Good news, folks! When you (or your bank) applies for mortgage insurance now, there will be a large bureaucracy in place to determine whether the house is appropriate for you:
The head of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is shifting the priority of the mortgage insurer to helping Canadians buy homes they need, not the bigger, pricier homes they might want.
…
“We help Canadians meet their housing needs, not exceed them,” Mr. Siddall told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board, as he outlined the mandate that will guide his time at the helm of the mortgage insurer.
Assiduous Readers will remember (probably while grinning) how annoyed I get when the old World Economic Forum survey is trotted out to buttress claims that ‘Canadian banks are the stongest in the world’, thanks to our wise and woefully underpaid regulators.
Bloomberg Markets magazine has compiled its own list of the world’s individually strongest banks; not the same thing as ‘strongest national system’ admittedly; but on the other hand at least banks were ranked against each other on a basis that at least purports to be consistent. And guess what?
Click for Big
How much is are market orders worth? Quite a bit!
Senators led by Carl Levin grilled brokerage and stock-market executives at a hearing over the various incentives that underpin U.S. equity trading, including rebates exchanges use to lure volume, and the payments market-making firms such Citadel LLC and Citigroup Inc. (C) give retail brokers.
…
TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), one of the biggest online brokers, last week gave an inkling of the money involved. The Omaha, Nebraska-based firm revealed that it pocketed $236 million in 2013 from firms that paid to execute its customers’ orders.
…
Larry Tabb, CEO of Tabb Group LLC, estimates that retail orders that are sent to market-makers and executed away from exchanges account for 15 percent of total U.S. volume. He doesn’t anticipate that the SEC will take any imminent action to limit the practice.
…
Under the payment for order flow system, online brokers agree to send their customers’ trades to specific securities firms for execution. These wholesalers include Citadel, KCG Holdings Inc. (KCG) and Citigroup.Tabb said among the benefits of selling customer orders are that online brokers don’t need to set up their own trading desks. The payment system also keeps relationships above-board, he said, though the regulator “could do a better job in terms of forcing greater transparency,” he said.
Tabb was mentioned on June 12, pushing block trades,
There was another TD Ameritrade nugget:
One telling moment occurred during the questioning of Steven Quirk, senior vice-president at TD Ameritrade, the retail brokerage partially owned by Toronto-Dominion Bank. Mr. Quirk said that nearly all of the broker’s limit orders – that is, orders that do not have to be placed immediately – are routed to the trading venue that pays the highest rebate to receive such traffic. Critics allege that such a practice can result in customers receiving less advantageous pricing.
Not so much less advantageous pricing – it’s a limit order – but slower execution (at best) for resting orders on an expensive exchange, as discussed on May 22 and April 21.
It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts off 8bp, FixedResets up 5bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 2bp. Volatility was low. Volume was average.
| 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 | 0.1554 % | 2,475.0 |
| FixedFloater | 4.45 % | 3.70 % | 28,485 | 17.94 | 1 | 1.6175 % | 3,860.6 |
| Floater | 2.96 % | 3.09 % | 44,733 | 19.51 | 4 | 0.1554 % | 2,672.3 |
| OpRet | 4.38 % | -7.69 % | 25,053 | 0.08 | 2 | 1.9265 % | 2,708.4 |
| SplitShare | 4.81 % | 4.24 % | 59,858 | 4.12 | 5 | 0.0159 % | 3,113.9 |
| Interest-Bearing | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 1.9265 % | 2,476.6 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 5.51 % | -1.27 % | 81,204 | 0.08 | 17 | 0.1523 % | 2,405.7 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 5.27 % | 5.28 % | 117,297 | 14.95 | 20 | -0.0814 % | 2,549.0 |
| FixedReset | 4.50 % | 3.71 % | 211,943 | 6.77 | 79 | 0.0523 % | 2,535.6 |
| Deemed-Retractible | 5.00 % | 0.78 % | 139,635 | 0.12 | 43 | 0.0158 % | 2,532.2 |
| FloatingReset | 2.66 % | 2.39 % | 127,987 | 3.95 | 6 | 0.1455 % | 2,490.6 |
| Performance Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| ENB.PR.H | FixedReset | 1.03 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 22.66 Evaluated at bid price : 23.63 Bid-YTW : 3.95 % |
| BAM.PR.G | FixedFloater | 1.62 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 21.76 Evaluated at bid price : 21.36 Bid-YTW : 3.70 % |
| FTS.PR.E | OpRet | 3.90 % | Not really all that real. As Assiduous Reader adrian2 pointed out in the comments yesterday, yesterday’s price was just another TMX screw up, although I don’t know whether it was a genuine market-maker’s fiasco or merely an after-hours cancellation fiasco. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-07-17 Maturity Price : 25.50 Evaluated at bid price : 25.82 Bid-YTW : -7.69 % |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Shares Traded |
Notes |
| SLF.PR.G | FixedReset | 154,651 | RBC crossed 133,100 at 22.20. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.20 Bid-YTW : 4.47 % |
| CM.PR.O | FixedReset | 126,980 | Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 23.18 Evaluated at bid price : 25.08 Bid-YTW : 3.78 % |
| BMO.PR.T | FixedReset | 89,360 | Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 23.17 Evaluated at bid price : 25.05 Bid-YTW : 3.73 % |
| FTS.PR.G | FixedReset | 60,725 | TD crossed 60,000 at 24.90. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 23.15 Evaluated at bid price : 24.79 Bid-YTW : 3.69 % |
| TD.PF.A | FixedReset | 55,180 | Recent new issue YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 23.19 Evaluated at bid price : 25.15 Bid-YTW : 3.71 % |
| RY.PR.H | FixedReset | 53,918 | Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2044-06-17 Maturity Price : 23.18 Evaluated at bid price : 25.09 Bid-YTW : 3.74 % |
| There were 32 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares. | |||
| Wide Spread Highlights | ||
| Issue | Index | Quote Data and Yield Notes |
| MFC.PR.F | FixedReset | Quote: 22.85 – 23.35 Spot Rate : 0.5000 Average : 0.3418 YTW SCENARIO |
| CIU.PR.C | FixedReset | Quote: 20.55 – 21.15 Spot Rate : 0.6000 Average : 0.4703 YTW SCENARIO |
| TD.PR.O | Deemed-Retractible | Quote: 25.50 – 25.74 Spot Rate : 0.2400 Average : 0.1517 YTW SCENARIO |
| BMO.PR.L | Deemed-Retractible | Quote: 26.50 – 26.70 Spot Rate : 0.2000 Average : 0.1245 YTW SCENARIO |
| IAG.PR.G | FixedReset | Quote: 25.76 – 25.98 Spot Rate : 0.2200 Average : 0.1512 YTW SCENARIO |
| GWO.PR.Q | Deemed-Retractible | Quote: 24.60 – 24.85 Spot Rate : 0.2500 Average : 0.1855 YTW SCENARIO |