No commentary today! PrefLetter has left me a hollow shell of a man.<\/p>\n
But I will say that I’m very glad to see that the thug from Nova Scotia, Lenore Zann<\/a>, appears to intend to quit Twitter. This two-bit politician got into some kind of dispute on Twitter and immediately had hysterics, calling the police, the Nova Scotia ‘CyberBullying Squad’, and her antagonist’s high-school principal<\/a> (believe it or not!) in order to make the problem go away. In so doing she showed a lamentable disregard for the law and the Charter of Rights<\/a> as well as simply behaving extremely poorly.<\/p>\n It seems there’s something of a trend for politicians and government officials to abuse the law in order to silence their critics in a relatively new form of libel chill. Many will remember similar cases such as Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin<\/a> and Toronto Police Constable Adam Josephs, aka Officer Bubbles<\/a> have used legal and bureaucratic methods to silence their critics – and succeeded (at least in part), mainly because it costs too much to fight the virtually unlimited powers of the state. It’s a worry. Do we really want to be one of those countries in which not just criticizing the president, but any government functionary is a criminal offence?<\/p>\n It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts gaining 2bp, FixedResets down 16bp and DeemedRetractibles off 8bp. Low-spread FixedResets dominated the bad side of a fairly lengthy – and overwhelmingly negative – Performance Highlights table. Volume was high.<\/p>\n
| HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices<\/strong> Values are provisional and are finalized monthly<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Index<\/td>\n | Mean | Current Yield (at bid)<\/td>\n Median | YTW<\/td>\n Median | Average Trading Value<\/td>\n Median | Mod Dur (YTW)<\/td>\n Issues<\/td>\n | Day’s Perf.<\/td>\n | Index Value<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Ratchet<\/td>\n | 0.00 %<\/td>\n | 0.00 %<\/td>\n | 0<\/td>\n | 0.00<\/td>\n | 0<\/td>\n | -0.1876 %<\/td>\n | 2,524.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | FixedFloater<\/td>\n | 4.41 %<\/td>\n | 3.69 %<\/td>\n | 39,788<\/td>\n | 17.92<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | -0.0927 %<\/td>\n | 3,807.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Floater<\/td>\n | 2.96 %<\/td>\n | 2.95 %<\/td>\n | 60,909<\/td>\n | 19.85<\/td>\n | 3<\/td>\n | -0.1876 %<\/td>\n | 2,726.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | OpRet<\/td>\n | 4.64 %<\/td>\n | 1.10 %<\/td>\n | 85,517<\/td>\n | 0.29<\/td>\n | 3<\/td>\n | 0.2324 %<\/td>\n | 2,662.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | SplitShare<\/td>\n | 4.89 %<\/td>\n | 4.79 %<\/td>\n | 77,084<\/td>\n | 4.50<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n | 0.1213 %<\/td>\n | 2,993.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Interest-Bearing<\/td>\n | 0.00 %<\/td>\n | 0.00 %<\/td>\n | 0<\/td>\n | 0.00<\/td>\n | 0<\/td>\n | 0.2324 %<\/td>\n | 2,435.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Perpetual-Premium<\/td>\n | 5.63 %<\/td>\n | 5.55 %<\/td>\n | 135,937<\/td>\n | 4.30<\/td>\n | 13<\/td>\n | -0.0260 %<\/td>\n | 2,296.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Perpetual-Discount<\/td>\n | 5.71 %<\/td>\n | 5.72 %<\/td>\n | 176,168<\/td>\n | 14.23<\/td>\n | 25<\/td>\n | 0.0217 %<\/td>\n | 2,308.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | FixedReset<\/td>\n | 5.01 %<\/td>\n | 3.62 %<\/td>\n | 236,588<\/td>\n | 3.61<\/td>\n | 84<\/td>\n | -0.1606 %<\/td>\n | 2,463.4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Deemed-Retractible<\/td>\n | 5.16 %<\/td>\n | 4.39 %<\/td>\n | 203,012<\/td>\n | 3.59<\/td>\n | 42<\/td>\n | -0.0805 %<\/td>\n | 2,389.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | FloatingReset<\/td>\n | 2.64 %<\/td>\n | 2.33 %<\/td>\n | 300,105<\/td>\n | 4.40<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n | 0.0396 %<\/td>\n | 2,463.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n |
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