PrefBlog

Turnover surged to 44% in December; the market strong during the month, with buying interest exceeding what must have been significant tax-loss selling pressure, making the market very liquid with good day-to-day volatility for some issues.

The fund’s trading will probably be higher in the future than has been normal for the past several years, since the extreme segmentation in the marketplace that I have been complaining about for so long is now effectively ended. Low-Reset insurance issues have been considered so cheap relative to their peers that the fund’s holdings were effectively frozen. However, this differentiating factor is no longer considered applicable.

I am no longer making any adjustments for special qualities of insurance issues but note that this policy may change again in the future – a requirement for a Principal Loss Absorbency Mechanism, whereby any security included in Tier 1 Capital will be wiped out prior to a government bail-out, even if technical bankruptcy is avoided, remains good public policy; it is a disgrace that the IAIS has rejected this principle and even worse that OSFI argued strenuously against it. I will continue to read notifications from these two entities with great interest, but while it is within the realm of possibility that ICS 2.0 will be revised following the expiry of the current five-year testing period, I can’t say I have any great confidence in the wisdom of the bureaucrats.

Sectoral distribution of the MAPF portfolio on December 31 was as follows:

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

Credit distribution is:

Liquidity Distribution is:

The distribution of Issue Reset Spreads is:

Distribution of Floating Rate Start Dates is shown in the table below. This is the date of the next adjustment to the dividend rate, if the issue is currently paying a fixed rate for a limited time; which in practice is successive terms of 5 years. Issues that adjust quarterly are considered “Currently Floating”.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. The fund may be purchased directly from Hymas Investment Management. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but are not sold with a prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission). Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

A similar portfolio composition analysis has been performed on the Claymore Preferred Share ETF (symbol CPD) (and other funds) as of July 31, 2017, and published in the August, 2017, PrefLetter. It is fair to say:

• MAPF credit quality is much better
• MAPF liquidity is lower
• MAPF Yield is higher
• Weightings
  • MAPF is much less exposed to Straight Perpetuals
  • Neither portfolio is exposed to Operating Retractibles (there aren’t too many of those any more!)
  • MAPF is equally exposed to SplitShares (that is to say, currently no exposure)
  • MAPF is less exposed to FixFloat / Floater / Ratchet
  • MAPF is significantly higher weighted in FixedResets, with a much greater emphasis on lower-spread and insurance issues