Well, holy-smokes-and-a-half, that’s all I can say! Preferreds continued to rocket upwards on normal-for-non-tax-loss-selling-season volume. PerpetualDiscounts were at their lowest on December 22; in the five trading days since they they are up 14.29%, with yield coming in from 8.40% to 7.37%. A little over a point! Maybe I’ll stretch a point, and make that holy-smokes-and-three-quarters.
I’ll bet some shops took a week off in the middle of portfolio rebalancing since nothing would be happening – that’ll teach them to whimper about their precious work-life balance!
That was sufficient to bring the monthly return on the PerpetualDiscount subindex to +11.45%, the best month in my records. Unfortunately, I now have to throw out all those abject client letters I was drafting, since I can now point out that preferreds really do go up sometimes and really are different from equities. Thank you Santa!
How about a bond comparison? Long corporates were up 1.64% on the month and down 11.70% on the year (PerpetualDiscounts were down 17.11% on the year), with the bonds continuing to yield 7.50%, or maybe a shade under. The PerpetualDiscount yield of 7.37% at the close today equates to 10.32% at the standard 1.4x equivalency factor, so the spread is still an impressive 282bp.
And so goes another year! Happy New Year, everybody, and good riddance to the old one!
| 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 | 7.92% | 7.94% | 137,402 | 12.81 | 7 | +3.0001% | 674.9 |
| Floater | 6.78% | 6.82% | 92,609 | 12.76 | 2 | +8.6411% | 480.8 |
| Op. Retract | 5.43% | 6.14% | 166,476 | 3.49 | 14 | +0.0941% | 1,005.5 |
| Split-Share | 6.32% | 10.57% | 91,689 | 3.95 | 15 | +1.6133% | 984.3 |
| Interest Bearing | 9.12% | 17.04% | 57,778 | 2.85 | 3 | +3.2056% | 824.5 |
| Perpetual-Premium | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Perpetual-Discount | 7.27% | 7.37% | 245,157 | 12.14 | 71 | +2.9405% | 769.3 |
| Fixed-Reset | 5.93% | 4.94% | 979,322 | 15.00 | 18 | +0.5939% | 1,021.3 |
| Major Price Changes | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| BAM.PR.M | PerpetualDiscount | +4.0816% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 11.82% based on a bid of 10.20 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 10.20-35, 1×1. Day’s range of 10.01-30. |
| HSB.PR.D | PerpetualDiscount | +4.1509% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.62% based on a bid of 16.56 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.56-91, 39×23. Day’s range of 16.21-94. |
| HSB.PR.C | PerpetualDiscount | +4.2296% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.46% based on a bid of 16.51 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 17.25-73, 1×3. Day’s range of 17.35-80. |
| BMO.PR.L | PerpetualDiscount | +4.3617% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.52% based on a bid of 19.62 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 19.62-50, 3×1. Day’s range of 19.40-25. |
| NA.PR.N | FixedReset | +4.3821% | |
| TD.PR.P | PerpetualDiscount | +4.4421% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.78% based on a bid of 19.75 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 19.75-07, 5×1. Day’s range of 20.00-07. |
| GWO.PR.G | PerpetualDiscount | +4.4983% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.24% based on a bid of 18.12 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 18.12-46, 1×1. Day’s range of 17.63-25. |
| CM.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | +4.5541% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.13% based on a bid of 16.53 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.53-59, 1×6. Day’s range of 16.40-69. |
| W.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | +4.5934% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.22% based on a bid of 16.85 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.85-24, 5×8. Day’s range of 16.45-85. |
| CU.PR.B | PerpetualDiscount | +4.6125% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.91% based on a bid of 22.00 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 22.00-45, 5×3. Day’s range of 21.50-00. |
| BMO.PR.J | PerpetualDiscount | +4.6224% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.12% based on a bid of 16.07 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.03-20, 3×10. Day’s range of 15.96-25. |
| BNS.PR.M | PerpetualDiscount | +4.7297% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.74% based on a bid of 17.05 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 17.05-40, 10×19. Day’s range of 16.81-40. |
| BSD.PR.A | InterestBearing (until midnight) | +4.8346% | Asset coverage of 0.8-:1 as of December 24 according to Brookfield Funds. Now with a (dubious) pre-tax bid-YTW of 25.66% based on a bid of 4.12 and a (dubious) hardMaturity 2015-3-31 at 10.00. Closing quote of 4.12-37, 4×4. Day’s range of 3.99-23. |
| PWF.PR.K | PerpetualDiscount | +4.9581% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.77% based on a bid of 16.30 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.30-84, 1×10. Day’s range of 16.20-90. |
| CM.PR.P | PerpetualDiscount | +5.0200% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.49% based on a bid of 16.30 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 18.41-69, 3×5. Day’s range of 17.12-18.50. |
| GWO.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | +5.0694% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.51% based on a bid of 15.13 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.13-25, 5×4. Day’s range of 14.75-65. |
| POW.PR.C | PerpetualDiscount | +5.1364% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.42% based on a bid of 19.65 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 19.65-80, 1×4. Day’s range of 19.60-20.75. |
| BAM.PR.K | Floater | +5.2326% | |
| SLF.PR.D | PerpetualDiscount | +5.3352% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.29% based on a bid of 15.40 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.40-77, 7×2. Day’s range of 14.99-79. |
| BMO.PR.K | PerpetualDiscount | +5.4701% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.21% based on a bid of 18.51 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 18.51-84, 3×10. Day’s range of 18.46-89. |
| BCE.PR.A | FixFloat | +5.6069% | |
| SLF.PR.A | PerpetualDiscount | +5.8521% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.28% based on a bid of 16.46 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.46-69, 1×9. Day’s range of 15.75-16.75. |
| ELF.PR.G | PerpetualDiscount | +5.8824% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.74% based on a bid of 13.68 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 13.68-00, 5×4. No trades. |
| CM.PR.G | PerpetualDiscount | +5.9469% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.38% based on a bid of 18.35 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 18.35-39, 6×29. Day’s range of 17.70-39. |
| BAM.PR.N | PerpetualDiscount | +6.2245% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 11.57% based on a bid of 10.41 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 10.41-42, 7×3. Day’s range of 10.17-44. |
| BCE.PR.F | FixFloat | +6.3830% | |
| SBC.PR.A | SplitShare | +6.6584% | Asset coverage of 1.3+:1 as of December 24 according to Brompton. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 9.46% based on a bid of 8.65 and a hardMaturity 2012-11-30 at 10.00. Closing quote of 8.65-24, 10×3. No Trades. |
| POW.PR.D | PerpetualDiscount | +7.0130% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.63% based on a bid of 16.48 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.48-54, 1×1. Day’s range of 16.03-60. |
| FIG.PR.A | InterestBearing | +7.5768% | Asset coverage of 1.1-:1 based on Capital Unit NAV of 1.31 as of December 30 and 0.71 Capital Units per Preferred. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 14.87% based on a bid of 6.70 and a hardMaturity 2014-12-31 at 10.00. Closing quote of 6.70-24, 5×7. Day’s range of 6.47-25. |
| IAG.PR.A | PerpetualDiscount | +7.5768% | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.37% based on a bid of 15.76and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.76-56, 1×4. Day’s range of 15.51-68. |
| BAM.PR.B | Floater | +12.0647% | |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Volume | Notes |
| CM.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | 38,175 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.13% based on a bid of 16.53 and a limitMaturity. |
| CM.PR.H | PerpetualDiscount | 36,149 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.30% based on a bid of 16.48 and a limitMaturity. |
| BCE.PR.I | FixFloat | 35,062 | |
| BNA.PR.C | SplitShare | 25,400 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 19.54% based on a bid of 8.75 and a hardMaturity 2019-1-10 at 25.00. |
| GWO.PR.I | PerpetualDiscount | 21,275 | Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.51% based on a bid of 15.13 and a limitMaturity. |
There were twenty other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.