More evidence that the EU should be insisting on a Greek referendum, not forbidding one:
The world’s leading financiers are betting they can prevent bankruptcy in Greece with a bailout deal that will force strict austerity on its citizens, but that plan does not account for stubborn people like Olga Katimertzis.
The 58-year-old has served as a deputy mayor in the Athens suburb of Nea Ionia for more than three decades, and she embodies the way this country has started to fight itself. Wearing an old leather jacket in her chilly office, and chain-smoking cigarettes, she proudly describes how her municipality is offering free legal advice to anybody who refuses to pay new taxes imposed by the central government. Her offices are even organizing human barricades to prevent the electrical utility from disconnecting people who fall behind on their bills.
The MF Global receivership is heating up a little:
MF Global Inc.’s shortfall in U.S. segregated customer accounts may exceed $1.2 billion, more than double what was previously expected, said the trustee overseeing a liquidation of the failed brokerage run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.
That would mean customer accounts are missing about 22 percent of their total of $5.4 billion. A shortfall of 11 percent had been previously estimated by a person with knowledge of probes into the firm’s collapse. James Giddens, the trustee, said today that forensic accountants and investigators are working “around the clock,” and the estimate may change.
…
The CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission are also investigating cash movements at the firm before the bankruptcy filing. Regulators haven’t located the money.The estimated amount of the shortfall has fluctuated. Examiners from CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange, found unexplained wire transfers at MF Global Inc. and a $900 million shortfall in client funds during the weekend the failing broker was talking with possible buyers, a person briefed on the matter said.
I’m still having a hard time taking this seriously. The first thing a liquidator does after being appointed by regulators is vilify ex-management – this not only makes him a hero when he announces he’s got all the money, but keeps him on good terms with the regulator who appointed him, so he’ll be in line for the next appointment as well. I note that the phrases “unexplained wire transfers” and “$900 million shortfall” are indeed in the same sentence in the quoted report, but are not directly connected. Ah, well, we will see!
The US is still not serious about deficit reduction:
A special debt-reduction committee in the U.S. Congress failed to reach agreement, extending partisan gridlock into the 2012 election year and setting the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts.
President Barack Obama blamed Republicans, saying in remarks at the White House they “refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise.” The president said he would veto any move to avoid the automatic spending cuts that are supposed to start in 2013 as a result of panel’s failure.
Committee co-chairmen Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a Republican, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat, said in an e-mailed statement that “after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.”
As we’ve seen in Europe (and as we saw in Canada in 1994) nobody takes deficit reduction seriously until the market starts giving them major problems.
The Star had a good article on milkfare on Sunday, with a link to a restaurant industry website advocating reform, which contained a further link to a Facebook page advocating reform. The comments on the page are dominated by milkfare recipients and their fellow travellers – which only makes sense, considering that the benefits to the few are charged to the many – but I’m engaged in an interesting debate on one of the posts, anyway. Eventually, I hope, all participants on that thread will agree to the rough equation:
Canadian Milk Price = Free Market Price + Cost of Quota + Unearned Rents
… which, since they will insist that Unearned Rents = 0, will resolve to
Canadian Milk Price = Free Market Price + Cost of Quota
at which point maybe we can start getting somewhere. Milkfare was an appalling policy blunder which has only gotten worse since inception: it’s time for the politicians to ‘fess up to the fact that it ain’t working and move to a free market with compensation to farmers for loss of quota value.
Spread the word! What is really needed is a non-partisan campaign during the next election, urging all voters to ask the candidates what they will do to end milkfare. If Ontario gets eightteen more urban seats in the coming redistribution, that can only help the effort!
Wow, man … Cooler-ado is a happenin’ place, you know?:
There are currently 16 states that allow some form of legalized medical marijuana, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Nov. 21 edition. Only Colorado allows marijuana businesses to operate as such. It’s the first, and for the moment, only, for-profit marijuana marketplace in the U.S.
Predictably, Colorado is in the midst of a marijuana boom. From 2000, when Colorado voters legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes with Amendment 20, to 2008, Colorado issued roughly 2,000 medical marijuana cards to patients living in the state. By 2011 that number had jumped to over 127,000 paying customers, according to the Colorado Medical Marijuana Registry, and at least 25,000 more have applications pending.
Assiduous Reader BG sends me an interesting article titled Will WiFi Kill Us All, which discusses the long-term health risks associated with heavy exposure to cell ‘phones and WiFi electromagnetic radiation. I don’t buy it myself – I think the author has just experienced a placebo effect – but who knows? Something is behind the explosion in autism, peanut allergies, senile dementia (which may just be because we’re living longer, I don’t know) and alien abductions, but we don’t know what. I subscribe to the “soup theory” myself – simply that we now live in an environment where there’s lots of interesting chemicals and influences which have never existed before. A one-in-a-million chance is pretty minor, but if you take a million of ’em, you’re likely to get burnt.
DBRS confirmed TDS.PR.C at Pfd-2(low).
Today’s report is being made with Yahoo! prices because TMX DataLinx has colly-wobbles again.
It was a down day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts down 1bp, FixedResets off 9bp and DeemedRetractibles losing 12bp. All entries on the Performance Highlights table were losers. Volume was light.
| 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 | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.3215 % | 2,124.2 |
| FixedFloater | 4.94 % | 4.67 % | 29,925 | 17.05 | 1 | -2.5316 % | 3,122.6 |
| Floater | 3.39 % | 3.41 % | 155,025 | 18.69 | 2 | -0.3215 % | 2,293.6 |
| OpRet | 4.97 % | 3.54 % | 51,412 | 1.48 | 7 | -0.5801 % | 2,475.1 |
| SplitShare | 5.80 % | 6.42 % | 57,363 | 5.17 | 3 | -0.3376 % | 2,528.5 |
| Interest-Bearing | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.5801 % | 2,263.2 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 5.57 % | 0.45 % | 101,347 | 0.13 | 13 | -0.0854 % | 2,155.7 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 5.30 % | 5.30 % | 102,115 | 14.76 | 17 | -0.0072 % | 2,298.9 |
| FixedReset | 5.10 % | 2.96 % | 225,125 | 2.48 | 63 | -0.0929 % | 2,349.0 |
| Deemed-Retractible | 5.04 % | 4.37 % | 207,206 | 3.87 | 46 | -0.1230 % | 2,220.3 |
| Performance Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| BAM.PR.G | FixedFloater | -2.53 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2041-11-21 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 19.25 Bid-YTW : 4.67 % |
| BAM.PR.I | OpRet | -1.52 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2012-06-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.27 Bid-YTW : 5.04 % |
| GWO.PR.M | Deemed-Retractible | -1.18 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.00 Bid-YTW : 5.43 % |
| HSB.PR.C | Deemed-Retractible | -1.10 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.27 Bid-YTW : 5.09 % |
| PWF.PR.L | Perpetual-Discount | -1.04 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2041-11-21 Maturity Price : 24.21 Evaluated at bid price : 24.67 Bid-YTW : 5.19 % |
| BAM.PR.O | OpRet | -1.03 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Option Certainty Maturity Date : 2013-06-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.82 Bid-YTW : 3.37 % |
| CU.PR.C | FixedReset | -1.02 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2041-11-21 Maturity Price : 23.24 Evaluated at bid price : 25.34 Bid-YTW : 3.63 % |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Shares Traded |
Notes |
| BNS.PR.R | FixedReset | 46,926 | Nesbitt crossed 43,000 at 26.15. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-01-26 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.05 Bid-YTW : 3.14 % |
| SLF.PR.I | FixedReset | 39,650 | Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-12-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.50 Bid-YTW : 4.44 % |
| TD.PR.G | FixedReset | 35,875 | RBC crossed 23,000 at 27.25. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-04-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 27.24 Bid-YTW : 2.59 % |
| BNS.PR.P | FixedReset | 35,609 | Desjardins crossed 10,000 at 25.79; TD crossed 10,000 at 25.75. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2013-04-25 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.74 Bid-YTW : 3.07 % |
| RY.PR.B | Deemed-Retractible | 32,561 | TD crossed 25,000 at 25.40. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2015-08-24 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.35 Bid-YTW : 4.31 % |
| TD.PR.K | FixedReset | 29,275 | Nesbitt crossed 25,000 at 27.49. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-07-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 27.43 Bid-YTW : 2.64 % |
| There were 26 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares. | |||
| Wide Spread Highlights | ||
| Issue | Index | Quote Data and Yield Notes |
| PWF.PR.E | Perpetual-Discount | Quote: 25.22 – 25.85 Spot Rate : 0.6300 Average : 0.3988 YTW SCENARIO |
| SLF.PR.H | FixedReset | Quote: 23.90 – 24.40 Spot Rate : 0.5000 Average : 0.2913 YTW SCENARIO |
| CM.PR.K | FixedReset | Quote: 26.70 – 27.20 Spot Rate : 0.5000 Average : 0.3124 YTW SCENARIO |
| TCA.PR.Y | Perpetual-Premium | Quote: 52.64 – 53.28 Spot Rate : 0.6400 Average : 0.4776 YTW SCENARIO |
| IAG.PR.F | Deemed-Retractible | Quote: 25.86 – 26.40 Spot Rate : 0.5400 Average : 0.3857 YTW SCENARIO |
| BAM.PR.I | OpRet | Quote: 25.27 – 25.75 Spot Rate : 0.4800 Average : 0.3392 YTW SCENARIO |
I see Transalta is issuing a new preferred.
http://www.transalta.com/newsroom/news-releases/2011-11-22/transalta-issue-200-million-preferred-shares
“Holders of the Series C Shares will be entitled to receive a cumulative quarterly fixed dividend yielding 4.60% annually for the initial period ending June 30, 2017. Thereafter, the dividend rate will be reset every five years at a rate equal to the 5-year Government of Canada bond yield plus 3.10%.”