Again, not much today!
BCE has announced:
that it has been notified by the Québec Superior Court that the judgments relating to BCE’s application for a final order approving BCE’s plan of arrangement for the company’s privatization transaction and the other proceedings instituted by or on behalf of certain holders of Bell Canada debentures will be made public at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, March 7, 2008. BCE will immediately post the judgments on its website at http://www.bce.ca/. To access the judgments, click on the “Privatization of BCE” banner on the home page. Judgments will be posted under the header “Resources” at the top of the page.
Place yer bets, gents, place yer bets! I’m betting (with myself; notional value $0.05) that the bondholders get told to dry up and blow away, but that the deal fails anyway on financing. But what do I know?
Accrued Interest updates his commentary on the until-last-month-not-terribly-exciting US Municipal market:
But the initial read was apparently wrong. On Monday, retail buyers (i.e., mom and pop investors) started coming out of the woodwork to buy bonds. The State of California came with a $1.7 billion deal on Monday. Demand was so strong that the underwriter cut the interest rate by 15bps across the board, and still $1 billion of the deal was done retail. Now maybe there has been $1 billion of a deal done retail in the past, but I sure as hell don’t remember ever hearing of such a thing. Smith Barney, Citigroup’s retail brokerage arm, supposedly had the best day for selling municipal bonds in their entire history on Monday. One large dealer I talk to regularly said they had sold every bond in their inventory by 11AM.
Overall, municipal bond rates are probably 15bps lower today than on Friday, while Treasury rates are about 15bps higher.
The market fell today, led by SplitShares as all eyes were on the carnage in the equity markets. Volume was on the light side; the market had very little time to react to the BNS New Issue before closing; it will be most interesting to see what the upshot is tomorrow morning.
| Note that these indices are experimental; the absolute and relative daily values are expected to change in the final version. In this version, index values are based at 1,000.0 on 2006-6-30 | |||||||
| Index | Mean Current Yield (at bid) | Mean YTW | Mean Average Trading Value | Mean Mod Dur (YTW) | Issues | Day’s Perf. | Index Value |
| Ratchet | 5.51% | 5.53% | 33,149 | 14.6 | 2 | +0.1845% | 1,087.9 |
| Fixed-Floater | 4.78% | 5.60% | 64,469 | 14.75 | 8 | +0.2881 | 1,039.3 |
| Floater | 4.75% | 4.82% | 88,648 | 15.73 | 2 | -0.3606% | 862.4 |
| Op. Retract | 4.83% | 3.21% | 75,193 | 2.63 | 15 | -0.1366% | 1,046.8 |
| Split-Share | 5.28% | 5.23% | 98,682 | 4.01 | 14 | -0.6980% | 1,041.2 |
| Interest Bearing | 6.14% | 6.41% | 65,955 | 4.25 | 3 | -0.1343% | 1,092.0 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 5.75% | 5.32% | 296,765 | 6.26 | 17 | -0.1488% | 1,025.2 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 5.41% | 5.46% | 271,709 | 14.71 | 51 | -0.4020% | 951.1 |
| Major Price Changes | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| FTU.PR.A | SplitShare | -3.8784% | Asset coverage of just under 1.5:1 as of February 29, according to the company. Probably a little less now! Ripe for a downgrade, perhaps? S&P Financials are down 6.27% MTD implying asset coverage of about maybe 1.4:1. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.42% based on a bid of 9.17 and a hardMaturity 2012-12-1 at 10.00. |
| BNA.PR.C | SplitShare | -3.0109% | Asset coverage of 3.3+:1 as of January 31, according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.27% based on a bid of 19.65 and a hardMaturity 2019-1-10 at 25.00. Compare with BNA.PR.A (2.59% to call 2008-4-5) and BNA.PR.B (7.69% to hardMaturity 2016-3-25). |
| FFN.PR.A | SplitShare | -2.2330% | Asset coverage of just under 2.0:1 as of February 29, according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.17% based on a bid of 10.07 and a hardMaturity 2014-12-1 at 10.00. |
| GWO.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | -2.1240% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.37% based on a bid of 22.58 and a limitMaturity. |
| BNA.PR.B | SplitShare | -1.8224% | See BNA.PR.C, above. |
| BNS.PR.M | PerpetualDiscount | -1.5741% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.36% based on a bid of 21.26 and a limitMaturity. |
| HSB.PR.C | PerpetualDiscount | -1.4688% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.37% based on a bid of 24.15 and a limitMaturity. |
| PIC.PR.A | SplitShare | -1.3672% | Asset coverage of just under 1.5:1 as of February 29, according to Mulvihill. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.61% based on a bid of 15.15 and a hardMaturity 2010-11-1 at 15.00. |
| BNS.PR.N | PerpetualDiscount | -1.3393% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.46% based on a bid of 24.31 and a limitMaturity. |
| PWF.PR.E | PerpetualPremium (for now!) | -1.3285% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.60% based on a bid of 24.51 and a limitMaturity. |
| MFC.PR.A | OpRet | -1.3255% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 3.91% based on a bid of 25.31 and a softMaturity 2015-12-18 at 25.00. |
| NA.PR.K | PerpetualDiscount | -1.3018% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.90% based on a bid of 25.02 and a limitMaturity. |
| MFC.PR.B | PerpetualDiscount | -1.1806% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.16% based on a bid of 22.60 and a limitMaturity. |
| BNS.PR.K | PerpetualDiscount | -1.1173% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.27% based on a bid of 23.10 and a limitMaturity. |
| GWO.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | -1.1101% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.27% based on a bid of 21.38 and a limitMaturity. |
| SLF.PR.B | PerpetualDiscount | -1.1038% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.36% based on a bid of 22.40 and a limitMaturity. |
| BMO.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | -1.0717% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.50% based on a bid of 24.00 and a limitMaturity. |
| POW.PR.B | PerpetualDiscount | -1.0604% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.59% based ona bid of 24.26 and a limitMaturity. |
| SLF.PR.A | PerpetualDiscount | -1.0554% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.28% based on a bid of 22.50 and a limitMaturity. |
| DFN.PR.A | SplitShare | +1.4563% | Asset coverage of just under 2.5:1 as of February 29, according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 4.50% based on a bid of 10.45 and a hardMaturity 2014-12-01 at 10.00. |
| BCE.PR.G | FixFloat | +2.4628% | |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Volume | Notes |
| BAM.PR.M | PerpetualDiscount | 53,500 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.14% based on a bid of 19.75 and a limitMaturity. Closed at 19.75-98, 3×5; the virtually identical BAM.PR.N closed at 19.20-24, 3×4. Go Figure. |
| NA.PR.L | PerpetualDiscount | 52,674 | Desjardins crossed 44,800 at 22.00. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.56% based on a bid of 22.01 and a limitMaturity. |
| SLF.PR.E | PerpetualDiscount | 50,000 | Desjardins crossed 50,000 at 21.69 in the day’s only trade. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.17% based on a bid of 21.71 and a limitMaturity. |
| WFS.PR.A | SplitShare | 112,500 | Asset coverage of just under 1.8:1 as of February 29, according to Mulvihill. RBC crossed 40,000 at 10.20. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.57% based on a bid of 10.01 and a hardMaturity 2011-6-30 at 10.00. |
| SLF.PR.D | PerpetualDiscount | 35,619 | Nesbitt crossed 30,000 at 21.53. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW 5.18% based on a bid of 21.51 and a limitMaturity. |
There were twelve other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.
see your nickel, raise you a nickel!
Good Morning all . . . I can’t resist a challenge . . . my call (somewhat lower probability than Mr. Hymas’) is that the deb holders will not win redemption, but will be granted the [weighted] right to vote the deal, as did the equity holders.
How about that jobs data today? . . . US in the tank . . . Canada defying the odds . . . again.
madequota