PrefBlog

TD is rumoured to be close to a Chrysler Financial deal:

Toronto-Dominion Bank is near an agreement to buy Chrysler Financial, the lender once owned by the third-largest U.S. automaker, from Cerberus Capital Management LP, said three people with knowledge of the matter.

Toronto-Dominion may announce a deal as soon as tomorrow morning, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private. Toronto-Dominion and Cerberus had been discussing a price of about $6 billion to $7 billion, other people with knowledge of the situation said earlier this month.

There are also rumours of a French downgrade:

Costs to insure French government debt trebled this year, rising to an all-time high of 105.5 basis points today, according to data provider CMA. Credit default swaps tied to Czech securities gained 1 basis point to 91 and Chilean swaps were little changed at 89 basis points.

The credit default swaps tied to the French bonds imply a rating of Baa1, seven steps below its actual top ranking of Aaa at Moody’s, according to the New York-based firm’s capital markets research group.

Contracts on Portugal imply a B2 rating, 10 levels below its A1 grade, while swaps tied to Spanish bonds trade at Ba3, 11 steps below its Aa1 ranking, data from the Moody’s research group show. Derivatives protecting Belgian debt imply a rating of Ba1, nine steps below its current rating of Aa1.

It took a while, but it looks as if the IIROC case against TD-Burlington, discussed in March, 2008, has finally reached a conclusion. Yawn. What an abysmal waste of time. If somebody’s putting in silly bids just before the close, then you just programme an algorithm to hit it instantly. The way to get rid of incompetent fools in the industry is by encouraging market efficiency and competition, not more rules. Just ensure retail has access to algorithms, that’s all … a “pounce” algorithm (that will hit any bid over a given price, with or without showing an offer at a higher price) in the hands of retail would have nipped this nonsense in the bud admirably. Or, by not doing so, have showed the breach of UMIR to be inconsequential.

The Canadian preferred share market was on fire today, with PerpetualDiscounts rocketting up 73bp and FixedResets gaining 28bp. Volume continued to be on the heavy side. All the entries on the Volume Highlights table were PerpetualDiscounts; all entries on the Performance Highlights table were winners. Nesbitt did very well on the block trading, but was not quite able to shut out the competition from the Volume report.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 20th, 2010 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.