PrefBlog

Some parts of the US economy are growing rapidly:

At least one sector of the economy is booming, and President Barack Obama can legitimately take credit for it. Since he took office, employment has surged 13 percent at federal regulatory agencies. The regulators’ budgets are up 16 percent. (These numbers are derived from a May report published by Washington University and George Washington University.) And that’s before some of the major regulatory initiatives of the administration — the financial-reform bill and the health-care overhaul — are fully implemented.

Obama understands that a reputation for regulatory hyperactivity in the midst of a weak economy wouldn’t help his re-election prospects. In January, he promised “a government- wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.” That review led to some modest improvements: The Environmental Protection Agency pulled back a rule that would have treated dairy spills on farms as though they were oil spills.

Equitable Group, proud issuer of ETC.PR.A has announced:

that it has become aware of a suspected fraud relating to four loans having a total outstanding balance of approximately $14.0 million. The amount of the total loss, if any, cannot be determined at this time. The matter is presently being investigated with a view to minimizing any potential losses to the Company.

Equitable is currently reviewing its legal options for commencing claims against several parties to the subject loan transactions and is consulting with legal counsel in this regard. In addition, Equitable maintains insurance that is intended to cover such occurrences. There is no assurance that the proceeds or recoveries, if any, will be received in a timely manner, or that such proceeds or recoveries will be sufficient to recover the full amount of the loans.

If totally lost, that’s enough to wipe out a whole quarter’s profit.

It was a good day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts winning 22bp, FixedResets gaining 4bp and DeemedRetractibles up 8bp. Volatility was low, volume was on the low side.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 10:01 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.