PrefBlog

The ECB got tough:

The European Central Bank made its largest-ever interest rate increase Thursday, following the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks in a global stampede of rapid rate hikes meant to snuff out the inflation that is squeezing consumers and pushing Europe toward recession.

The bank’s governing council raised its key benchmarks by an unprecedented three-quarters of a percentage point for the 19 countries that use the euro currency. The ECB usually moves rates by a quarter-point and had not raised its key bank lending rate by three-quarters of a point since the euro’s launch in 1999.

Bank President Christine Lagarde said the ECB would keep hiking rates “over the next several meetings” because “inflation remains far too high and is likely to stay above our target for an extended period.”

There was mixed news about jobs in Canada:

Canada’s unemployment rate shot up in August as the economy shed jobs for a third consecutive month, the latest sign of a chill spreading through the labour market.

Employment fell by 40,000 in August, taking total losses since May to 114,000, Statistics Canada said Friday in a report. The unemployment rate rose to 5.4 per cent from a record low of 4.9 per cent in July. Economists were expecting a far stronger month, with 15,000 jobs created and the jobless rate nudging up to 5 per cent.
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The job losses in August were largely concentrated among young people (15 to 24) and those approaching the traditional retirement age (55 to 64).
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The tight hiring conditions are reflected in wages, which are rising quickly. The average hourly wage rose 5.4 per cent in August from a year earlier, up from 5.2 per cent in June and July, although those figures lag the annual inflation rate of 7.6 per cent in July. The Bank of Canada monitors wages for signs they are driving up inflation and making its task of reining in consumer price growth more difficult.
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In Friday’s report, Statscan also found that more people are considering a change in jobs. Almost 12 per cent of permanent employees were planning to leave their jobs over the next year, about double the level in January. Among workers whose hourly wages were in the bottom 20 per cent, almost one in five were planning to leave their jobs.

More tough talk from Powell:

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, signaled on Thursday that the central bank will continue raising interest rates in order to convince the American public that it is serious about bringing soaring price growth back to normal levels, further cementing market expectations of another aggressive rate increase this month.

“The longer inflation remains well above target, the greater the risk that the public sees higher inflation as the norm,” Mr. Powell said in a moderated discussion with Peter H. Goettler, the president and chief executive of the Cato Institute in Washington. “History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy.”

I must say, I find the recent trend of issuing LRCNs and OTC Preferreds at enormous spreads to be perplexing. The latest one is:

The Toronto-Dominion Bank (“TD”) (TSX: TD) (NYSE: TD) today announced the pricing of a Canadian public offering of C$1.5 billion of 7.283% Non-Viability Contingent Capital (“NVCC”) Additional Tier 1 (“AT1”) Limited Recourse Capital Notes Series 2 (the “LRCNs”).

The LRCNs will bear interest at a rate of 7.283 per cent annually, payable semi-annually, for the initial period ending on, but excluding, October 31, 2027. Thereafter, the interest rate on the LRCNs will reset every five years at a rate equal to the prevailing 5-year Government of Canada Yield plus 4.10 per cent. The LRCNs will mature on October 31, 2082. The expected closing date of the offering is September 14, 2022. TD Securities is acting as lead agent and sole bookrunner on the issue.

Concurrently with the issuance of the LRCNs, TD will issue 1,500,000 Non-Cumulative 5-Year Fixed Rate Reset NVCC Preferred Shares, Series 29 (“Preferred Shares Series 29”) to be held by Computershare Trust Company of Canada, as trustee for TD LRCN Limited Recourse Trust™ (the “Limited Recourse Trust”). In case of non-payment of interest on or principal of the LRCNs when due, the recourse of each LRCN holder will be limited to that holder’s proportionate share of the Limited Recourse Trust’s assets, which will consist of Preferred Shares Series 29 except in limited circumstances.

With the prior written approval of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (Canada), TD may redeem the LRCNs commencing on October 1, 2027, and every five years thereafter, during the period from and including October 1 to and including October 31. TD may redeem the LRCNs in whole or in part on not less than 10 days’ and not more than 60 days’ prior notice to the LRCN holders.

The net proceeds from this transaction will be used for general corporate purposes.

Thanks to Assiduous Reader Yomgui for bringing this to my attention!

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 6.22%, equivalent to 8.09% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield 4.94%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has widened slightly (and perhaps spuriously) to 315bp from the 310bp reported August 31.

Jobs, jobs, jobs!

The jobs report on Friday was the first of the summer to support the case Mr. Biden and his economic aides have been making for months: that the economy is beginning to step down from a high-growth, high-inflation expansion coming out of the pandemic recession but avoiding another recession.

The report showed the country added 315,000 jobs in August, down from 526,000 in July. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly, to 3.7 percent.
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. The labor force participation rate grew by 0.3 percentage points in August, matching its highest rate in the recovery from the pandemic.
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Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent in August, down from a gain of 0.5 percent in July. Over the past year, hourly earnings are up 5.2 percent.

Unfortunately for equities:

Europe’s energy crisis loomed larger Friday after Russian energy giant Gazprom said it couldn’t resume the supply of natural gas through a major pipeline to Germany for now. The company cited what it said was a need for urgent maintenance work to repair key components — in an announcement made just hours before it had been due to restart deliveries.

The Russian state-run energy company had shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Wednesday for what it said would be three days of maintenance.

It said in a social media post Friday evening that it had identified “malfunctions” of a turbine and added that the pipeline would not work unless those were eliminated.

and so:

Wall Street opened sharply higher after the August U.S. payrolls report showed stronger-than-expected hiring but a climb in the unemployment rate to 3.7% eased some concerns about the Federal Reserve being overly aggressive in raising interest rates as it attempts to bring down high inflation.

However, gains were erased after Gazprom, the state-controlled firm with a monopoly on Russian gas exports to Europe via pipeline which were due to restart on Saturday, said it could not safely restart deliveries until it had fixed an oil leak found in a vital turbine and did not give a new time frame.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 337.98 points, or 1.07%, to 31,318.44; the S&P 500 lost 42.59 points, or 1.07%, to 3,924.26; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 154.26 points, or 1.31%, to 11,630.86.

Energy was the only major S&P sector to end the session in positive territory, up 1.81%.

All the three main indexes suffered their third straight weekly loss, as the Dow fell 2.99%, the S&P 500 declined 3.29% and the Nasdaq dropped 4.21%.