4.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.75 Evaluated at bid price : 21.99 Bid-YTW : 5.89 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-4.50 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.10 Evaluated at bid price : 19.10 Bid-YTW : 4.26 %
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	-4.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.03 Evaluated at bid price : 21.03 Bid-YTW : 4.28 %
CM.PR.P	FixedReset	-4.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.66 Evaluated at bid price : 18.66 Bid-YTW : 4.30 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-4.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 16.50 Evaluated at bid price : 16.50 Bid-YTW : 4.70 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	-3.58 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.56 Evaluated at bid price : 18.56 Bid-YTW : 4.66 %
CM.PR.O	FixedReset	-3.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.54 Evaluated at bid price : 19.54 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
RY.PR.M	FixedReset	-3.25 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.85 Evaluated at bid price : 20.85 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
BMO.PR.S	FixedReset	-3.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.68 Evaluated at bid price : 19.68 Bid-YTW : 4.24 %
BNS.PR.D	FloatingReset	-3.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.25 Bid-YTW : 5.75 %
TRP.PR.D	FixedReset	-3.01 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.05 Evaluated at bid price : 18.05 Bid-YTW : 4.72 %
BMO.PR.W	FixedReset	-3.00 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.10 Evaluated at bid price : 19.10 Bid-YTW : 4.23 %
RY.PR.H	FixedReset	-2.85 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.43 Evaluated at bid price : 19.43 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
BMO.PR.Z	Perpetual-Discount	-2.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 22.94 Evaluated at bid price : 23.34 Bid-YTW : 5.43 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-2.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.95 Bid-YTW : 5.72 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	-2.48 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.85 Evaluated at bid price : 18.85 Bid-YTW : 4.33 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.48 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.87 Evaluated at bid price : 18.87 Bid-YTW : 5.01 %
RY.PR.Z	FixedReset	-2.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.40 Evaluated at bid price : 19.40 Bid-YTW : 4.17 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-2.33 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.70 Bid-YTW : 9.04 %
CU.PR.H	Perpetual-Discount	-2.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 22.87 Evaluated at bid price : 23.25 Bid-YTW : 5.72 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	-2.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 12.70 Bid-YTW : 10.01 %
BAM.PR.M	Perpetual-Discount	-2.24 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.05 Evaluated at bid price : 20.05 Bid-YTW : 5.96 %
TD.PF.B	FixedReset	-2.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.44 Evaluated at bid price : 19.44 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
MFC.PR.M	FixedReset	-2.10 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.08 Bid-YTW : 6.41 %
SLF.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	-1.96 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 7.50 %
CU.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.95 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.61 Evaluated at bid price : 19.61 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
FTS.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.94 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.20 Evaluated at bid price : 20.20 Bid-YTW : 4.33 %
SLF.PR.D	Deemed-Retractible	-1.91 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.06 Bid-YTW : 7.45 %
BAM.PR.X	FixedReset	-1.89 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 14.57 Evaluated at bid price : 14.57 Bid-YTW : 4.83 %
FTS.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	-1.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.86 Evaluated at bid price : 20.86 Bid-YTW : 5.76 %
BAM.PF.D	Perpetual-Discount	-1.87 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.50 Evaluated at bid price : 20.50 Bid-YTW : 6.01 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.87 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 14.72 Evaluated at bid price : 14.72 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
BIP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.10 Evaluated at bid price : 21.10 Bid-YTW : 5.25 %
SLF.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	-1.85 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.27 Bid-YTW : 7.04 %
BNS.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.23 Bid-YTW : 6.09 %
NA.PR.W	FixedReset	-1.81 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.00 Bid-YTW : 4.33 %
BAM.PF.E	FixedReset	-1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 18.50 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 4.93 %
TD.PF.A	FixedReset	-1.76 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.50 Evaluated at bid price : 19.50 Bid-YTW : 4.21 %
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.63 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.28 Evaluated at bid price : 19.28 Bid-YTW : 5.10 %
GWO.PR.H	Deemed-Retractible	-1.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.90 Bid-YTW : 6.69 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.50 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 15.09 Evaluated at bid price : 15.09 Bid-YTW : 4.76 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.45 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 17.05 Evaluated at bid price : 17.05 Bid-YTW : 4.57 %
CM.PR.Q	FixedReset	-1.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.55 Evaluated at bid price : 21.55 Bid-YTW : 4.17 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	-1.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 19.40 Evaluated at bid price : 19.40 Bid-YTW : 4.98 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 13.57 Evaluated at bid price : 13.57 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.23 Bid-YTW : 5.40 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 23.13 Evaluated at bid price : 23.55 Bid-YTW : 5.27 %
MFC.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	-1.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.45 Bid-YTW : 7.27 %
POW.PR.G	Perpetual-Discount	-1.22 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 23.82 Evaluated at bid price : 24.30 Bid-YTW : 5.75 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 12.12 Evaluated at bid price : 12.12 Bid-YTW : 5.00 %
PVS.PR.B	SplitShare	-1.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2019-01-10 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.36 Bid-YTW : 5.31 %
BMO.PR.Q	FixedReset	-1.01 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.65 Bid-YTW : 5.62 %
TD.PR.S	FixedReset	1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.26 Bid-YTW : 3.49 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.85 Bid-YTW : 6.66 %
BAM.PF.G	FixedReset	1.21 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.90 Evaluated at bid price : 20.90 Bid-YTW : 4.65 %
BAM.PR.T	FixedReset	1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 15.90 Evaluated at bid price : 15.90 Bid-YTW : 5.14 %
NA.PR.Q	FixedReset	1.45 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.79 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
FTS.PR.H	FixedReset	1.49 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 13.61 Evaluated at bid price : 13.61 Bid-YTW : 4.30 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	1.71 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.80 Bid-YTW : 7.44 %
TD.PR.Z	FloatingReset	1.90 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
TD.PR.T	FloatingReset	2.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
POW.PR.A	Perpetual-Premium	2.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 24.30 Evaluated at bid price : 24.61 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %
HSE.PR.E	FixedReset	3.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.44 Evaluated at bid price : 21.70 Bid-YTW : 5.09 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	3.49 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.25 Bid-YTW : 6.96 %
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	3.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.75 Bid-YTW : 4.38 %
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	6.49 %	Simply a reversal of the idiotic part of yesterday‘s ridiculous move, which was due to a bad quote. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.70 Bid-YTW : 6.59 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	142,656	Scotia crossed 100,000 at 21.90; TD crossed 40,000 at the same price. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.75 Bid-YTW : 4.38 %
CU.PR.I	FixedReset	97,505	Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 23.19 Evaluated at bid price : 25.12 Bid-YTW : 4.38 %
BNS.PR.B	FloatingReset	75,500	Scotia crossed blocks of 50,000 and 25,000, both at 21.85. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.80 Bid-YTW : 4.40 %
TD.PR.Z	FloatingReset	52,340	TD crossed 49,400 at 22.00. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
TD.PR.T	FloatingReset	50,000	TD crossed 49,300 at 22.10. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
GWO.PR.Q	Deemed-Retractible	39,557	Scotia crossed 25,000 at 22.90. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.52 Bid-YTW : 6.62 %
There were 52 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
PWF.PR.L	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 21.99 – 23.15 Spot Rate : 1.1600 Average : 0.6728 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 21.75 Evaluated at bid price : 21.99 Bid-YTW : 5.89 %
TRP.PR.G	FixedReset	Quote: 20.05 – 21.20 Spot Rate : 1.1500 Average : 0.7773 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.05 Evaluated at bid price : 20.05 Bid-YTW : 4.76 %
BSC.PR.C	SplitShare	Quote: 19.71 – 20.43 Spot Rate : 0.7200 Average : 0.3909 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2020-09-22 Maturity Price : 19.71 Evaluated at bid price : 19.71 Bid-YTW : 4.03 %
BAM.PF.D	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 20.50 – 21.50 Spot Rate : 1.0000 Average : 0.6848 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-25 Maturity Price : 20.50 Evaluated at bid price : 20.50 Bid-YTW : 6.01 %
BNS.PR.D	FloatingReset	Quote: 19.25 – 19.85 Spot Rate : 0.6000 Average : 0.3580 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.25 Bid-YTW : 5.75 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	Quote: 19.95 – 20.50 Spot Rate : 0.5500 Average : 0.3348 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.95 Bid-YTW : 5.72 %

Janet Yellen gave a speech today:

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the U.S. central bank is on track to raise interest rates this year, even as she acknowledged that economic “surprises” could lead them to change that plan.

“Most FOMC participants, including myself, currently anticipate that achieving these conditions will likely entail an initial increase in the federal funds rate later this year, followed by a gradual pace of tightening thereafter,” Yellen said during a speech Thursday in Amherst, Massachusetts. “But if the economy surprises us, our judgments about appropriate monetary policy will change.”
…
While “there wasn’t anything significant enough that changed in one week for her to give us a different take,” said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets LLC in New York, Yellen “finally acknowledges that she, specifically, does believe that a rate hike is appropriate this year.”

Porcelli expects a December increase, but thinks there’s a high hurdle to moving this year.

Short-term treasuries were hammered, but the rest of the Treasury market took it in stride:

The U.S. two-year yield climbed four basis points to 0.72 percent as of 6:14 a.m. in London. The price of the 0.625 percent security due September 2017 fell 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 99 26/32.

The benchmark 10-year yield rose one basis point to 2.14 percent.

Traders aren’t convinced a rate increase is a sure thing. There’s a 49 percent probability the Fed will raise rates by its Dec. 15-16 meeting, down from 60 percent odds at the end of August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The calculation is based on the assumption that the effective fed funds rate will average 0.375 percent after liftoff.

Treasury 30-year bonds, which are more influenced by the outlook for inflation, eked out a gain. The difference between two- and 30-year yields shrank to as little as 2.19 percentage points, the narrowest since Sept. 8.

Preferred share investors drove to an appointment with their brokers today:

(hat tip: adrian2 on FWF)

“But my money!” they cried. “What has happened to my money?”

It was total carnage for the Canadian preferred share market today, with PerpetualDiscounts down 152bp, FixedResets losing a stunning 338bp and DeemedRetractibles off 92bp. The Performance Highlights table is ridiculous and I’m not even going to try to come to grips with the question of what’s real and what isn’t (except for MFC.PR.N … I couldn’t resist) because the entire market was surreal today. BAM issues were notable losers, but one BAM issue was the sole notable winner! Volume was extremely heavy.

So what caused the problem? Assigning specific reasons to market movements, even dramatic ones is always a bit of a mug’s game; on a day-to-day basis, the market does what it wants to do because it wants to do it. Today the influence might be this, tomorrow that; it’s only in retrospect that you can draw a correlation between the financial markets and the price of eggs in Spain and say wisely how well the market took this driving influence into account. My contempt for the market’s talking heads is mixed with pity; they have to come up with something to fill up their allotted half hour and that’s the end of it.

But it’s reasonable to suppose it was the BAM new issue that broke the camel’s back. 5.00% is a big fat dividend for an investment grade issue and 417bp is a big fat spread and the minimum rate guarantee is a big fat gift for those who seriously believe that GOC-5 can go significantly lower in the next five years (I don’t! But what do I know?). As recently as September 11, when I prepared the September PrefLetter, a spread of 417bp would have implied a yield-to-worst of only 4.49%, although correlations are poor and +417 is the highest extant investment-grade spread by far (so don’t take the decimal places too seriously, is what I’m saying) (the previous high was HSE.PR.E, with an Issue Reset Spread of a mere 357bp). A big fat yield like that could well have caused some repricing of the market as a whole; it is significant that the clobbering of BAM issues today was notable even on a day like today; and the results of that clobbering reverberated throughout the market.

Conspiracy theorists will soon be filling up my mailbox with queries about my opinion regarding the idea that Brookfield did this deliberately so they could buy up their extant issues cheaply under their NCIB, discussed August 12. But really, guys – get serious. The Illuminati would never permit me to give a favourable opinion regarding this thesis.

It is also possible that the credit rating assigned to Element Financial today had an effect; this expands the universe with four FixedResets with very nice yields; it is noteworthy that all four extant EFN issues rose today (on a close/close basis). Volumes were mostly modest, but the most recent issue, EFN.PR.G, traded a significant 35,025 shares. These issues also have high spreads:

• EFN.PR.A, FixedReset, 6.60%+471
• EFN.PR.C, FixedReset, 6.50%+481
• EFN.PR.E, FixedReset, 6.40%+472
• EFN.PR.G, FixedReset, 6.50%+534

The highest Issue Reset Spread on a junk issue previous was a mere 427bp for VSN.PR.E.

I will point out that I’m not the only guy in the universe who holds the disciplinary effects of a public credit rating in high regard – their press release disclosed that:

Concurrent with the receipt of this initial issuer rating from DBRS, the interest rate applicable to the Facility will be reduced by 35 basis points …

So I’ll suggest a strong possibility that this was an aggravating factor.

Another aggravating factor could be quarter-end. I mused that the Swoon in June, 2008, was due at least partly to end of quarter window-dressing by retail stockbrokers and I’ll muse that again. I remember being urged by a putative superior to sell a particular issue simply because it had gone down; the client was going to ask questions. It’s the stupidest rationale ever for market action, but there can be no denying that it’s real! Trades executed today settle September 29; trades executed tomorrow will still result in the position vanishing from quarter-end statements … who knows what might happen?

And finally, there’s the idea that in bad times all correlations go to 1: here’s the chart for TXPR vs. TSX for the past three months (hat tip: OnlyMyOpinion on FWF), which will give joy to the ‘preferreds are bonds on the way up and stocks on the way down’ crowd:

But in the end, the market does what it wants to do when it wants to do it. Beyond that, we’re guessing.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 19.25 to be $1.17 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.20 cheap at its bid price of 12.25.

The MFC fit has been clearly distorted by the lousy and almost certainly grossly erroneous bid on MFC.PR.N (see Performance Highlights table), so we’ll remove it from the fitting and try again.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility leaping upwards today – the lower-spread issues outperformed.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.J, resetting at +261bp on 2018-3-19, bid at 21.75 to be 0.24 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 22.24 to be 0.43 cheap (MFC.PR.N has been ignored)

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible. Note that the new issue announced today has been added with a price of 25.00; the valuation effects of the rate floor have been ignored.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 15.60 to be $1.24 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 20.65 and appears to be $1.00 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 20.60, looks $0.70 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 17.30 and is $0.48 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -1.05%, with two outliers below -2.00% and two above 0.00%. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.54% and other issues averaging -0.35%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.2885 %	1,639.7
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.2885 %	2,866.9
Floater	4.53 %	4.53 %	60,746	16.37	3	0.2885 %	1,743.1
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0709 %	2,768.9
SplitShare	4.48 %	4.96 %	64,509	2.08	4	-0.0709 %	3,245.0
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0709 %	2,531.9
Perpetual-Premium	5.76 %	2.64 %	64,771	0.08	8	-0.4563 %	2,482.7
Perpetual-Discount	5.59 %	5.68 %	68,460	14.38	30	-1.5237 %	2,538.3
FixedReset	4.98 %	4.51 %	176,429	15.47	75	-3.3821 %	2,043.6
Deemed-Retractible	5.22 %	5.09 %	93,716	5.48	33	-0.9241 %	2,548.3
FloatingReset	2.57 %	4.52 %	56,496	5.85	9	-1.9662 %	2,082.3

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	-10.41 %	Not real. The issue traded 10,244 shares today in a range of 20.00-65 before closing at 18.50-20.64 (!). I have not checked whether this lamentable state of affairs is due to inadequate Toronto Stock Exchange reporting or inadequate Toronto Stock Exchange supervision of market-makers. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 7.43 %
BAM.PF.F	FixedReset	-8.43 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.42 Evaluated at bid price : 20.42 Bid-YTW : 4.74 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	-8.34 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.66 Evaluated at bid price : 19.66 Bid-YTW : 4.91 %
BAM.PF.G	FixedReset	-7.81 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.65 Evaluated at bid price : 20.65 Bid-YTW : 4.70 %
TD.PF.D	FixedReset	-7.50 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.52 Evaluated at bid price : 21.83 Bid-YTW : 4.16 %
BMO.PR.Y	FixedReset	-7.13 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.50 Evaluated at bid price : 21.50 Bid-YTW : 4.28 %
BAM.PF.E	FixedReset	-6.59 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 18.84 Evaluated at bid price : 18.84 Bid-YTW : 4.84 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	-6.21 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.33 Evaluated at bid price : 19.33 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
NA.PR.W	FixedReset	-6.16 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.35 Evaluated at bid price : 19.35 Bid-YTW : 4.25 %
FTS.PR.H	FixedReset	-6.09 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 13.41 Evaluated at bid price : 13.41 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
BAM.PF.B	FixedReset	-5.91 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.10 Evaluated at bid price : 19.10 Bid-YTW : 4.73 %
HSE.PR.E	FixedReset	-5.82 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.03 Evaluated at bid price : 21.03 Bid-YTW : 5.27 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	-5.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 17.30 Evaluated at bid price : 17.30 Bid-YTW : 4.51 %
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	-5.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 4.98 %
BAM.PR.X	FixedReset	-5.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 14.85 Evaluated at bid price : 14.85 Bid-YTW : 4.73 %
GWO.PR.P	Deemed-Retractible	-5.09 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.11 Bid-YTW : 6.52 %
FTS.PR.M	FixedReset	-5.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.60 Evaluated at bid price : 20.60 Bid-YTW : 4.24 %
CM.PR.Q	FixedReset	-4.97 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.54 Evaluated at bid price : 21.85 Bid-YTW : 4.09 %
BMO.PR.S	FixedReset	-4.92 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.30 Evaluated at bid price : 20.30 Bid-YTW : 4.11 %
BAM.PR.T	FixedReset	-4.91 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 15.70 Evaluated at bid price : 15.70 Bid-YTW : 5.21 %
TD.PF.A	FixedReset	-4.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.85 Evaluated at bid price : 19.85 Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
TD.PF.B	FixedReset	-4.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.86 Evaluated at bid price : 19.86 Bid-YTW : 4.12 %
IFC.PR.A	FixedReset	-4.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.25 Bid-YTW : 9.49 %
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	-4.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.65 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 4.06 %
RY.PR.Z	FixedReset	-4.65 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.87 Evaluated at bid price : 19.87 Bid-YTW : 4.07 %
NA.PR.Q	FixedReset	-4.64 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.45 Bid-YTW : 4.67 %
RY.PR.H	FixedReset	-4.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 4.09 %
RY.PR.M	FixedReset	-4.22 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.55 Evaluated at bid price : 21.55 Bid-YTW : 4.07 %
BMO.PR.W	FixedReset	-4.18 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.69 Evaluated at bid price : 19.69 Bid-YTW : 4.10 %
CM.PR.O	FixedReset	-4.15 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.21 Evaluated at bid price : 20.21 Bid-YTW : 4.06 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-3.98 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 4.07 %
TD.PR.Z	FloatingReset	-3.96 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.59 Bid-YTW : 4.54 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	-3.89 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 6.59 %
BAM.PR.R	FixedReset	-3.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 15.60 Evaluated at bid price : 15.60 Bid-YTW : 5.14 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	-3.76 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.75 Bid-YTW : 5.41 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-3.75 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 17.20 Evaluated at bid price : 17.20 Bid-YTW : 4.50 %
TRP.PR.G	FixedReset	-3.62 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.01 Evaluated at bid price : 21.01 Bid-YTW : 4.54 %
TRP.PR.B	FixedReset	-3.62 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 11.97 Evaluated at bid price : 11.97 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
TD.PF.E	FixedReset	-3.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 22.39 Evaluated at bid price : 23.21 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %
TD.PR.T	FloatingReset	-3.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.51 Bid-YTW : 4.52 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	-3.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.84 Evaluated at bid price : 20.84 Bid-YTW : 4.10 %
POW.PR.A	Perpetual-Premium	-3.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.73 Evaluated at bid price : 24.04 Bid-YTW : 5.83 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	-3.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.60 Bid-YTW : 7.42 %
CM.PR.P	FixedReset	-3.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.50 Evaluated at bid price : 19.50 Bid-YTW : 4.11 %
MFC.PR.H	FixedReset	-3.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.64 Bid-YTW : 4.81 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	-3.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.00 Bid-YTW : 9.36 %
GWO.PR.Q	Deemed-Retractible	-3.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.63 Bid-YTW : 6.55 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	-3.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.25 Evaluated at bid price : 19.25 Bid-YTW : 4.48 %
BAM.PF.D	Perpetual-Discount	-3.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.89 Evaluated at bid price : 20.89 Bid-YTW : 5.90 %
PWF.PR.S	Perpetual-Discount	-2.97 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.26 Evaluated at bid price : 21.54 Bid-YTW : 5.65 %
RY.PR.O	Perpetual-Discount	-2.89 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.09 Evaluated at bid price : 23.50 Bid-YTW : 5.28 %
BAM.PF.C	Perpetual-Discount	-2.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.48 Evaluated at bid price : 20.48 Bid-YTW : 5.96 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	-2.78 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 12.25 Evaluated at bid price : 12.25 Bid-YTW : 4.95 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.73 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 15.32 Evaluated at bid price : 15.32 Bid-YTW : 4.69 %
TRP.PR.D	FixedReset	-2.72 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 18.61 Evaluated at bid price : 18.61 Bid-YTW : 4.57 %
PWF.PR.T	FixedReset	-2.49 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.93 Evaluated at bid price : 22.28 Bid-YTW : 3.79 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	-2.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.24 Bid-YTW : 5.36 %
BAM.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	-2.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.35 Evaluated at bid price : 20.35 Bid-YTW : 5.87 %
POW.PR.D	Perpetual-Discount	-2.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.72 Evaluated at bid price : 21.97 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %
CU.PR.C	FixedReset	-2.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.32 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.35 Evaluated at bid price : 19.35 Bid-YTW : 4.88 %
SLF.PR.E	Deemed-Retractible	-2.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.60 Bid-YTW : 7.14 %
BMO.PR.Z	Perpetual-Discount	-2.20 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.67 Evaluated at bid price : 24.00 Bid-YTW : 5.28 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	-2.13 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.52 Bid-YTW : 5.23 %
RY.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	-2.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.48 Evaluated at bid price : 23.79 Bid-YTW : 5.27 %
PWF.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-2.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.11 Evaluated at bid price : 23.37 Bid-YTW : 5.70 %
GWO.PR.S	Deemed-Retractible	-2.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.18 Bid-YTW : 6.32 %
MFC.PR.L	FixedReset	-2.00 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.60 Bid-YTW : 6.55 %
SLF.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	-1.99 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.67 Bid-YTW : 6.77 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.97 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.53 Evaluated at bid price : 23.85 Bid-YTW : 5.21 %
MFC.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	-1.97 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.37 Bid-YTW : 6.82 %
CU.PR.D	Perpetual-Discount	-1.94 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.43 Evaluated at bid price : 21.75 Bid-YTW : 5.68 %
SLF.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	-1.92 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.40 Bid-YTW : 7.22 %
BNS.PR.B	FloatingReset	-1.90 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.68 Bid-YTW : 4.49 %
GWO.PR.G	Deemed-Retractible	-1.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.02 Bid-YTW : 6.37 %
SLF.PR.A	Deemed-Retractible	-1.87 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.52 Bid-YTW : 6.82 %
MFC.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.87 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.51 Bid-YTW : 6.12 %
PWF.PR.K	Perpetual-Discount	-1.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.88 Evaluated at bid price : 22.12 Bid-YTW : 5.68 %
W.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	-1.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.68 Evaluated at bid price : 23.95 Bid-YTW : 5.96 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.77 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.26 Bid-YTW : 5.31 %
CU.PR.G	Perpetual-Discount	-1.70 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.20 Evaluated at bid price : 20.20 Bid-YTW : 5.63 %
SLF.PR.D	Deemed-Retractible	-1.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.45 Bid-YTW : 7.18 %
ENB.PR.A	Perpetual-Discount	-1.67 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.85 Evaluated at bid price : 24.10 Bid-YTW : 5.76 %
RY.PR.W	Perpetual-Discount	-1.65 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.53 Evaluated at bid price : 23.80 Bid-YTW : 5.19 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.64 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 15.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.00 Bid-YTW : 4.13 %
BIP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.60 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.50 Evaluated at bid price : 21.50 Bid-YTW : 5.15 %
CU.PR.E	Perpetual-Discount	-1.59 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.36 Evaluated at bid price : 21.65 Bid-YTW : 5.71 %
FTS.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	-1.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.26 Evaluated at bid price : 21.26 Bid-YTW : 5.65 %
BAM.PR.M	Perpetual-Discount	-1.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.51 Evaluated at bid price : 20.51 Bid-YTW : 5.83 %
GWO.PR.H	Deemed-Retractible	-1.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.25 Bid-YTW : 6.46 %
BMO.PR.Q	FixedReset	-1.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.86 Bid-YTW : 5.43 %
BNS.PR.A	FloatingReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.58 Bid-YTW : 4.16 %
MFC.PR.K	FixedReset	-1.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.60 Bid-YTW : 6.46 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.20 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.50 Bid-YTW : 5.25 %
POW.PR.B	Perpetual-Discount	-1.18 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.20 Evaluated at bid price : 23.50 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %
ELF.PR.H	Perpetual-Discount	-1.16 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.41 Evaluated at bid price : 23.85 Bid-YTW : 5.86 %
PWF.PR.L	Perpetual-Discount	-1.16 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 22.75 Evaluated at bid price : 23.03 Bid-YTW : 5.62 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	-1.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.61 Bid-YTW : 6.81 %
RY.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.00 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %
HSE.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.86 Evaluated at bid price : 22.30 Bid-YTW : 4.93 %
GWO.PR.I	Deemed-Retractible	-1.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.31 Bid-YTW : 6.67 %
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	1.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.60 Evaluated at bid price : 19.60 Bid-YTW : 5.02 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
CU.PR.I	FixedReset	973,025	New issue settled today. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 23.18 Evaluated at bid price : 25.08 Bid-YTW : 4.39 %
NA.PR.M	Deemed-Retractible	325,596	Called for redemption. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2015-10-24 Maturity Price : 25.50 Evaluated at bid price : 25.80 Bid-YTW : -0.59 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	86,627	CIBC crossed 31,200 at 20.40. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 19.66 Evaluated at bid price : 19.66 Bid-YTW : 4.91 %
MFC.PR.H	FixedReset	84,372	RBC crossed 73,800 at 24.40. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.64 Bid-YTW : 4.81 %
BAM.PF.G	FixedReset	84,356	RBC bought 16,800 from anonymous at 22.31. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 20.65 Evaluated at bid price : 20.65 Bid-YTW : 4.70 %
BNS.PR.B	FloatingReset	50,163	Scotia crossed 48,200 at 21.75. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.68 Bid-YTW : 4.49 %
There were 57 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	Quote: 18.50 – 20.64 Spot Rate : 2.1400 Average : 1.1813 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 7.43 %
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	Quote: 21.00 – 22.10 Spot Rate : 1.1000 Average : 0.6408 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 4.98 %
TD.PF.D	FixedReset	Quote: 21.83 – 22.83 Spot Rate : 1.0000 Average : 0.6186 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.52 Evaluated at bid price : 21.83 Bid-YTW : 4.16 %
BMO.PR.Y	FixedReset	Quote: 21.50 – 22.50 Spot Rate : 1.0000 Average : 0.6325 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.50 Evaluated at bid price : 21.50 Bid-YTW : 4.28 %
HSE.PR.E	FixedReset	Quote: 21.03 – 22.00 Spot Rate : 0.9700 Average : 0.6305 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-24 Maturity Price : 21.03 Evaluated at bid price : 21.03 Bid-YTW : 5.27 %
GWO.PR.P	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 23.11 – 23.83 Spot Rate : 0.7200 Average : 0.4373 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.11 Bid-YTW : 6.52 %

It looks like we have a few more weeks of the entertaining Sprott-Spicer battle to look forward to, as Silver Bullion Trust points out (bolding from original):

Silver Bullion Trust (“SBT”) (symbol: TSX – SBT.UN (C$) SBT.U (US$)) today noted that Sprott Asset Management LP and Sprott Physical Silver Trust (collectively, “Sprott”) have failed by a substantial margin to achieve sufficient support from SBT Unitholders to complete their offer. As a result, Sprott has yet again extended their inadequate, hostile offer to acquire all of the outstanding Units of SBT. They have made no improvement to the terms of their offer, which is now set to expire on October 9, 2015.

Since May 27th, Sprott has harassed SBT Unitholders and their intermediaries with misleading information about Sprott’s offer and defamatory comments about SBT, its Trustees and its administrator. The majority of SBT Unitholders have consistently said “NO” to Sprott’s offer and have clearly expressed the view that they wish to continue to remain SBT Unitholders.

SBT is concerned that some brokers may have misled their Unitholder clients into believing that they must choose one of the two tendering options, and could not “do nothing” in response to Sprott’s offer. SBT Unitholders are reminded that they are NOT REQUIRED to tender their Units to Sprott, regardless of what brokers may say. If instructed by a broker that tendering is required or that Unitholders cannot “do nothing,” please call D.F. King & Co at 1-800-398-2816 for assistance.
…
Unitholders who have refused to tender are urged to retain their SBT Units and not tender to Sprott’s offer. Sprott’s offer cannot succeed unless 662/3% of the Units are actually tendered, which has not been achieved.

During the Credit Crunch there was a notable amount of “jingle-mail” in the States – that being the sobriquet for the act of abandoning your house and sending the keys to the (underwater) mortgage servicer. I advocated – and continue to advocate – for a mortgage system in which the standard is ‘with recourse’ to the homeowner, i.e., that the homeowner is on the hook for the entire amount and that if the house doesn’t cover his balance due, that’s his tough luck.

But the Mayor of Barcelona points out that this can lead to social unrest in a broad market decline:

Under Spanish law, when a bank forecloses on a mortgage and seizes a house or apartment, only part of the debt is wiped out. The rest remains on the books, and the owner isn’t able to declare bankruptcy to escape the debt. The bank has claim to all assets, not just the house.

“The president of the government had explicitly told the population, ‘You have to buy a house because it’s the most secure investment, the best thing for your country,’ ” says Colau. “Millions of people who weren’t trying to speculate, or to be rich, but who thought they were doing the most responsible thing, the safest thing, discovered that they had done the worst thing in their lives, and that there was no way to escape.”

In 2009, Colau and a handful of other activists formed a grassroots organization called the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages—known by its Spanish acronym PAH. “She’s a natural leader,” says Lucía Martín, one of the group’s founders. “It’s not that she says, ‘OK, I’m going to be the leader.’ It’s that everybody looks around and says, ‘Yes. Her. She looks like she can do it.’ It became really obvious.”

One of the first people PAH assisted was Matías González Barquero, who had taken out a mortgage on his home to soundproof his bar at the request of the municipality. González was forced to close the bar in 2009 after a partner died and another fell sick. As a small-business owner, he was ineligible for unemployment, and soon he couldn’t pay his mortgage.

When he attended his first PAH meeting in 2010, his apartment had already been put up for auction, but it had failed to sell, and he hadn’t moved out. When González was scheduled to be evicted by police in March 2010, the group obtained a period of leniency from a judge. Over the next year and a half, PAH blocked two other eviction attempts, mobilizing some 300 people to block the entrance to his apartment. Colau was with González in his house, coordinating the protest from behind locked doors. “She said, ‘You keep calm, we’re going to make it,’ ” recalls González. “When she was facing the banks, she was very tough. But with me, she was a very close person.”

In other geopolitical news (since preferred shares are, you know, kinda boring) it looks like the group that takes decisive action against ISIS will be one with interests that are almost as antithetical to ours:

President Vladimir Putin, determined to strengthen Russia’s only military outpost in the Middle East, is preparing to launch unilateral airstrikes against Islamic State from inside Syria if the U.S. rejects his proposal to join forces, two people familiar with the matter said.

Putin’s preferred course of action, though, is for America and its allies to agree to coordinate their campaign against the terrorist group with Russia, Iran and the Syrian army, which the Obama administration has so far resisted, according to a person close to the Kremlin and an adviser to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

Russian diplomacy has shifted into overdrive as Putin seeks to avoid the collapse of the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally who’s fighting both a 4 1/2 year civil war and Sunni extremists under the banner of Islamic State. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow for talks with Putin on Monday, followed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

Stop dilly-dallying! Smash ISIS now!

There was carnage for the Canadian preferred share market today, with PerpetualDiscounts down 61bp, FixedResets losing 70bp and DeemedRetractibles off 16bp. As one might expect, the Performance Highlights table is both enormous and dominated by losing FixedResets. Volume was very low.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.61%, equivalent to 7.29% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield a hair under 4.2%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) is now about 310bp, a significant rise from the 300bp reported September 9.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 19.86 to be $1.21 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.29 cheap at its bid price of 12.60.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility unchanged today.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.J, resetting at +261bp on 2018-3-19, bid at 22.60 to be 0.52 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 22.80 to be 0.57 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.Z (with a lousy bid, discussed in the Performance Highlights table), resetting at +296bp on 2017-12-31, bid at 19.40 to be $2.26 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 22.40 and appears to be $1.47 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 21.70, looks $0.77 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 18.30 and is $0.40 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.87%, with no outliers. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.06% and other issues averaging -0.59%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.7949 %	1,635.0
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.7949 %	2,858.7
Floater	4.54 %	4.55 %	60,472	16.34	3	-0.7949 %	1,738.1
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0386 %	2,770.9
SplitShare	4.48 %	4.88 %	62,106	2.08	4	0.0386 %	3,247.3
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0386 %	2,533.7
Perpetual-Premium	5.73 %	1.47 %	57,128	0.08	8	-0.1733 %	2,494.1
Perpetual-Discount	5.50 %	5.61 %	66,431	14.46	30	-0.6118 %	2,577.6
FixedReset	4.81 %	4.29 %	171,798	15.69	74	-0.6967 %	2,115.2
Deemed-Retractible	5.17 %	4.75 %	91,626	5.47	33	-0.1643 %	2,572.0
FloatingReset	2.52 %	4.16 %	55,150	5.88	9	-0.0720 %	2,124.1

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	-6.97 %	Some might call this technically real since the issue traded 7,542 shares in a range of 19.00-20.82, but the trade at 19.00 was for 600 shares and occurred at 3:54pm, the same timestamp as the trade preceding it, 800 shares at 20.25. The VWAP was 20.52, while the closing quote was 19.35-15. I’m willing to listen to stories, but for now I’m going to mark this down as an example of shoddy market-making. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 19.35 Evaluated at bid price : 19.35 Bid-YTW : 5.08 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-3.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 17.87 Evaluated at bid price : 17.87 Bid-YTW : 4.33 %
FTS.PR.J	Perpetual-Discount	-3.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.32 Evaluated at bid price : 21.60 Bid-YTW : 5.54 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-3.17 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 13.75 Evaluated at bid price : 13.75 Bid-YTW : 4.16 %
BAM.PR.T	FixedReset	-2.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 16.51 Evaluated at bid price : 16.51 Bid-YTW : 4.95 %
BAM.PR.R	FixedReset	-2.58 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 16.23 Evaluated at bid price : 16.23 Bid-YTW : 4.94 %
FTS.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-2.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.70 Evaluated at bid price : 21.95 Bid-YTW : 5.63 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	-2.39 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.22 Bid-YTW : 6.98 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	-2.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 15.25 Evaluated at bid price : 15.25 Bid-YTW : 4.06 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	-2.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 18.30 Evaluated at bid price : 18.30 Bid-YTW : 4.25 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-2.09 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.98 Bid-YTW : 8.79 %
CU.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.94 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.20 Evaluated at bid price : 20.20 Bid-YTW : 5.63 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	-1.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.61 Evaluated at bid price : 20.61 Bid-YTW : 3.95 %
BAM.PR.M	Perpetual-Discount	-1.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.81 Evaluated at bid price : 20.81 Bid-YTW : 5.74 %
NA.PR.W	FixedReset	-1.81 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.62 Evaluated at bid price : 20.62 Bid-YTW : 3.98 %
TD.PF.B	FixedReset	-1.70 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.85 Evaluated at bid price : 20.85 Bid-YTW : 3.92 %
BAM.PF.C	Perpetual-Discount	-1.63 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.07 Evaluated at bid price : 21.07 Bid-YTW : 5.79 %
BNS.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.77 Bid-YTW : 5.62 %
GWO.PR.I	Deemed-Retractible	-1.51 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.53 Bid-YTW : 6.53 %
MFC.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	-1.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.89 Bid-YTW : 6.97 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.01 Bid-YTW : 4.94 %
BAM.PR.C	Floater	-1.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 10.30 Evaluated at bid price : 10.30 Bid-YTW : 4.59 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 12.60 Evaluated at bid price : 12.60 Bid-YTW : 4.81 %
PWF.PR.K	Perpetual-Discount	-1.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 22.27 Evaluated at bid price : 22.54 Bid-YTW : 5.57 %
POW.PR.D	Perpetual-Discount	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 22.25 Evaluated at bid price : 22.52 Bid-YTW : 5.55 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.86 Bid-YTW : 6.65 %
BMO.PR.S	FixedReset	-1.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.35 Evaluated at bid price : 21.35 Bid-YTW : 3.90 %
RY.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.93 Evaluated at bid price : 20.93 Bid-YTW : 3.90 %
RY.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.23 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.84 Evaluated at bid price : 20.84 Bid-YTW : 3.88 %
BAM.PF.B	FixedReset	-1.22 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.30 Evaluated at bid price : 20.30 Bid-YTW : 4.44 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.75 Bid-YTW : 5.04 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.81 Bid-YTW : 6.05 %
TD.PF.A	FixedReset	-1.18 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.86 Evaluated at bid price : 20.86 Bid-YTW : 3.92 %
CM.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.37 Evaluated at bid price : 20.37 Bid-YTW : 4.00 %
HSE.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 13.40 Evaluated at bid price : 13.40 Bid-YTW : 4.89 %
BMO.PR.W	FixedReset	-1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.55 Evaluated at bid price : 20.55 Bid-YTW : 3.92 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.51 Bid-YTW : 7.65 %
RY.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.06 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.97 Evaluated at bid price : 22.50 Bid-YTW : 3.85 %
PWF.PR.T	FixedReset	1.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 22.31 Evaluated at bid price : 22.85 Bid-YTW : 3.67 %
TD.PF.D	FixedReset	1.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 22.60 Evaluated at bid price : 23.60 Bid-YTW : 3.79 %
BAM.PR.X	FixedReset	1.29 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 15.65 Evaluated at bid price : 15.65 Bid-YTW : 4.48 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.83 Evaluated at bid price : 20.83 Bid-YTW : 3.90 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 12.98 Bid-YTW : 9.73 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	34,835	Desjardins crossed 11,700 at 19.90. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 19.86 Evaluated at bid price : 19.86 Bid-YTW : 4.34 %
BAM.PR.B	Floater	33,881	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 10.50 Evaluated at bid price : 10.50 Bid-YTW : 4.50 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	29,899	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 12.98 Bid-YTW : 9.73 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	29,350	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 13.75 Evaluated at bid price : 13.75 Bid-YTW : 4.16 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	21,150	RBC crossed 17,000 at 21.55. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 21.45 Evaluated at bid price : 21.45 Bid-YTW : 4.49 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	20,887	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 15.75 Evaluated at bid price : 15.75 Bid-YTW : 4.56 %
There were 16 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
MFC.PR.L	FixedReset	Quote: 20.00 – 22.25 Spot Rate : 2.2500 Average : 1.2387 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 6.28 %
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	Quote: 19.35 – 20.15 Spot Rate : 0.8000 Average : 0.4722 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 19.35 Evaluated at bid price : 19.35 Bid-YTW : 5.08 %
BAM.PR.X	FixedReset	Quote: 15.65 – 16.18 Spot Rate : 0.5300 Average : 0.3553 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 15.65 Evaluated at bid price : 15.65 Bid-YTW : 4.48 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	Quote: 17.51 – 18.00 Spot Rate : 0.4900 Average : 0.3488 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.51 Bid-YTW : 7.65 %
BAM.PR.M	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 20.81 – 21.25 Spot Rate : 0.4400 Average : 0.3199 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 20.81 Evaluated at bid price : 20.81 Bid-YTW : 5.74 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	Quote: 18.30 – 18.70 Spot Rate : 0.4000 Average : 0.2891 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-23 Maturity Price : 18.30 Evaluated at bid price : 18.30 Bid-YTW : 4.25 %

Well, here’s another nail in Keystone’s coffin:

Ending years of declining to take a side on the issue because of her role in the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday announced her opposition to the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

“I don’t think we need to have a pipeline bringing very dirty oil, exploiting the tar sands in western Canada, across our border,” she told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board.

At a town hall in Des Moines beforehand, she expressed an eagerness to end the debate over Keystone, which had become a “distraction” from the broader fight against climate change. “I don’t think it’s in the best interest of what we need to do to combat climate change, ” she said in response to a question from a Drake University student.

Power Corporation, proud issuer of myriad preferred shares issues, has been confirmed at Pfd-2(high) by DBRS:

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the Senior Debt as well as the Non-Cumulative First Preferred Shares and Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, 1986 Series ratings of Power Corporation of Canada (POW or the Company) at A (high) and Pfd-2 (high), respectively. The trend on the ratings remains Stable. The credit strength of POW is directly tied to its 65.6% equity interest in Power Financial Corporation (PWF), which represents a substantial majority of the Company’s earnings and cash flow as well as the vast majority of the Company’s estimated net asset value. The Senior Debt rating of the Company is A (high) or one notch below the AA (low) rating on the Senior Debentures of PWF, reflecting the structural subordination of the holding company’s obligations.

Should PWF be upgraded, then POW could also benefit. Conversely, a shift in the Company’s risk profile resulting from a major divestiture or acquisition, a material increase in financial leverage or increased adoption of double leverage, deteriorating earnings and prolonged distress at the major operating subsidiaries, a downgrade of the rating of Great-West Lifeco Inc. (GWO) or PWF, or evidence of governance and control difficulties could have negative rating implications.

Similarly, Power Financial Corporation, issuer of myriad preferred share issues of its own, was confirmed at Pfd-1(low) by DBRS:

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the Issuer Rating and Senior Debentures rating of Power Financial Corporation (PWF or the Company) at AA (low), along with the Non-Cumulative First Preferred Shares and Cumulative First Preferred Shares (Series A) ratings at Pfd-1 (low). All trends remain Stable. The Company’s ratings are largely derived from its controlling interests in two of Canada’s leading financial service providers: Great-West Lifeco Inc. (GWO; Senior Debt rated AA (low) by DBRS), one of the three largest life insurance concerns in Canada, and IGM Financial Inc. (IGM; Senior Debt rated A (high) by DBRS), one of the largest mutual fund complexes in Canada as measured by long-term assets under management (AUM).

These two interests, accounting for more than 90% of the Company’s earnings, dividends and asset value, are a source of stable recurring earnings and cash flow. Under the strategic leadership of the Company, both GWO and IGM have become increasingly diversified as they have grown, both organically and by acquisition. The Company has correspondingly increased its exposure to the wealth management business in all of its chosen geographies. Both of these subsidiaries in turn benefit from the Company’s hands-on governance and risk-averse culture.

PWF’s ratings currently reflect the ratings of its most highly rated subsidiary, GWO. Should GWO be upgraded, PWF could also benefit. Conversely, a material increase in unconsolidated financial leverage giving rise to deterioration in coverage ratios; any deterioration in the creditworthiness of a major operating subsidiary, particularly a downgrade of the rating of GWO; a shift in the Company’s risk profile resulting from a major divestiture or acquisition; or evidence of governance and control difficulties could have negative rating implications.

It was a poor day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts down 27bp, FixedResets losing 57bp and DeemedRetractibles off 10bp. The Performance Highlights table is very long, dominated by losing FixedResets, with only one winner amongst the carnage. Volume was slightly below average.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 19.85 to be $1.10 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.16 cheap at its bid price of 12.78.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility falling significantly today.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.J, resetting at +261bp on 2018-3-19, bid at 22.65 to be 0.45 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 22.91 to be 0.57 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 16.70 to be $1.47 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 22.45 and appears to be $1.15 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 21.90, looks $0.56 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 18.70 and is $0.36 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.92%, with no outliers. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.14% and other issues averaging -0.61%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0636 %	1,648.1
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0636 %	2,881.6
Floater	4.51 %	4.52 %	60,202	16.38	3	0.0636 %	1,752.0
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0742 %	2,769.8
SplitShare	4.48 %	4.83 %	62,815	3.05	4	0.0742 %	3,246.1
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0742 %	2,532.7
Perpetual-Premium	5.72 %	0.80 %	57,832	0.08	8	0.0901 %	2,498.4
Perpetual-Discount	5.47 %	5.57 %	66,407	14.52	30	-0.2677 %	2,593.5
FixedReset	4.78 %	4.27 %	178,259	15.80	74	-0.5695 %	2,130.0
Deemed-Retractible	5.16 %	4.54 %	92,174	5.48	33	-0.0997 %	2,576.3
FloatingReset	2.52 %	4.03 %	51,264	5.88	9	-1.0569 %	2,125.6

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	-3.77 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 12.75 Bid-YTW : 9.95 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-3.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 14.20 Evaluated at bid price : 14.20 Bid-YTW : 4.03 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-3.34 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 15.90 Evaluated at bid price : 15.90 Bid-YTW : 4.51 %
GWO.PR.S	Deemed-Retractible	-2.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.60 Bid-YTW : 6.07 %
FTS.PR.H	FixedReset	-2.72 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 14.30 Evaluated at bid price : 14.30 Bid-YTW : 4.08 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-2.38 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 20.55 Evaluated at bid price : 20.55 Bid-YTW : 3.95 %
IFC.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 16.00 Bid-YTW : 8.83 %
BNS.PR.D	FloatingReset	-2.17 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.86 Bid-YTW : 5.21 %
BAM.PF.D	Perpetual-Discount	-2.09 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.26 Evaluated at bid price : 21.54 Bid-YTW : 5.70 %
BAM.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	-1.96 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %
CM.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.90 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 20.60 Evaluated at bid price : 20.60 Bid-YTW : 3.95 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-1.86 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 18.50 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 4.17 %
MFC.PR.K	FixedReset	-1.73 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.84 Bid-YTW : 6.29 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.69 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 12.78 Evaluated at bid price : 12.78 Bid-YTW : 4.74 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.69 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 19.81 Evaluated at bid price : 19.81 Bid-YTW : 4.76 %
BNS.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.09 Bid-YTW : 5.35 %
CM.PR.O	FixedReset	-1.66 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.36 Evaluated at bid price : 21.36 Bid-YTW : 3.90 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	-1.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.45 Bid-YTW : 8.95 %
BNS.PR.C	FloatingReset	-1.52 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.01 Bid-YTW : 4.42 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 4.83 %
SLF.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.06 Bid-YTW : 5.89 %
HSE.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 13.55 Evaluated at bid price : 13.55 Bid-YTW : 4.83 %
BAM.PR.T	FixedReset	-1.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 17.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.00 Bid-YTW : 4.80 %
TD.PF.E	FixedReset	-1.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 22.78 Evaluated at bid price : 24.02 Bid-YTW : 3.79 %
POW.PR.B	Perpetual-Discount	-1.16 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 23.58 Evaluated at bid price : 23.85 Bid-YTW : 5.61 %
FTS.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.13 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.60 Evaluated at bid price : 21.90 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %
BNS.PR.A	FloatingReset	-1.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.90 Bid-YTW : 3.91 %
TD.PF.C	FixedReset	-1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 3.87 %
BIP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.48 Evaluated at bid price : 21.77 Bid-YTW : 5.06 %
TD.PF.A	FixedReset	-1.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.11 Evaluated at bid price : 21.11 Bid-YTW : 3.87 %
TRP.PR.B	FixedReset	-1.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 12.53 Evaluated at bid price : 12.53 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.54 Bid-YTW : 5.14 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
BSC.PR.C	SplitShare	65,570	New issue settled today. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2020-09-22 Maturity Price : 19.71 Evaluated at bid price : 19.69 Bid-YTW : 4.04 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	50,191	RBC bought 10,000 from TD at 20.00. Desjardins crossed 14,700 at 19.85. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 19.85 Evaluated at bid price : 19.85 Bid-YTW : 4.34 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	42,908	TD crossed 29,100 at 21.70. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.31 Evaluated at bid price : 21.60 Bid-YTW : 3.92 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	40,000	Nesbitt crossed 30,900 at 18.60. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 18.50 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 4.17 %
FTS.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	33,050	RBC crossed 19,800 at 22.52. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 22.23 Evaluated at bid price : 22.50 Bid-YTW : 5.49 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	31,300	RBC crossed 25,000 at 24.47. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.40 Bid-YTW : 3.59 %
There were 27 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
RY.PR.Z	FixedReset	Quote: 21.10 – 21.82 Spot Rate : 0.7200 Average : 0.4419 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.10 Evaluated at bid price : 21.10 Bid-YTW : 3.83 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	Quote: 22.91 – 23.51 Spot Rate : 0.6000 Average : 0.3788 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.91 Bid-YTW : 4.96 %
BAM.PF.D	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 21.54 – 22.05 Spot Rate : 0.5100 Average : 0.3289 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.26 Evaluated at bid price : 21.54 Bid-YTW : 5.70 %
TD.PR.Z	FloatingReset	Quote: 22.43 – 22.98 Spot Rate : 0.5500 Average : 0.3939 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.43 Bid-YTW : 3.88 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	Quote: 20.55 – 21.05 Spot Rate : 0.5000 Average : 0.3618 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 20.55 Evaluated at bid price : 20.55 Bid-YTW : 3.95 %
BAM.PR.N	Perpetual-Discount	Quote: 21.00 – 21.40 Spot Rate : 0.4000 Average : 0.2829 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-22 Maturity Price : 21.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 5.69 %

Fed officials are busily warning against complacency:

Federal Reserve officials argued that an interest-rate increase is still warranted this year, laying out the case for liftoff in remarks over the weekend that counter bets by traders that the central bank will stay on hold until 2016.

Three policy makers separately explained their rationale for enacting a rate increase at one of the Fed’s two remaining meetings of 2015, citing declines in unemployment and other gains in the U.S. economy that should outweigh headwinds from slower growth abroad and turbulent financial markets.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams, a policy centrist who has worked closely with Chair Janet Yellen, said Sunday that “in my mind, it was a close call” to delay a rate rise at last week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Williams’ comments on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” echoed remarks he made the day before, and chimed with the reasoning of St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker. Both weighed in on Saturday over the FOMC’s vote to leave rates near zero.

Non-voting FOMC members are also weighing in:

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said he pushed against the central bank’s decision this week to delay an interest rate increase, because the economy has more or less fulfilled policy makers’ goals.

“The case for policy normalization is quite strong, since Committee objectives have essentially been met,” Bullard said in slides prepared for a speech in Nashville, Tennessee. “I argued against the decision at the FOMC meeting.”

Bullard is not a voting member of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee in 2015, but will vote in 2016.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – I’m sure that most, if not all, of these public statements are deliberately orchestrated by the FOMC as a whole. ‘You made some good points in the meeting, guys. You should speak up in public.’ In that way, the market learns a bit more about the decision than is available in the simple ternary result (up, unchanged, down) and about what elements of the data are considered important and on the cusp of change. It’s a lot better system than the Canadian one, in which (since Dodge retired) Moses descends from the mountain with the Finance Minister’s decision.

I’ve heard a rumour that Volkswagen has a new motto – “Don’t help me!”:

Discrepancies in the European tests on the diesel models of the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5 last year gave Peter Mock an idea.

Mock, European managing director of a little-known clean-air group, suggested replicating the tests in the U.S. The U.S. has higher emissions standards than the rest of the world and a history of enforcing them, so Mock and his American counterpart, John German, were sure the U.S. versions of the vehicles would pass the emissions tests, German said. That way, they reasoned, they could show Europeans it was possible for diesel cars to run clean.

“We had no cause for suspicion,” German, U.S. co-lead of the International Council on Clean Transportation, said in an interview. “We thought the vehicles would be clean.”

So began a series of events that resulted in Volkswagen AG admitting that it built “defeat device” software into a half-million of its diesel cars from 2009 to 2015 that automatically cheated on U.S. air-pollution tests. The world’s second-biggest carmaker now faces billions in fines, possible jail time for its executives and the undoing of its U.S. expansion plans.

Hat tip to Assiduous Reader JP, who brought this to my attention.

It didn’t do their stock price much good:

Volkswagen AG dropped 15 percent, the most in almost six years, after it admitted to cheating on U.S. air pollution tests for years.

The shares declined as much as 23.80 euros and were down 14 percent at 140 euros as of 9:03 a.m. in Frankfurt. The drop extends the fall for the year to 24 percent, valuing the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company at 66.2 billion euros ($74.9 billion).

Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said on Sunday that the company is cooperating with regulatory investigators and ordered its own external investigation into the issue. The CEO said he was “deeply sorry” for breaking the public’s trust.

Public trust is right!

John Decker bought his 2013 Volkswagen Jetta diesel thinking he was doing his part to improve the environment and reduce his carbon footprint.

Now that the German automaker has admitted its claims about the model’s performance were false, he just wants the company to buy it back from him.

“I feel completely deceived by Volkswagen,” Decker, of Sacramento, California, said in an interview. “I’m extremely upset about it. I feel defrauded.”
…
Decker wants Volkswagen to compensate him for the purchase. He said he has been in contact with the law firm of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in Seattle, which announced Sept. 18 that it was filing a federal lawsuit against Volkswagen. The firm estimates that some consumers paid as much as $7,000 more for a diesel model.

“I don’t want my car anymore, frankly,” Decker said. “I’d like Volkswagen to buy it back from me. I really don’t want it. I don’t want to drive it. I don’t want anything to do with Volkswagen.”

Assiduous Reader JP – who has been very industriously outperforming you other bums who never send me anything – also alerts me to the denouement of a Dutch takeover defence initiated last spring:

Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said Tuesday it is bidding $40 billion for Mylan NV, a drug company with headquarters in Canonsburg, Pa., but incorporated in the Netherlands. In early April, moving preemptively to thwart such an offer, a Dutch law firm submitted paperwork on Mylan’s behalf to the Netherlands trade registry to create an obscure but powerful legal vehicle called a “stichting.”

The entity, named Stichting Preferred Shares Mylan, is essentially an empty shell. But it possesses special powers, thanks to a shareholder-approved provision tucked into the paperwork for a previous Mylan acquisition: If Mylan ever receives an unsolicited takeover bid, the stichting can get veto rights over any takeover.

Stichtings, which mean “foundations” in Dutch, have been around for hundreds of years, primarily used by Dutch charities. During the World War II, Dutch companies transferred their ownership to stichtings based in the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean to protect assets from the German occupiers, experts say.
…
Their key attribute is that stichtings, often referred to as orphan foundations, don’t have any legal owners. That means they can be used to put money or other assets outside the reach of government authorities, competitors or shareholders. The stichting’s purpose and the responsibilities of its board of directors can be tailored to the vehicle’s needs.

But management has decided it is sufficiently entrenched:

Mylan said Monday that it has moved to cancel the preferred shares issued to the entity in July, as the threats to the company “have been sufficiently addressed.”

In a bit of fun news that shows Natural Philosophy as a hobby is not yet dead, World Bank economist Kaushik Basu has proved the Pythagorean Theorem. I don’t know if there’s any listing of proofs that might be considered authoritative, but here’s one site with 111 versions. Keep them coming, boys! Should we ever meet aliens, it will be most interesting to learn how many proofs they have and which ones they consider standard.

Meanwhile Russians are voting with their feet:

Official statistics show the number of Russian citizens leaving permanently or for more than nine months reached 53,235 in 2014, up 11 percent and the highest in nine years. Germany, the U.S. and Israel all report increases in the numbers of applications for immigration visas from Russia.

Parakeet Poluz made a good point about Malthusian forecasts and Club of Rome projections:

But history has repeatedly shown that new technologies can quickly upend assumptions about future demand and supply.

For example, back in the 1970s, there were predictions that the world would run out of copper by the end of the century. The people who made that forecast did not foresee that copper wire, long a staple of communications infrastructure, would be replaced by fibre-optic cable, with its glass threads made from silica. This technology helped reduce the demand for copper, in essence extending its supply.

Similarly, digital photography had a dramatic impact on the photo-processing industry. Twenty years ago, the idea that everyone would carry around telephones that were also good-quality cameras was ridiculous. People took pictures with cameras that were loaded with film and took the film to a developer. The processing consumed a lot of silver. Back then, if you didn’t anticipate the emergence of digital photography, you might have expected this source of demand would continue indefinitely. Instead, according to the Washington-based Silver Institute, the use of silver in photography peaked in 1999 and has fallen by almost 80 per cent since.

It would appear that he fulfilled his cheerleading mandate in the question and answer period:

“In terms of being excessively dependent, I don’t buy that. Twenty per cent of our economy is the resource economy. That’s very important; it’s our backbone. It’s always been our history, and the rest is in some way dependent on that continuing to perform,” Mr Poloz told a business audience in Calgary, where the collapse in oil prices has led to deep cuts in spending and thousands of layoffs in the energy sector.

“We’re a highly diversified economy, and we should be thankful that we’ve got resources as part of our diversification, whereas lots of other countries don’t have that.”

During the federal election campaign, there has been considerable debate about the growing emphasis on energy-sector expansion under Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and, subsequently, the broad economic consequences of the industry’s downturn.

Excessively dependent? Bank of Canada research has noted:

Two aspects of the recent monetary history of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand stand out: the sensitivity of their dollars to prices of resource-based commodities, and inflation targeting.

… while less authoritative but still credible research asserts:

In the last ten years, over half of Canada’s total exports consisted of energy and non-energy commodities. Because the Canadian dollar is often called a “commodity currency”, this paper seeks to test the relevance of commodity prices in explaining the variation in the Canadian real exchange rate against the US dollar, the UK pound, and the Japanese yen. The currencies of these countries are chosen for the analysis because of Canada’s strong trade relationships with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The dynamic empirical model in this research demonstrates that the proportion of the variation in Canada’s real exchange rate that is attributable to a volatile commodity price shock differs depending on the currency pairing. The results also suggest that the relationship between commodity prices and the Canadian dollar has strengthened over the last two decades.

Sounds excessive to me! Meanwhile, Werner Antweiler of UBC has gone so far as to say:

Is the Canadian Dollar a petrodollar? If you had asked me this question in the 1990s, I would have said “only a little”. At the time, commodity prices were not generally thought to be primary drivers of the exchange rate. During that decade, oil prices were relatively flat and thus the observable variation in the exchange rate was driven by other factors. Most international economists, including those at the Bank of Canada who have a professional interest in this question, were indeed puzzled to find that the CAD/USD exchange rate was difficult to predict based on fundamental factors.

While I was researching oil prices for another issue, I had another look at the relationship between oil prices and the CAD/USD exchange rate, and was indeed a bit surprised how much the oil price matters for determining the value of the Canadian Dollar. As two diagrams show below, there can be little question that during the last fifteen years the Canadian Dollar has morphed into a “petrocurrency”.

In simple terms, a petrocurrency is a currency of an oil-producing country—such as Canada—whose oil exports as a share of total exports are sufficiently large that the value of that country’s currency rises and falls along with the price of oil. In other words, a petrocurrency appreciates when the oil price rises and depreciates when the oil price falls.

Perhaps Mr. Poluz will explain how a deeply rooted manufacturing complex is supposed to survive, when our currency fluctuates so much against our number one trading partner with such alarming amplitude?

One of the more entertaining corporate battles of recent times may have ended in a draw:

Sprott Asset Management LP (“Sprott” or “Sprott Asset Management”), together with Sprott Physical Gold Trust (NYSE:PHYS) (TSX:PHY.U) and Sprott Physical Silver Trust (NYSE:PSLV) (TSX:PHS.U), today announced that it has filed notices of extension in connection with the offers by Sprott Asset Management Gold Bid LP and Sprott Asset Management Silver Bid LP to acquire all of the outstanding units of Central GoldTrust (“GTU”) (TSX: GTU.UN) (TSX:GTU.U) (NYSEMKT:GTU) and Silver Bullion Trust (“SBT”) (TSX:SBT.UN) (TSX:SBT.U), respectively, for units of Sprott Physical Gold Trust and units of Sprott Physical Silver Trust, in each case on a net asset value (NAV) to NAV exchange basis (collectively, the “Sprott offers”). The notices of extension extend the expiry time of the Sprott offers to 5 p.m. (Toronto time) on October 9, 2015.
…
As of 5:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on September 18, 2015, there were 9,928,736 GTU units (51.45% of all outstanding units) and 2,065,574 SBT units (37.78% of all outstanding units) tendered into the respective Sprott offers.

IGM Financial, proud issuer of IGM.PR.B, has been confirmed at Pfd-2(high) by DBRS:

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the Issuer Rating and Unsecured Debentures rating of IGM Financial Inc. (IGM or the Company) at A (high) and the First Preferred Shares rating at Pfd-2 (high). The trends are Stable.
…
In addition to strong profitability, the Company’s credit rating also benefits from strong cash flows (which comfortably cover the upfront distribution costs of mutual fund sales), strong liquidity and a conservative financial profile. The Company’s ratio of debt plus preferred shares-to-total capitalization remains appropriate for the rating.

As a member of the Power Financial Corporation (Power) group of companies, IGM benefits from the additional financial flexibility of having a strategic shareholder and the associated strong governance and risk avoidance management model that is typical of Power subsidiaries.

It was a day of little overall movement for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts and DeemedRetractibles both off 6bp, while FixedResets gained 4bp. The placidity of the indices masked a lot of churn, though, as reported on the Performance Highlights table. Volume was very low.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 20.00 to be $1.04 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.17 cheap at its bid price of 13.00.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility falling a bit today.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.J, resetting at +261bp on 2018-3-19, bid at 22.65 to be 0.44 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 23.03 to be 0.44 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 16.50 to be $1.63 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 22.60 and appears to be $1.31 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 22.15, looks $0.54 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 18.79 and is $0.53 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.93%, with no outliers. The distribution’s bimodality has returned, with bank NVCC non-compliant pairs averaging -1.08% and other issues averaging -0.71%. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0954 %	1,647.0
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.0954 %	2,879.8
Floater	4.51 %	4.54 %	59,940	16.36	3	-0.0954 %	1,750.9
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.3382 %	2,767.8
SplitShare	4.65 %	5.03 %	63,501	3.05	3	-0.3382 %	3,243.7
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.3382 %	2,530.8
Perpetual-Premium	5.71 %	1.09 %	53,552	0.08	8	0.0840 %	2,496.2
Perpetual-Discount	5.45 %	5.55 %	67,270	14.55	30	-0.0619 %	2,600.4
FixedReset	4.75 %	4.24 %	180,340	15.86	74	0.0365 %	2,142.2
Deemed-Retractible	5.15 %	4.68 %	91,108	5.49	33	-0.0606 %	2,578.9
FloatingReset	2.49 %	4.12 %	49,353	5.88	9	0.1700 %	2,148.3

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
BIP.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.78 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 21.65 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 5.00 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	-2.46 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 14.68 Bid-YTW : 8.74 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-1.81 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.22 Bid-YTW : 8.58 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.79 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 16.45 Evaluated at bid price : 16.45 Bid-YTW : 4.36 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.55 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.69 Bid-YTW : 6.65 %
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	-1.47 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.07 Bid-YTW : 4.12 %
BNS.PR.Y	FixedReset	-1.39 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.30 Bid-YTW : 4.58 %
BAM.PR.R	FixedReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 16.53 Evaluated at bid price : 16.53 Bid-YTW : 4.84 %
CU.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.24 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 20.70 Evaluated at bid price : 20.70 Bid-YTW : 3.99 %
PWF.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 23.63 Evaluated at bid price : 23.90 Bid-YTW : 5.57 %
BMO.PR.Y	FixedReset	1.04 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 22.47 Evaluated at bid price : 23.35 Bid-YTW : 3.86 %
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	1.07 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.78 Bid-YTW : 5.87 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	1.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.65 Bid-YTW : 4.88 %
TRP.PR.B	FixedReset	1.12 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 12.66 Evaluated at bid price : 12.66 Bid-YTW : 4.17 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	1.26 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 20.15 Evaluated at bid price : 20.15 Bid-YTW : 4.68 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.19 Bid-YTW : 4.84 %
BAM.PR.X	FixedReset	1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 15.50 Evaluated at bid price : 15.50 Bid-YTW : 4.52 %
HSE.PR.G	FixedReset	1.34 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 22.08 Evaluated at bid price : 22.65 Bid-YTW : 4.84 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	1.43 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.75 Bid-YTW : 7.46 %
BNS.PR.D	FloatingReset	1.45 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.30 Bid-YTW : 4.83 %
BMO.PR.M	FixedReset	1.47 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.15 Bid-YTW : 3.56 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	1.48 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 13.00 Evaluated at bid price : 13.00 Bid-YTW : 4.65 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	1.57 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.52 Bid-YTW : 3.51 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	1.69 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 13.25 Bid-YTW : 9.46 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	1.89 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 18.85 Evaluated at bid price : 18.85 Bid-YTW : 4.09 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	2.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 14.70 Evaluated at bid price : 14.70 Bid-YTW : 3.89 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	2.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 15.62 Evaluated at bid price : 15.62 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	112,520	Desjardins crossed blocks of 85,200 and 10,000, both at 18.95. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 18.85 Evaluated at bid price : 18.85 Bid-YTW : 4.09 %
TRP.PR.E	FixedReset	59,776	TD crossed blocks of 17,000 and 20,000, both at 20.05. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 4.31 %
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	36,284	TD crossed 17,000 at 22.62. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 22.49 Evaluated at bid price : 23.36 Bid-YTW : 3.78 %
RY.PR.I	FixedReset	33,900	Desjardins crossed blocks of 15,400 and 15,000, both at 24.80. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.62 Bid-YTW : 3.50 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	32,593	Nesbitt crossed 30,000 at 23.20. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.03 Bid-YTW : 4.89 %
TRP.PR.D	FixedReset	28,912	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-21 Maturity Price : 19.29 Evaluated at bid price : 19.29 Bid-YTW : 4.40 %
There were 16 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
MFC.PR.M	FixedReset	Quote: 21.10 – 21.85 Spot Rate : 0.7500 Average : 0.5086 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.10 Bid-YTW : 5.74 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	Quote: 19.69 – 20.15 Spot Rate : 0.4600 Average : 0.3114 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.69 Bid-YTW : 6.65 %
GWO.PR.R	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 22.25 – 22.60 Spot Rate : 0.3500 Average : 0.2038 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.25 Bid-YTW : 6.40 %
TD.PR.Z	FloatingReset	Quote: 22.40 – 22.74 Spot Rate : 0.3400 Average : 0.2227 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.40 Bid-YTW : 3.90 %
GWO.PR.L	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 25.15 – 25.50 Spot Rate : 0.3500 Average : 0.2367 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.15 Bid-YTW : 5.59 %
BMO.PR.R	FloatingReset	Quote: 22.07 – 22.50 Spot Rate : 0.4300 Average : 0.3167 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.07 Bid-YTW : 4.12 %

Nothing happened today, except that bonds had a good day:

The S&P 500 retreated 1.6 percent at 4 p.m. in New York, erasing its gain for the week. The gauge ended lower yesterday by 0.4 percent, erasing a gain of as much as 1.3 percent after Yellen indicated that global developments overshadowed signs of strength in America.
…
U.S. two-year Treasuries extended their biggest one-day rally since 2009, while Pacific Investment Management Co. said policy makers may wait until next year before raising rates. JPMorgan Asset Management said the Fed’s statement was good for bonds and they still like debt due between seven and 10 years.

Bonds gained from Australia to Germany, while Treasuries added to an advance from Thursday. The yield on 10-year German bunds, the euro region’s benchmark sovereign securities, dropped 12 basis points to 0.66 percent, set for its biggest decline since July 7, on prospects for further easing by the European Central Bank.

Rates on similar-maturity Italian bonds fell 14 basis points to 1.76 percent, while those on Spain’s declined 15 basis points to 1.94 percent. The yield on U.S. 10-year Treasuries fell six basis points to 2.13 percent on Friday, after sliding 10 basis points the previous day.

It was yet another negative day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts gaining 5bp, FixedResets down 48bp and DeemedRetractibles off 6bp. The Performance Highlights table is comprised entirely of losers, mostly FixedResets. Volume was extremely low.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 20.06 to be $1.05 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.32 cheap at its bid price of 12.81.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility falling a bit today.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.H, resetting at +313bp on 2017-3-19, bid at 24.41 to be 0.32 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 23.03 to be 0.30 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 16.80 to be $1.42 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 22.54 and appears to be $1.17 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 22.20, looks $0.66 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 18.79 and is $0.43 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.87%, with no outliers. The distribution’s bimodality has vanished. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-1.1003 %	1,648.6
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-1.1003 %	2,882.5
Floater	4.51 %	4.54 %	58,288	16.37	3	-1.1003 %	1,752.6
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0812 %	2,777.2
SplitShare	4.63 %	4.95 %	61,117	3.06	3	0.0812 %	3,254.7
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0812 %	2,539.4
Perpetual-Premium	5.71 %	2.95 %	53,691	0.08	8	0.1138 %	2,494.1
Perpetual-Discount	5.45 %	5.52 %	66,304	14.59	30	0.0476 %	2,602.0
FixedReset	4.75 %	4.21 %	178,672	15.99	74	-0.4801 %	2,141.4
Deemed-Retractible	5.15 %	4.75 %	91,336	5.50	33	-0.0580 %	2,580.4
FloatingReset	2.49 %	3.96 %	49,480	5.90	9	-0.5021 %	2,144.7

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	-4.33 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 12.81 Evaluated at bid price : 12.81 Bid-YTW : 4.62 %
HSE.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.68 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 13.80 Evaluated at bid price : 13.80 Bid-YTW : 4.65 %
TRP.PR.A	FixedReset	-2.62 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 16.75 Evaluated at bid price : 16.75 Bid-YTW : 4.22 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	-2.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 13.03 Bid-YTW : 9.65 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	-2.04 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 14.40 Evaluated at bid price : 14.40 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	-1.96 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.50 Bid-YTW : 7.59 %
MFC.PR.F	FixedReset	-1.96 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.50 Bid-YTW : 8.27 %
BAM.PR.K	Floater	-1.88 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 10.42 Evaluated at bid price : 10.42 Bid-YTW : 4.54 %
SLF.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.73 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.35 Bid-YTW : 8.23 %
TD.PR.S	FixedReset	-1.56 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.97 Bid-YTW : 3.66 %
VNR.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.49 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 19.90 Evaluated at bid price : 19.90 Bid-YTW : 4.68 %
BAM.PR.Z	FixedReset	-1.45 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 21.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.00 Bid-YTW : 4.62 %
TRP.PR.B	FixedReset	-1.42 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 12.52 Evaluated at bid price : 12.52 Bid-YTW : 4.14 %
BMO.PR.T	FixedReset	-1.41 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 20.94 Evaluated at bid price : 20.94 Bid-YTW : 3.82 %
PWF.PR.T	FixedReset	-1.39 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 22.21 Evaluated at bid price : 22.70 Bid-YTW : 3.65 %
IFC.PR.C	FixedReset	-1.38 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 6.39 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.36 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.50 Bid-YTW : 5.11 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-1.33 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 18.50 Evaluated at bid price : 18.50 Bid-YTW : 4.11 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.05 Bid-YTW : 8.35 %
BAM.PR.R	FixedReset	-1.18 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 16.75 Evaluated at bid price : 16.75 Bid-YTW : 4.70 %
HSE.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.11 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 21.89 Evaluated at bid price : 22.35 Bid-YTW : 4.87 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.08 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.90 Bid-YTW : 4.96 %
FTS.PR.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.05 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 22.24 Evaluated at bid price : 22.51 Bid-YTW : 5.48 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	65,100	RBC crossed 48,200 at 24.35. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 24.03 Evaluated at bid price : 24.39 Bid-YTW : 5.09 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	52,575	TD crossed 46,700 at 21.75. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 21.31 Evaluated at bid price : 21.60 Bid-YTW : 3.87 %
MFC.PR.G	FixedReset	36,160	Nesbitt crossed 34,600 at 23.20. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.03 Bid-YTW : 4.84 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	32,586	Nesbitt crossed 28,700 at 15.30. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.05 Bid-YTW : 8.35 %
BNS.PR.Q	FixedReset	27,200	RBC crossed 25,000 at 24.32. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.29 Bid-YTW : 3.65 %
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	27,038	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 13.03 Bid-YTW : 9.65 %
There were 12 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
RY.PR.J	FixedReset	Quote: 23.35 – 24.00 Spot Rate : 0.6500 Average : 0.4263 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 22.49 Evaluated at bid price : 23.35 Bid-YTW : 3.74 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	Quote: 14.40 – 15.20 Spot Rate : 0.8000 Average : 0.5885 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 14.40 Evaluated at bid price : 14.40 Bid-YTW : 3.96 %
HSE.PR.G	FixedReset	Quote: 22.35 – 22.99 Spot Rate : 0.6400 Average : 0.4319 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 21.89 Evaluated at bid price : 22.35 Bid-YTW : 4.87 %
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	Quote: 20.56 – 21.18 Spot Rate : 0.6200 Average : 0.4233 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.56 Bid-YTW : 5.98 %
TD.PR.S	FixedReset	Quote: 23.97 – 24.55 Spot Rate : 0.5800 Average : 0.3843 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.97 Bid-YTW : 3.66 %
TRP.PR.C	FixedReset	Quote: 12.81 – 13.30 Spot Rate : 0.4900 Average : 0.2972 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-18 Maturity Price : 12.81 Evaluated at bid price : 12.81 Bid-YTW : 4.62 %

Today’s big news was the FOMC release:

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July suggests that economic activity is expanding at a moderate pace. Household spending and business fixed investment have been increasing moderately, and the housing sector has improved further; however, net exports have been soft. The labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment. On balance, labor market indicators show that underutilization of labor resources has diminished since early this year. Inflation has continued to run below the Committee’s longer-run objective, partly reflecting declines in energy prices and in prices of non-energy imports. Market-based measures of inflation compensation moved lower; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
…
To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the Committee today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 1/4 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate. In determining how long to maintain this target range, the Committee will assess progress–both realized and expected–toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation. This assessment will take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial and international developments. The Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen some further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term.
…
The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run.
…
Voting against the action was Jeffrey M. Lacker, who preferred to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points at this meeting.

Meanwhile, in Canada:

The number of EI beneficiaries rose 2 per cent to 545,200 in July from a month earlier, Statistics Canada said Thursday, led by increases in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta. That level is 7.1 per cent higher than a year ago.

In Alberta, the province most exposed to lower oil prices, the number of EI beneficiaries climbed for the ninth straight month. EI numbers rose 1.8 per cent from a month earlier – a slower pace than in previous months – and are 72.2 per cent higher than in July of last year.

British Columbia and Ontario saw the biggest monthly percentage increases while Quebec and Saskatchewan also registered gains. Numbers fell in Manitoba and Newfoundland.

It was a mildly negative day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts gaining 5bp, FixedResets off 8bp and DeemedRetractibles down 19bp. The Performance Highlights table is reasonably balanced. Volume was low.

For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.

Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread

Here’s TRP:

TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 20.00 to be $0.81 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +164, is $1.04 cheap at its bid price of 13.39.

Another good fit today for MFC, with Implied Volatility falling a bit today.

Most expensive is MFC.PR.H, resetting at +313bp on 2017-3-19, bid at 24.36 to be 0.25 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 23.07 to be 0.28 cheap.

The fit on the BAM issues continues to be horrible.

The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 17.00 to be $1.30 cheap. BAM.PF.G, resetting at +284bp on 2020-6-30 is bid at 22.48 and appears to be $1.06 rich.

FTS.PR.M, with a spread of +248bp, and bid at 22.20, looks $0.61 expensive and resets 2019-12-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 18.79 and is $0.50 cheap.

Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -0.89%, with no outliers. The distribution’s bimodality has vanished. There are two junk outliers above 0.00%.

Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index	Mean Current Yield (at bid)	Median YTW	Median Average Trading Value	Median Mod Dur (YTW)	Issues	Day’s Perf.	Index Value
Ratchet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0944 %	1,666.9
FixedFloater	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	0.0944 %	2,914.6
Floater	4.46 %	4.45 %	57,298	16.54	3	0.0944 %	1,772.1
OpRet	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.2970 %	2,774.9
SplitShare	4.64 %	4.94 %	60,339	3.06	3	-0.2970 %	3,252.0
Interest-Bearing	0.00 %	0.00 %	0	0.00	0	-0.2970 %	2,537.4
Perpetual-Premium	5.72 %	4.73 %	54,130	0.08	8	-0.1087 %	2,491.2
Perpetual-Discount	5.45 %	5.53 %	67,104	14.59	30	0.0511 %	2,600.8
FixedReset	4.73 %	4.10 %	173,820	16.12	74	-0.0843 %	2,151.7
Deemed-Retractible	5.15 %	5.08 %	93,885	5.50	33	-0.1926 %	2,581.9
FloatingReset	2.47 %	3.88 %	49,687	5.91	9	-0.0764 %	2,155.5

Performance Highlights
Issue	Index	Change	Notes
SLF.PR.J	FloatingReset	-2.84 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 13.35 Bid-YTW : 9.34 %
IFC.PR.A	FixedReset	-1.80 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 16.34 Bid-YTW : 8.48 %
IAG.PR.G	FixedReset	-1.64 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.81 Bid-YTW : 4.93 %
PWF.PR.T	FixedReset	-1.58 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 22.41 Evaluated at bid price : 23.02 Bid-YTW : 3.59 %
SLF.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	-1.48 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.02 Bid-YTW : 6.54 %
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	-1.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 18.75 Evaluated at bid price : 18.75 Bid-YTW : 4.06 %
HSE.PR.E	FixedReset	-1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 22.06 Evaluated at bid price : 22.60 Bid-YTW : 4.82 %
PWF.PR.S	Perpetual-Discount	-1.28 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 21.99 Evaluated at bid price : 22.31 Bid-YTW : 5.44 %
BMO.PR.M	FixedReset	-1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.01 Bid-YTW : 3.63 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	-1.27 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.05 Bid-YTW : 3.81 %
NA.PR.S	FixedReset	-1.24 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 21.52 Evaluated at bid price : 21.52 Bid-YTW : 3.91 %
RY.PR.I	FixedReset	-1.21 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.50 Bid-YTW : 3.56 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	-1.19 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 23.83 Evaluated at bid price : 24.17 Bid-YTW : 5.13 %
PVS.PR.D	SplitShare	-1.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2021-10-08 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.05 Bid-YTW : 5.29 %
TD.PF.D	FixedReset	-1.03 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 22.37 Evaluated at bid price : 23.16 Bid-YTW : 3.83 %
GWO.PR.S	Deemed-Retractible	-1.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.25 Bid-YTW : 5.68 %
MFC.PR.N	FixedReset	1.02 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.76 Bid-YTW : 5.85 %
MFC.PR.J	FixedReset	1.09 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.25 Bid-YTW : 5.06 %
SLF.PR.G	FixedReset	1.10 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.62 Bid-YTW : 8.01 %
MFC.PR.I	FixedReset	1.14 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.15 Bid-YTW : 4.81 %
HSE.PR.C	FixedReset	1.22 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 20.75 Evaluated at bid price : 20.75 Bid-YTW : 4.89 %
SLF.PR.H	FixedReset	1.31 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 17.85 Bid-YTW : 7.32 %
GWO.PR.N	FixedReset	1.40 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 15.25 Bid-YTW : 8.18 %
FTS.PR.M	FixedReset	1.42 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 21.82 Evaluated at bid price : 22.20 Bid-YTW : 3.85 %
MFC.PR.M	FixedReset	1.44 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.20 Bid-YTW : 5.64 %
POW.PR.B	Perpetual-Discount	1.47 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 23.88 Evaluated at bid price : 24.13 Bid-YTW : 5.54 %
TRP.PR.F	FloatingReset	2.37 %	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 14.70 Evaluated at bid price : 14.70 Bid-YTW : 3.87 %

Volume Highlights
Issue	Index	Shares Traded	Notes
RY.PR.L	FixedReset	45,613	RBC crossed 38,000 at 25.65. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.49 Bid-YTW : 3.61 %
TD.PF.F	Perpetual-Discount	41,450	YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 23.83 Evaluated at bid price : 24.17 Bid-YTW : 5.13 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	40,390	Scotia crossed 40,000 at 18.90. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 18.79 Evaluated at bid price : 18.79 Bid-YTW : 4.07 %
BAM.PR.B	Floater	36,847	Nesbitt crossed 25,000 at 10.70. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 10.71 Evaluated at bid price : 10.71 Bid-YTW : 4.41 %
PWF.PR.P	FixedReset	31,282	Scotia crossed 22,800 at 15.40. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 15.36 Evaluated at bid price : 15.36 Bid-YTW : 3.94 %
BAM.PF.A	FixedReset	31,000	RBC crossed 24,400 at 21.72. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 21.32 Evaluated at bid price : 21.62 Bid-YTW : 4.38 %
There were 17 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.

Wide Spread Highlights
Issue	Index	Quote Data and Yield Notes
FTS.PR.K	FixedReset	Quote: 18.75 – 19.59 Spot Rate : 0.8400 Average : 0.6315 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 18.75 Evaluated at bid price : 18.75 Bid-YTW : 4.06 %
BNS.PR.P	FixedReset	Quote: 24.05 – 24.47 Spot Rate : 0.4200 Average : 0.2499 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.05 Bid-YTW : 3.81 %
SLF.PR.B	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 22.02 – 22.45 Spot Rate : 0.4300 Average : 0.2965 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.02 Bid-YTW : 6.54 %
FTS.PR.G	FixedReset	Quote: 18.79 – 19.25 Spot Rate : 0.4600 Average : 0.3417 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-09-17 Maturity Price : 18.79 Evaluated at bid price : 18.79 Bid-YTW : 4.07 %
MFC.PR.C	Deemed-Retractible	Quote: 21.18 – 21.62 Spot Rate : 0.4400 Average : 0.3260 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 21.18 Bid-YTW : 6.76 %
PVS.PR.D	SplitShare	Quote: 24.05 – 24.40 Spot Rate : 0.3500 Average : 0.2443 YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2021-10-08 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.05 Bid-YTW : 5.29 %