The Bank for International Settlements released its annual report with chapters on:
- Beyond the rescue: exiting intensive care and finishing the reforms
- From the emergency room to intensive care: the year in retrospect
- Low interest rates: do the risks outweigh the rewards?
- Post-crisis policy challenges in emerging market economies
- Fiscal sustainability in the industrial countries: risks and challenges
- The future of the financial sector
- Macroprudential policy and addressing procyclicality
- The BIS: mission, activities, governance and financial results
Naturally enough, the sections that dealt with regulation are in complete alignment with the G-20 communique. What a coincidence that is!
There’s a hiccup on the way to the US Bank Bill:
U.S. Representative Barney Frank may reconvene the House-Senate financial-overhaul conference today to address Republican protests over a $19 billion bank fee in the bill, according to a scheduling announcement sent to lawmakers.
…
One plan under consideration would instead cover the shortfall in the bill with an increase in the fund that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. maintains to repay customers their deposits when a bank fails. Another would save money by closing the Troubled Asset Relief Program two months early, according to the announcement.Changing the bank fee could end an impasse that threatened to delay the final Senate vote on the bill after the death of Senator Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat. Byrd’s absence left Democrats in need of all four Republicans who previously backed the measure. One of those Republicans, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, withdrew his support earlier today, citing the fee.
PrefBlog has added to its list of interesting things to do while drunk:
Mr Perkins, who worked for City brokers PVM Oil, had gone on a golfing weekend organised by the company.
Then he took the Monday off work and continued to binge drink from midday onwards.
By the evening, Mr Perkins had made his first batch of unauthorised trades.
…
In his stupor, he casually notched up thousands of trades worth a total of $520million (£345million).He drunkenly bought a net 7.13million barrels of oil during the typically quiet overnight period, and at times was personally responsible for 69 per cent of the overall volume of Brent crude being traded globally.
His actions sent prices surging by more than $1.50 to $73.50 for a barrel of Brent crude oil – the highest it had been for eight months.
The deals ended up costing his company £6million and potentially cost companies worldwide more than £100million.
Westcoast did a 10-year bond issue:
Westcoast Energy Inc. raised C$250 million from an issue of 10-year bonds maturing July 2020, pricing the offering at 138.5 basis points over the relevant benchmark for a yield of 4.571%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The bonds carry a coupon of 4.57%.
Westcoast is owned by Spectra Energy Corp. (SE).
There’s an odd lawsuit against the Greater Toronto Hockey League claiming not that try-outs were rigged, or anything like that, but that everybody should get a chance to play (70-odd players tried out for 17 positions):
“Their direct actions have caused irreparable psychological damage to Daniel Longo’s self esteem as an impressionable teenager and demoralized Daniel as an athlete and team hockey player with his peers,” the Longo statement of claim reads. “The conduct by all defendants destroyed the dignity of my son, whom in good conscience gave his team nothing but his best efforts.”
Valela’s statement of claim states: “When Christopher was advised of his termination by my wife and I, he vowed never to play the game he loved since childhood. And, morevoer, his misguided group of defendants demoralized my wife and I, whom had gone well beyond the call of duty as parents in support of the Toronto Avalanche hockey team for two seasons.”
I know a teenager who quit an activity after finding out he wasn’t good enough. Has it always been this way, or is all the fashionable self-esteem crap raising a nation of quitters?
Tragedy struck the Canadian preferred share market today, as PerpetualDiscounts suffered their first loss since May 20. The PerpetualDiscount index gained on twenty-six consecutive trading days, for a total return of +7.43% as median weighted average yield declined from 6.39% to 6.01%. Over the same period, FixedResets had a total return of +1.68%.
I had been hoping to close the quarter with a full month’s run of gains … but you can’t win them all!
PerpetualDiscounts lost 4bp while FixedResets gained 11bp today. Volume picked up to above-average levels, perhaps related to portfolio shuffling with respect to PWF.PR.P and TRP.PR.C, which both closed today.
| 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 | 2.81 % | 2.91 % | 29,040 | 20.36 | 1 | 0.0000 % | 2,048.0 |
| FixedFloater | 5.08 % | 3.25 % | 21,966 | 19.86 | 1 | -0.0467 % | 3,149.6 |
| Floater | 2.42 % | 2.80 % | 75,818 | 20.22 | 3 | -0.6041 % | 2,244.8 |
| OpRet | 4.87 % | 3.31 % | 86,299 | 0.41 | 11 | 0.1166 % | 2,336.9 |
| SplitShare | 6.36 % | 6.27 % | 87,069 | 3.47 | 2 | -0.5455 % | 2,179.7 |
| Interest-Bearing | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.1166 % | 2,136.9 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.0402 % | 1,915.5 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 5.94 % | 6.00 % | 194,603 | 13.91 | 77 | -0.0402 % | 1,813.2 |
| FixedReset | 5.37 % | 3.93 % | 340,948 | 3.52 | 47 | 0.1140 % | 2,187.8 |
| Performance Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| NA.PR.L | Perpetual-Discount | -1.49 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 20.55 Evaluated at bid price : 20.55 Bid-YTW : 6.00 % |
| CM.PR.J | Perpetual-Discount | -1.16 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 18.79 Evaluated at bid price : 18.79 Bid-YTW : 5.99 % |
| BNA.PR.C | SplitShare | -1.06 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2019-01-10 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.56 Bid-YTW : 8.00 % |
| PWF.PR.G | Perpetual-Discount | 1.11 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 24.32 Evaluated at bid price : 24.60 Bid-YTW : 6.10 % |
| PWF.PR.F | Perpetual-Discount | 1.38 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 21.79 Evaluated at bid price : 22.05 Bid-YTW : 6.05 % |
| BAM.PR.O | OpRet | 1.84 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Option Certainty Maturity Date : 2013-06-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.97 Bid-YTW : 3.64 % |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Shares Traded |
Notes |
| TRP.PR.C | FixedReset | 567,818 | New issue settled today. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 23.07 Evaluated at bid price : 24.83 Bid-YTW : 4.05 % |
| PWF.PR.P | FixedReset | 563,942 | New issue settled today. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 23.12 Evaluated at bid price : 25.00 Bid-YTW : 4.06 % |
| BNS.PR.N | Perpetual-Discount | 411,715 | Nesbitt crossed 400,000 at 22.85. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2040-06-29 Maturity Price : 22.72 Evaluated at bid price : 22.87 Bid-YTW : 5.84 % |
| TD.PR.C | FixedReset | 160,065 | Scotia crossed 77,000 at 26.70; TD crossed blocks of 20,000 and 25,000 at the same price. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-03-02 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.69 Bid-YTW : 3.90 % |
| TD.PR.G | FixedReset | 70,200 | TD crossed blocks of 25,000 and 10,000 at 27.40; National sold 10,000 to anonymous at the same price. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-05-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 27.44 Bid-YTW : 3.89 % |
| PWF.PR.J | OpRet | 60,633 | Called for redemption. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2010-07-29 Maturity Price : 25.50 Evaluated at bid price : 25.72 Bid-YTW : 3.31 % |
| There were 43 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares. | |||