PrefBlog

Tax-loss selling season is gearing up; there are some interesting changes occuring in relative valuation at the moment. Nothing huge, nothing widespread – but enough to be noticable and, I hope, profitable!

There’s trouble with variable rate mortgages:

The most common variable-rate product has fixed monthly payments. With every interest rate hike, more of the borrower’s monthly payment goes toward interest. However, when the monthly payment no longer covers any principal, the borrower hits what is known as a trigger rate, and their monthly payment rises. In some cases, the lender allows the borrower to shift the interest onto the principal, which increases the size of the mortgage.

Fifty per cent of these variable-rate mortgage holders have already reached their trigger rate, according to estimates from a new Bank of Canada research paper published Tuesday. That share will rise to 65 per cent by the middle of next year as the central bank continues to hike interest rates to rein in inflation.

“The bottom line is that mortgage costs for some Canadians have already increased, and they will likely increase for others in time, making home ownership more expensive.” [Bank of Canada senior deputy governor] Ms. [Carolyn] Rogers said.

About 670,000 variable-rate mortgages have been issued since the start of the pandemic, according to the Bank of Canada. Variable-rate mortgages accounted for around 50 per cent of all mortgages issued since mid-2021, compared to an average of 20 per cent in the years before the pandemic.

“This is not a large share of households, but it is larger than it would have been based on historical trends,” Ms. Rogers said.

Borrowers have sought the variable-rate products because borrowing costs have typically been cheaper than fixed-rate mortgages. Part of the motivation was that federal banking rules require borrowers to prove they can make their monthly mortgage payments at an interest rate at least two percentage points higher than their actual mortgage contract

Less formally, my brother tells me that the forums on Reddit are filled with plaintive wails that the poster has a variable rate mortgage and doesn’t know what to do. The thing about our collective huge debt to income ratio is that it won’t take a lot of pressure to cause a lot of pain.

However, the Junior Republicans are eagerly seeking to cement themselves in as the Party of Stupid:

The Conservatives, led by Mr. Scheer, dialled in on the Bank of Canada losing money for the first time in its 87-year history. The central bank’s balance sheet expanded massively during the pandemic, as a result of its government bond-buying program, also known as quantitative easing, or QE. Now the rapid rise in interest rates has created a mismatch on its balance sheet.

The bank is paying a higher rate of interest on some $200-billion worth of commercial bank deposits held at the central bank than it is earning on the government bonds it bought during the pandemic, resulting in net interest losses. It estimates it will lose between $5-billion and $6-billion in the next year or two, before returning to profitability in 2024 or 2025.

Because the bank is not allowed to retain its earnings and it does not have a reserve fund, the Department of Finance needs to decide whether to cover the bank’s losses directly or come up with some other method that would allow it to make up for the losses once it returns to profitability.

The Conservatives have long criticized the bank’s QE program, and Mr. Scheer said the central bank appears to need a “bailout.” Mr. Macklem said that it was largely an “accounting issue,” and pointed to several solutions that are being developed by other central banks.

“Whatever solution is chosen, it’s not going to affect how we run monetary policy,” he said.

So … um … why don’t we run monetary policy by determining what policy will cause the BoC to make massive profits and then following that? Then we’ll all be rich! This would, quite possibly, be a good way to opt out of inflation. For real, this time.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 6.70%, equivalent to 8.71% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield 5.32%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has widened to 340bp from the 310bp reported November 16. However, I suspect that the “Weighted Average Yield to Maturity” reported by BMO on their ZLC page is not kept current; anything to withhold information from the masses is good business for the banks! I’ve sent an inquiry; we’ll just see what kind of answer I get! So far, I’ve simply gotten the run-around, since BMO is of course a bank, which means their staff is not only completely untrained, but is left hanging out to dry when they yell for help. My guy’s trying hard, but I may have to write a letter for them to file after sending me a soothing response.

Assiduous Reader KC has, however eMailed me to suggest an alternative: the ICE BofA 10+ Year Canada Corporate Index (F9C0). This is under serious consideration.

So apparently, the Powers That Be are annoyed at brokers encouraging stupid trading:

Gamification is the practice of incentivizing users to trade more frequently or in larger amounts by adding game-like features to trading platforms. Competitive features such as leaderboards, which display the names of users who do the most trades per day, or images of badges or bursts of confetti that reward a first trade in a margin account or a family referral, are encouraging investors to trade more often.

As well, the OSC found investors who were shown lists of “top-traded” or “most popular” stocks were 14 per cent more likely to buy and sell the company shares that they are nudged toward. Top-stock lists promote “herding” behaviour – where a person follows what others are doing rather than deciding independently.

Herding can result in “significantly poorer” returns for investors, the report said, citing a separate study that showed an average 20-day return of minus 4.7 per cent for top stocks purchased each day. That’s because herding increases trading frequency, and can shift investors into higher-risk securities.

I’ll take this initiative seriously when they start cracking down on brokers encouraging stop-loss orders and making market orders the default.

TXPR closed at 546.09, down 1.02% on the day after setting a new 52-week low. Volume today was 1.87-million, fourth-highest of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 10.91, up 0.18% on the day after setting a new 52-week low. Volume was 135,330, third-highest of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 9.14, unchanged on the day after setting a new 52-week low. Volume was 197,240, near the median of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were off a touch to 3.30% today.

Poor equity performance was attributed to weak retailers:

Wall Street’s main indexes ended lower on Wednesday as a grim outlook from Target spurred fresh concerns about retailers heading into the crucial holiday season, while semiconductor shares slid after Micron’s supply cut. The TSX also ended lower, pressured by declines in the energy and materials sectors, as investors took in the latest Canadian inflation data.

Shares of Target Corp tumbled 13.1% after the big-box retailer forecast a surprise drop in holiday-quarter sales.

Retail stocks slumped broadly, including declines of over 8% in shares of Macy’s Inc and Best Buy Co Inc and a 7% drop for Foot Locker. The S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector shed 1.5%.

Micron Technology shares dropped 6.7% after the company said it would reduce memory chip supply and make more cuts to its capital spending plan. The S&P 500 information technology sector fell 1.4% and the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index sank 4.3%.
…
Fed Governor Christopher Waller, an early and outspoken inflation hawk, said he is now “more comfortable” with smaller rate increases going forward after data showed price increases slowing.

Target’s number is fascinating because:

Target stores are getting looted, and it’s taking a huge bite out of profits.

The discount retailer told reporters on a call to discuss its third quarter earnings results that inventory shrinkage — or the disappearance of merchandise — has reduced its gross profit margin by $400 million so far in 2022 compared to 2021.

“At Target, year-to-date, incremental shortage has already reduced our gross margin by more than $400 million vs. last year,” Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said on the earnings call, “and we expect it will reduce our gross margin by more than $600 million for the full year.”

Fiddelke detailed how there are “a handful of things that can drive shrink in our business and theft is certainly a key driver. We know we’re not alone across retail in seeing a trend that I think has gotten increasingly worse over the last 12 to 18 months. So we’re taking the right actions in our stores to help curb that trend where we can, but that becomes an increasing headwind on our business and we know the business of others.”

A Target spokesperson told Yahoo Finance via email after the call the shrinkage was mostly specifically attributed to “organized retail crime.”

Canadian inflation was steady:

Canada’s inflation rate held steady in October at elevated levels, snapping a three-month streak of deceleration that was heavily influenced by rising costs at gas stations.

The consumer price index rose 6.9 per cent in October from a year earlier, matching the inflation rate in September, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 5.3 per cent in October on an annual basis, slowing from 5.4 per cent in September.
…
Food prices rose 10.1 per cent in October on an annual basis, down slightly from 10.3 per cent in September. Still, grocery costs are rising near multi-decade highs, and the increases are hefty for some products. Over the past year, pasta prices are up 45 per cent, lettuce by 30 per cent and soup by 18 per cent.

UK inflation was more exciting:

Britain’s cost-of-living crisis deepened in October, as consumer prices surged 11.1 percent from a year earlier, the highest in more than 40 years, granting no relief to households struggling to keep up with large increases in the price of food, heating and gas.

The increase, which was higher than expected, came after the annual inflation rate had reached 10.1 percent in September. On a month-to-month basis, the Consumer Prices Index rose 2 percent from September to October.
…
Wages in Britain increased 5.7 percent in the third quarter, their fastest pace in 20 years, as people re-entered the work force following the end of Britain’s pandemic lockdowns. But inflation is rising so fast that it is outstripping those gains, leaving households struggling to keep up.

And some of the employment gains mask an underlying precariousness, with many people re-entering the labor market as self-employed workers. When adjusted for rising prices, wages overall fell by 2.7 percent in September.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 6.75%, equivalent to 8.78% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield 5.66%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has narrowed to 310bp from the 340bp reported November 9. However, I suspect that the “Weighted Average Yield to Maturity” reported by BMO on their ZLC page is not kept current; anything to withhold information from the masses is good business for the banks! I’ve sent an inquiry; we’ll just see what kind of answer I get! So far, I’ve simply gotten the run-around.