Treasury is touting a slew of small TARB allocations to small banks.
Cox has admitted that the short-selling ban was dumb:
Cox said the biggest mistake of his tenure was agreeing in September to an extraordinary three-week ban on short selling of financial company stocks. But in publicly acknowledging for the first time that this ban was not productive, Cox said he had been under intense pressure from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to take this action and did so reluctantly. They “were of the view that if we did not act and act at that instant, these financial institutions could fail as a result and there would be nothing left to save,” Cox said.
Meanwhile, Spend-every-Penny is attempting to deflect attention from the complete lack of a long-term fiscal plan that includes the occasional recession by bashing the banks. Political Science 101. If you don’t have an external enemy, invent one.
A foreshortened day, with volume easing off from the highs of the last full tax-loss selling days, but impressive by any other standards. The market was very strong – perhaps timers at work, trying to pick off their predicted lowest day of the year and getting invested for 2009. Most notably, the two sad-sacks of 2008, BAM & CM, had strong days, leading to questions of ‘how come?’. Well … there was no solid news on the down days this year … why should up-days be any different? The FloatingRate index, comprised of BAM.PR.B & BAM.PR.K had a marvellous day and found itself back at mid-November levels.
| 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. The Fixed-Reset index was added effective 2008-9-5 at that day’s closing value of 1,119.4 for the Fixed-Floater index. |
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| Index | Mean Current Yield (at bid) | Mean YTW | Mean Average Trading Value | Mean Mod Dur (YTW) | Issues | Day’s Perf. | Index Value |
| Ratchet | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Fixed-Floater | 8.50% | 8.63% | 142,602 | 12.01 | 7 | +0.1035% | 622.0 |
| Floater | 8.02% | 8.07% | 99,883 | 11.33 | 2 | +19.1412% | 406.3 |
| Op. Retract | 5.52% | 6.28% | 175,390 | 3.93 | 14 | +0.8840% | 987.8 |
| Split-Share | 6.64% | 12.23% | 94,586 | 3.94 | 15 | +0.2409% | 930.6 |
| Interest Bearing | 10.16% | 21.13% | 59,467 | 2.60 | 3 | -0.4615% | 731.3 |
| Perpetual-Premium | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Perpetual-Discount | 8.14% | 8.27% | 252,787 | 11.16 | 71 | +1.3515% | 684.6 |
| Fixed-Reset | 6.07% | 5.20% | 1,090,612 | 14.63 | 18 | +0.2556% | 996.2 |
| Major Price Changes | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| BCE.PR.Y | Ratchet | -4.6970% | |
| BNA.PR.C | SplitShare | -4.5169% | Asset coverage of 1.6+:1 based on BAM.A at 17.12 and 2.4 BAM.A per preferred. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 21.92% based on a bid of 7.97 and a hardMaturity 2019-1-10 at 25.00. Closing quote of 7.61-97, 5×2. Day’s range of 7.50-98. |
| BAM.PR.I | OpRet | +4.1667% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 12.40% based on a bid of 18.75 and a softMaturity 2013-12-30 at 25.00. Closing quote of 18.75-90, 20×22. Day’s range of 18.00-20.00 (!). |
| SLF.PR.B | PerpetualDiscount | +4.1762% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.83% based on a bid of 13.72 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 13.72-29, 1×15. Day’s range of 13.12-14.24. |
| CM.PR.D | PerpetualDiscount | +4.2945% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.47% based on a bid of 17.00 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 17.00-11, 10×3. Day’s range of 16.41-24. |
| BAM.PR.M | PerpetualDiscount | +4.3426% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 13.93% based on a bid of 8.65 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 8.65-91, 8×1. Day’s range of 8.03-89. |
| BAM.PR.J | OpRet | +4.3440% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 16.71% based on a bid of 12.01 and a softMaturity 2018-3-30. Closing quote of 12.01-60, 15×2. Day’s range of 11.01-12.60. |
| SLF.PR.C | PerpetualDiscount | +4.4177% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.64% based on a bid of 13.00 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 13.00-24, 2×7. Day’s range of 12.35-99. |
| BCE.PR.Z | FixFloat | +4.8387% | |
| RY.PR.C | PerpetualDiscount | +5.0000%% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.42% based on a bid of 15.75 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.75-00, 7×14. Day’s range of 15.00-89. |
| BNS.PR.L | PerpetualDiscount | +5.0449% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.56% based on a bid of 15.20 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.20-70, 20×5. Day’s range of 14.55-15.70. |
| BAM.PR.O | OpRet | +5.2632% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 15.10% based on a bid of 17.00 and optionCertainty 2013-6-30 at 25.00. Closing quote of 17.00-55, 10×5. Day’s range of 16.18-17.45. |
| BAM.PR.N | PerpetualDiscount | +5.9611% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 13.84% based on a bid of 8.71 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 8.71-90, 77×4. Day’s range of 8.03-89 |
| FFN.PR.A | SplitShare | +5.9722% | Asset coverage of 1.1+:1 as of December 15 according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 10.95% based on a bid of 7.63 and a hardMaturity 2014-12-1 at 10.00. Closing quote of 7.63-99, 11×5. Day’s range of 7.63-80. |
| CM.PR.G | PerpetualDiscount | +6.0841% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.25% based on a bid of 16.39 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.39-45, 27×8. Day’s range of 15.45-16.45. |
| CM.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | +6.1314% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.27% based on a bid of 14.54 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 14.54-63, 1×4. Day’s range of 13.64-14.68 |
| BAM.PR.K | Floater | +13.9706% | |
| BAM.PR.B | Floater | +24.4628% | |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Volume | Notes |
| IGM.PR.A | OpRet | 65,374 | TD crossed 50,000 at 25.00. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.26% based on a bid of 25.50 and a softMaturity 2013-6-29 at 25.00. |
| CM.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | 54,320 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.38% based on a bid of 14.05 and a limitMaturity. |
| BMO.PR.L | PerpetualDiscount | 52,100 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.40% based on a bid of 17.56 and a limitMaturity. |
| CM.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | 51,367 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.28% based on a bid of 14.54 and a limitMaturity. |
| BAM.PR.N | PerpetualDiscount | 51,010 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 13.84% based on a bid of 8.71 and a limitMaturity. |
There were sixty-eight other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.