In Soviet Russia, television watches you! Also Japan:
Samsung Electronics Co. said its televisions can transmit user data to third-parties, becoming the latest technology company to face a backlash for how data is collected from users.
The world’s biggest maker of TVs said its Web-connected sets can collect private conversations when users activate its voice-recognition function. Consumers can turn the function on or off at any time, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in an e-mailed statement.
It’s nice to see a bit more solar-energy-to-fuel proof of concept:
Photovoltaic cells have considerable potential to satisfy future renewable-energy needs, but efficient and scalable methods of storing the intermittent electricity they produce are required for the large-scale implementation of solar energy. Current solar-to-fuels storage cycles based on water splitting produce hydrogen and oxygen, which are attractive fuels in principle but confront practical limitations from the current energy infrastructure that is based on liquid fuels. In this work, we report the development of a scalable, integrated bioelectrochemical system in which the bacterium Ralstonia eutropha is used to efficiently convert CO2, along with H2 and O2 produced from water splitting, into biomass and fusel alcohols. Water-splitting catalysis was performed using catalysts that are made of earth-abundant metals and enable low overpotential water splitting. In this integrated setup, equivalent solar-to-biomass yields of up to 3.2% of the thermodynamic maximum exceed that of most terrestrial plants. Moreover, engineering of R. eutropha enabled production of the fusel alcohol isopropanol at up to 216 mg/L, the highest bioelectrochemical fuel yield yet reported by >300%. This work demonstrates that catalysts of biotic and abiotic origin can be interfaced to achieve challenging chemical energy-to-fuels transformations.
The US might be getting tough on other countries’ ‘Strong Dollar’ policies:
“I honestly reject the notion that I’m talking down the dollar,” Mr. Poloz said. “I reject the notion that we’re being purposeful about that.”
His comments came as the United States went on the offensive against countries slashing interest rates to make their exports more price-competitive, which it sees as a threat to U.S. growth as investors pile into the greenback amid the tide of monetary policy cuts in numerous major economies. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew issued a stern warning at the G20 meeting against using rates to drive currencies down at the expense of the United States, while Washington unveiled legislation that would treat “currency manipulation” as a form of trade subsidy that would face retaliatory U.S. import taxes. It suggested the emerging currency war could escalate into a trade war, which would pose a serious threat to the faltering global recovery.
There’s little doubt that currency devaluation was the goal of some of the recent rate cuts. When Australia lowered its key rate last week, central bank Governor Glenn Stevens said that the Australian dollar was overvalued and that “a lower exchange rate is likely to be needed to achieve balanced growth in the economy.” Rate cuts in Denmark and Switzerland were explicitly intended to cool their currencies.
Currency manipulation would be naughty:
Group of 20 finance chiefs stood by a two-year pledge not to resort to currency devaluations to spur economic expansion, signaling ease with the dollar’s recent surge and declines in the euro and the yen.
“We will stick to our previous exchange rate commitments and will resist protectionism,” the G-20s finance ministers and central bankers said in a statement after the talks ended.
The rationale for the bill is mercantilist. Consumers be damned!
Fred Bergsten, former U.S. Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs, said the bill would probably not have a huge effect on trade flows, but it was important to send a signal that currency manipulation would not be tolerated.
“Currency manipulation is the number one protectionist issue of the 21st century,” he said.
Bergsten and colleagues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics say trading partners’ currency manipulations have driven up the U.S. current account deficit by $200 billion to $500 billion per year, leading to the loss of 1 million to 5 million jobs.
But it’s clear that currency manipulation will draw attention from idiots, with unforeseen and uncared about consquences:
Some of the world’s biggest currency dealers are preparing to charge clients for trades at benchmark rates, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have told customers in recent weeks they may start charging fees for trades executed at the WM/Reuters rates, including the 4 p.m. London fix, said the people who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Citigroup Inc. is weighing similar plans, one of the people said.
The move follows a September report from the Financial Stability Board, a body made up of global regulators, which recommended banks introduce a transparent pricing mechanism on such trades to remove the incentive for dealers to manipulate the benchmark to make a profit. Clients have until now been able to trade at the WM/Reuters rates at no charge.
I don’t get it, frankly. How is this supposed to work? Is the idea that everybody puts in an order at the time of the fix, and the price does what it likes? Just like Lapdog Carney’s mum does when she’s buying 100 shares of BCE? Nobody, anywhere, is going to work an order and parcel it out through the day and try to make a dollar by getting good prices? Or is the fix going to be set by some committee of Wise Regulators, who will of course receive an honorarium, a mere trifle I assure you, for their acuity in being able to set a price to six decimal places without any of this ‘free market’ crap? How will an imbalance be avoided?
Maybe the Grexit is a big conspiracy by Illuminati members:
Currency volatility increased along with the dollar as Germany and Greece head for a showdown that is spurring traders to take out insurance against euro declines.
The premium to protect against a drop in the euro versus the greenback rose to the highest since Jan. 23 — the day after the European Central Bank announced it would buy sovereign bonds — before Greece’s official creditors hold an emergency meeting. A gauge of the dollar closed at its highest level in data going back to 2004 as comments from regional Federal Reserve presidents suggested policy makers could raise interest rates by mid-year.
“The outcome of the Greek bailout saga is highly uncertain,” said Imre Speizer, a markets strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Auckland. “You’ll get pre-positioning and repositioning after the event, depending on whether it’s a positive or negative surprise. It might cause some volatility,” and that would support dollar buying, he said.
Speaking of idiotic moronization of the capital markets, the SEC’s going to fix up bond trading:
“We spend a lot of time on equities, when there is a greater amount of efficiency,” Stephen Luparello, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of trading and markets, said Tuesday at a Investment Company Institute conference in New York. “We spend less time on fixed income, when there is a greater amount of inefficiency.”
…
The SEC last year outlined a sweeping agenda to improve transparency in the $24 trillion U.S. stock market, including giving investors more information about how their orders are filled. By comparison, the SEC has outsourced many fixed-income reforms to groups such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.Finra and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board have proposed requiring that brokers disclose markups on bonds they hold for no more than one day. While stock brokers must tell investors how much they earn, the same hasn’t been required of bond dealers, which have profited from an opaque market where most trades are completed by telephone.
It was another good day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts gaining 17bp, FixedResets winning 27bp and DeemedRetractibles up 18bp. The Performance Highlights table is lengthy, but not as lengthy as it has been lately, suitably dominated by winning FixedResets.
For as long as the FixedReset market is so violently unsettled, I’ll keep publishing updates of the more interesting and meaningful series of FixedResets’ Implied Volatilities. This doesn’t include Enbridge because although Enbridge has a large number of issues outstanding, all of which are quite liquid, the range of Issue Reset Spreads is too small for decent conclusions. The low is 212bp (ENB.PR.H; second-lowest is ENB.PR.D at 237bp) and the high is a mere 268 for ENB.PF.G.
Remember that all rich /cheap assessments are:
» based on Implied Volatility Theory only
» are relative only to other FixedResets from the same issuer
» assume constant GOC-5 yield
» assume constant Implied Volatility
» assume constant spread
Here’s TRP:
Click for Big
TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 24.58 to be $0.82 rich, while TRP.PR.A, resetting 2019-12-31 at +192, and TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +154, are bid at 20.00 and 17.06, respectively, to be $0.43 cheap.
Click for Big
Another excellent fit, but the numbers are perplexing. Implied Volatility for MFC continues to be a conundrum. It is still too high if we consider that NVCC rules will never apply to these issues; it is still too low if we consider them to be NVCC non-compliant issues (and therefore with Deemed Maturities in the call schedule).
Most expensive is MFC.PR.N, resetting at +230 on 2020-3-19, bid at 25.00 to be $0.60 rich, while MFC.PR.H, resetting at +313 on 2017-3-19 is bid at 25.91 to be $0.44 cheap.
Click for Big
Here’s another good fit to reasonable numbers (it’s the scale that makes it look so awful!). I hope this market doesn’t start making sense, or I’ll be out of work!
The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 22.00 to be $0.50 cheap. BAM.PF.E, resetting at +255bp 2020-3-31 is bid at 24.71 and appears to be $0.77 rich.
Click for Big
This is just weird because the middle is expensive and the ends are cheap but anyway … FTS.PR.H, with a spread of +145bp, and bid at 17.00, looks $0.85 cheap and resets 2015-6-1. FTS.PR.K, with a spread of +205bp and resetting 2019-3-1, bid at 23.65, and is $0.93 rich.
Click for Big
All the break-even rates are scattered around zero – which is at least somewhat more reasonable than being negative!
On the other hand, the market’s distaste for product linked to Money Market rates does not extend to prime, as shown by the FixedFloater/RatchetRate pairs:
Click for Big
Shall we just say that this exhibits a high level of confidence in the continued rapacity of Canadian banks?
| 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 | -0.1811 % | 2,191.0 |
| FixedFloater | 4.35 % | 3.51 % | 20,760 | 18.40 | 1 | -0.4106 % | 4,061.4 |
| Floater | 3.29 % | 3.48 % | 62,486 | 18.55 | 4 | -0.1811 % | 2,329.2 |
| OpRet | 4.04 % | 1.51 % | 99,878 | 0.35 | 1 | 0.1579 % | 2,757.5 |
| SplitShare | 4.27 % | 3.68 % | 31,558 | 3.56 | 5 | 0.1030 % | 3,198.9 |
| Interest-Bearing | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.1579 % | 2,521.4 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 5.32 % | -4.83 % | 58,715 | 0.08 | 24 | 0.0669 % | 2,516.1 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 4.94 % | 4.82 % | 126,032 | 15.25 | 10 | 0.1669 % | 2,794.0 |
| FixedReset | 4.36 % | 3.36 % | 216,996 | 16.99 | 79 | 0.2720 % | 2,451.0 |
| Deemed-Retractible | 4.90 % | -1.78 % | 108,949 | 0.12 | 39 | 0.1825 % | 2,652.4 |
| FloatingReset | 2.48 % | 2.90 % | 84,103 | 6.42 | 7 | -0.0124 % | 2,312.4 |
| Performance Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| BAM.PR.K | Floater | -1.68 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 14.06 Evaluated at bid price : 14.06 Bid-YTW : 3.58 % |
| HSE.PR.A | FixedReset | -1.17 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 17.75 Evaluated at bid price : 17.75 Bid-YTW : 3.67 % |
| TRP.PR.C | FixedReset | -1.10 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 17.06 Evaluated at bid price : 17.06 Bid-YTW : 3.49 % |
| MFC.PR.L | FixedReset | -1.08 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.75 Bid-YTW : 4.07 % |
| TRP.PR.E | FixedReset | 1.03 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.03 Evaluated at bid price : 24.58 Bid-YTW : 3.30 % |
| PWF.PR.T | FixedReset | 1.07 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.43 Evaluated at bid price : 25.57 Bid-YTW : 3.08 % |
| MFC.PR.K | FixedReset | 1.23 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.91 Bid-YTW : 3.90 % |
| IAG.PR.G | FixedReset | 1.24 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2017-06-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.17 Bid-YTW : 2.49 % |
| TRP.PR.B | FixedReset | 1.33 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 15.20 Evaluated at bid price : 15.20 Bid-YTW : 3.41 % |
| BNS.PR.Z | FixedReset | 1.43 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 23.39 Bid-YTW : 3.39 % |
| BAM.PR.R | FixedReset | 1.48 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 21.60 Evaluated at bid price : 22.00 Bid-YTW : 3.64 % |
| BAM.PF.E | FixedReset | 1.48 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.05 Evaluated at bid price : 24.71 Bid-YTW : 3.52 % |
| BAM.PR.Z | FixedReset | 1.57 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.68 Evaluated at bid price : 25.90 Bid-YTW : 3.60 % |
| PWF.PR.A | Floater | 1.72 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 17.75 Evaluated at bid price : 17.75 Bid-YTW : 2.80 % |
| MFC.PR.N | FixedReset | 1.79 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.00 Bid-YTW : 3.55 % |
| BAM.PR.T | FixedReset | 1.84 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 22.90 Evaluated at bid price : 23.22 Bid-YTW : 3.46 % |
| BAM.PR.X | FixedReset | 1.92 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 18.55 Evaluated at bid price : 18.55 Bid-YTW : 3.80 % |
| TRP.PR.A | FixedReset | 5.26 % | Not significant, just a reversal of yesterday‘s nonsense. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 20.00 Evaluated at bid price : 20.00 Bid-YTW : 3.54 % |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Shares Traded |
Notes |
| HSB.PR.C | Deemed-Retractible | 102,610 | Nesbitt crossed 100,000 at 25.30. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2015-03-12 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.30 Bid-YTW : -2.50 % |
| TD.PF.C | FixedReset | 100,115 | TD crossed blocks of 23,800 and 50,000, both at 24.82, then sold 12,200 to anonymous at 24.85. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.09 Evaluated at bid price : 24.80 Bid-YTW : 3.10 % |
| NA.PR.W | FixedReset | 64,054 | TD crossed 49,900 at 24.90. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.11 Evaluated at bid price : 24.84 Bid-YTW : 3.09 % |
| RY.PR.J | FixedReset | 50,258 | Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.20 Evaluated at bid price : 25.17 Bid-YTW : 3.35 % |
| SLF.PR.C | Deemed-Retractible | 40,454 | RBC crossed 24,900 at 24.20. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2025-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.22 Bid-YTW : 4.94 % |
| CM.PR.O | FixedReset | 35,597 | TD crossed 25,000 at 24.89. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2045-02-10 Maturity Price : 23.15 Evaluated at bid price : 24.85 Bid-YTW : 3.14 % |
| There were 39 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares. | |||
| Wide Spread Highlights | ||
| Issue | Index | Quote Data and Yield Notes |
| MFC.PR.L | FixedReset | Quote: 23.75 – 24.75 Spot Rate : 1.0000 Average : 0.7266 YTW SCENARIO |
| IFC.PR.A | FixedReset | Quote: 20.11 – 20.95 Spot Rate : 0.8400 Average : 0.6059 YTW SCENARIO |
| BMO.PR.M | FixedReset | Quote: 25.17 – 25.73 Spot Rate : 0.5600 Average : 0.3259 YTW SCENARIO |
| PVS.PR.C | SplitShare | Quote: 25.95 – 26.50 Spot Rate : 0.5500 Average : 0.4112 YTW SCENARIO |
| TRP.PR.D | FixedReset | Quote: 24.00 – 24.40 Spot Rate : 0.4000 Average : 0.3066 YTW SCENARIO |
| TRP.PR.C | FixedReset | Quote: 17.06 – 17.35 Spot Rate : 0.2900 Average : 0.2014 YTW SCENARIO |