Archive for February, 2013

January 31, 2013

Friday, February 1st, 2013

ZeroHedge squared its rot for a good booHooHoo about the Litvak charges mentioned on January 28:

Since for the most part, the buyside traders operated with other people’s money, they were largely indiscriminate on the fine pricing nuances of the acquisition (or disposition) of the securities at hand, and while to the “other people’s money” under management whether a given bond was bought for 55 or 55.75, or a given MBS was sold for 72-6 or 72-16 meant little (after all the trade was driven by a big picture view that the security would go up or down much more and certainly enough to cover the bid/ask spread, resulting in much larger profits upon unwind), the transaction price had a huge impact for the bank traders-cum-salesmen arranging said deals. Because when one is selling a $40 million MBS block, a 1 point price swing equals a difference of $400,000. Make 15 such deals per year, and one’s $1,000,000 bonus (assuming a ~15% cut on the profits) is in the bag.

Golly! Whoever would have thought that the sell-side exists to make money?

I once had a buy-side trader tell me he didn’t care much about the pennies – if he got the direction right, he’d do just fine. His intention was to impress me with how much of a gun he was – and to sneer at my scrabbling in the dirt for pennies – but it didn’t work out that way.

Sadly, we have not yet been informed regarding the identities grossly incompetent (or negligent. One of the two.) buy-side traders in the Litvak case; nor does it appear that action will be taken against them for their dereliction of duty. Performance, schmerformance.

The Canadian preferred share market ended the month on a downbeat, with PerpetualPremiums dipping 2bp, FixedResets down 8bp and DeemedRetractibles off 1bp. Volatility was low. Volume was very heavy.

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 -0.1685 % 2,552.0
FixedFloater 4.17 % 3.50 % 28,868 18.36 1 0.0440 % 3,896.4
Floater 2.73 % 2.92 % 68,934 19.92 4 -0.1685 % 2,755.5
OpRet 4.62 % 1.38 % 59,944 0.38 4 0.2100 % 2,600.7
SplitShare 4.57 % 4.40 % 42,671 4.28 2 0.0597 % 2,914.1
Interest-Bearing 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 0.2100 % 2,378.1
Perpetual-Premium 5.25 % 0.45 % 91,070 0.09 30 -0.0219 % 2,349.3
Perpetual-Discount 4.86 % 4.91 % 145,393 15.61 4 0.1734 % 2,639.9
FixedReset 4.92 % 2.93 % 262,058 3.55 78 -0.0782 % 2,481.5
Deemed-Retractible 4.88 % 2.82 % 139,006 0.31 45 -0.0052 % 2,430.6
Performance Highlights
Issue Index Change Notes
FTS.PR.H FixedReset -2.00 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 23.66
Evaluated at bid price : 25.45
Bid-YTW : 2.88 %
PWF.PR.P FixedReset -1.17 % YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 23.53
Evaluated at bid price : 25.45
Bid-YTW : 3.04 %
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Shares
Traded
Notes
BNS.PR.Z FixedReset 135,281 TD crossed 50,000 at 25.15. Desjardins crossed blocks of 43,000 and 26,500, both at 25.03.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2022-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.01
Bid-YTW : 3.12 %
ENB.PR.T FixedReset 124,763 TD and Scotia both crossed 25,000 at 25.55; TD bought 10,000 from Nesbitt at the same price.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2019-06-01
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.52
Bid-YTW : 3.76 %
BAM.PF.C Perpetual-Discount 100,300 RBC crossed 50,000 at 25.00; TD crossed 34,600 at the same price, then bought 10,000 from CIBC at the same price again.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 24.61
Evaluated at bid price : 25.00
Bid-YTW : 4.91 %
HSE.PR.A FixedReset 83,800 Desjardins crossed 35,000 at 26.40. RBC crossed 19,900 and Desjardins crossed 25,000, both at 26.45.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2016-03-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.48
Bid-YTW : 2.63 %
MFC.PR.D FixedReset 81,343 Desjardins crossed 12,600 at 26.60; RBC crossed 22,600 at 26.79.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-06-19
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.72
Bid-YTW : 2.13 %
BNS.PR.M Deemed-Retractible 72,839 RBC crossed 35,400 at 25.88.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2016-07-27
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.82
Bid-YTW : 3.52 %
There were 58 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.
Wide Spread Highlights
Issue Index Quote Data and Yield Notes
PWF.PR.K Perpetual-Premium Quote: 25.25 – 26.00
Spot Rate : 0.7500
Average : 0.4275

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-10-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.25
Bid-YTW : 4.38 %

TCA.PR.Y Perpetual-Premium Quote: 52.45 – 53.25
Spot Rate : 0.8000
Average : 0.5283

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-03-05
Maturity Price : 50.00
Evaluated at bid price : 52.45
Bid-YTW : 1.06 %

PWF.PR.P FixedReset Quote: 25.45 – 25.88
Spot Rate : 0.4300
Average : 0.2820

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 23.53
Evaluated at bid price : 25.45
Bid-YTW : 3.04 %

FTS.PR.H FixedReset Quote: 25.45 – 25.80
Spot Rate : 0.3500
Average : 0.2339

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 23.66
Evaluated at bid price : 25.45
Bid-YTW : 2.88 %

TRI.PR.B Floater Quote: 22.95 – 24.00
Spot Rate : 1.0500
Average : 0.9480

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2043-01-31
Maturity Price : 22.71
Evaluated at bid price : 22.95
Bid-YTW : 2.27 %

CU.PR.C FixedReset Quote: 26.49 – 26.75
Spot Rate : 0.2600
Average : 0.1714

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2017-06-01
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.49
Bid-YTW : 2.71 %