PrefBlog

Nice US job numbers!

The jobless rate dropped to a five-year low of 7 percent in November as American employers added more workers than forecast, boosting speculation the Federal Reserve may start scaling back stimulus as soon as this month.

The 203,000 increase in payrolls followed a revised 200,000 advance in October, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Joblessness fell from 7.3 percent.
…
The Labor Department’s household survey showed more people were entering the labor force. The so-called participation rate rose to 63 percent in November, the first gain since June. A month earlier it fell to 62.8 percent, the lowest level since March 1978.

Factories took on the most workers since March 2012, employment in construction accelerated and payrolls in transportation and warehousing picked up, today’s figures showed.

Job gains have combined with cheaper gasoline, stock-market gains, higher home values and more available credit to fuel demand for big-ticket goods such as automobiles.
…
Factories added 27,000 jobs, helped by a pickup at automakers, after a 16,000 gain in October. Construction firms took on 17,000 workers.

Average hourly earnings increased by 0.2 percent to $24.15 in November from the prior month, and climbed 2 percent over the past 12 months. The average work week for all workers climbed six minutes to 34.5 hours last month.

The energy sector has also been a bright spot for hiring, as America experiences an oil and natural gas boom.

BSD.PR.A was confirmed at Pfd-4(low) by DBRS:

As of December 5, 2013, the Portfolio consisted of 77% Canadian common stock, 20% REITs and 2% Canadian preferred stock. Since the rating was last confirmed in December 2012, performance has been relatively flat. Downside protection available to holders of the Preferred Securities fell to 13% in June 2013 but has since recovered, rising to approximately 20% at the end of November 2013 (similar to November 2012 levels). The yield on the Portfolio has decreased slightly, causing the distribution coverage ratio to drop to 0.75 times (as of November 29, 2013). The rating on the Preferred Securities continues to be constrained by the large percentage of underlying securities in the Portfolio that are not rated by any rating agency and the grind on the Portfolio due to distributions exceeding income.

I made a minor update to the November 29 Tracking Error, regarding ZPR’s valuation methodology and technical issues.

It was a mixed, mostly negative day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts off 18bp, FixedResets gaining 2bp and DeemedRetractibles down 21bp. There was a good amount of volatility, mostly negative, led downwards by SplitShares, oddly enough. Volume was high.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 7th, 2013 at 4:03 am 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.