August 11, 2008

Today’s top news is that inflation is no longer a problem:

Schroder Investment Management’s David Scammell is so convinced inflation has crested that the bond fund manager this quarter has sold securities designed to protect from rising consumer prices.

Scammell is no lonely voice. A survey out today of 25 bond fund managers controlling $1.41 trillion of assets by Jersey City, New Jersey-based Ried, Thunberg & Co. found that 79 percent expect inflation “to moderate late this year into 2009.”

And certainly the market expectations computed by the Cleveland Fed are in a downturn. Isn’t it exciting? I wonder how the world will end next week!

Somebody made a massive bet against Bear Stearns just before its collapse, which is leading to mutterings that the firm’s collapse was a confidence game. This was last discussed on July 17. The Internuts’ position to date has been that BSC was a stupid firm, leveraged up to the eyeballs with junk and having a negative net worth. It will be most interesting to see if they switch to the “evil hedge fund rumour-monger” meme. As for me … sudden losses of confidence happen. Bear Stearns was an extreme example; they shouldn’t have gone under, but management shouldn’t have made them vulnerable either.

Predictions, of course, have a very poor track record. But there’s one prediction I hope comes true … the bond vigilantes were FUN:

The bond vigilantes who’ve been missing in action under George W. Bush may be preparing for a return engagement once Barack Obama or John McCain takes office next year.

“Though times are different and a lot of the government spending is necessary, we’re going to see rates rise in a saw- tooth pattern over the next few years,” says E. Craig Coats Jr., the head of Salomon Brothers’ government securities desk when it was the world’s biggest bond trader. Coats considers himself one of the original vigilantes, the bearish traders who drove up long-term interest rates, persuading Clinton to place deficit-reduction above fulfilling his spending promises.

That course-reversal prompted Clinton political adviser James Carville to observe at the time: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

Another good strong day in the markets, with volume picking up slightly.

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
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 4.64% 4.37% 58,179 16.44 7 +0.2048% 1,101.0
Floater 4.07% 4.11% 52,180 17.16 3 +0.6591% 906.2
Op. Retract 4.99% 4.39% 120,598 2.87 17 -0.2857% 1,043.5
Split-Share 5.35% 5.98% 57,726 4.44 14 -0.0408% 1,035.4
Interest Bearing 6.23% 6.65% 48,596 5.27 2 +0.7212% 1,123.7
Perpetual-Premium 6.19% 6.16% 70,571 2.26 1 +0.0396% 988.1
Perpetual-Discount 6.15% 6.20% 204,174 13.61 67 +0.5353% 864.2
Major Price Changes
Issue Index Change Notes
BAM.PR.I OpRet -4.6102% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.76% based on a bid of 22.76 and a softMaturity 2013-12-30 at 25.00. Compare with BAM.PR.H (6.49% to 2012-3-30), BAM.PR.J (6.18% to 2018-3-30) and BAM.PR.O (7.17% to 2013-6-30).
BNA.PR.B SplitShare -2.7559% Asset coverage of 3.3+:1 as of July 31, according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 9.03% based on a bid of 19.76 and a hardMaturity 2016-3-25 at 25.00. Compare with BNA.PR.A (5.84% to 2010-9-30) and BNA.PR.C (9.25% to 2019-1-10).
POW.PR.D PerpetualDiscount -2.4590% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.26% based on a bid of 20.25 and a limitMaturity.
SLF.PR.B PerpetualDiscount -1.2435% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.40% based on a bid of 19.06 and a limitMaturity.
CM.PR.I PerpetualDiscount +1.0644% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.58% based on a bid of 18.04 and a limitMaturity.
HSB.PR.D PerpetualDiscount +1.1106% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.34% based on a bid of 20.03 and a limitMaturity.
POW.PR.C PerpetualDiscount +1.1154% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.22% based on a bid of 23.57 and a limitMaturity.
PWF.PR.L PerpetualDiscount +1.1319% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.27% based on a bid of 20.55 and a limitMaturity.
CM.PR.H PerpetualDiscount +1.3400% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.69% based on a bid of 18.15 and a limitMaturity.
BSD.PR.A InterestBearing +1.3699% Asset coverage of 1.6+:1 as of August 8, according to Brookfield Funds. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.96% based on a bid of 9.62 and a hardMaturity 2015-3-31 at 10.00.
BNS.PR.J PerpetualDiscount +1.3772% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.77% based on a bid of 22.82 and a limitMaturity.
BMO.PR.L PerpetualDiscount +1.4370% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.06% based on a bid of 24.00 and a limitMaturity.
HSB.PR.C PerpetualDiscount +1.4881% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.33% based on a bid of 20.46 and a limitMaturity.
GWO.PR.F PerpetualDiscount +1.5847% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.98% based on a bid of 25.00 and a limitMaturity.
BNS.PR.L PerpetualDiscount +1.6026% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.97% based on a bid of 19.02 and a limitMaturity.
RY.PR.W PerpetualDiscount +1.6941% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.03% based on a bid of 20.41 and a limitMaturity.
TCA.PR.Y PerpetualDiscount +1.7125% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.80% based on a bid of 48.11 and a limitMaturity.
BNS.PR.M PerpetualDiscount +1.7657% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.97% based on a bid of 19.02 and a limitMaturity.
SLF.PR.E PerpetualDiscount +1.8172% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.18% based on a bid of 18.49 and a limitMaturity.
CM.PR.J PerpetualDiscount +2.0882% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.46% based on a bid of 17.60 and a limitMaturity.
CM.PR.P PerpetualDiscount +3.0288% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.70% based on a bid of 20.75 and a limitMaturity.
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Volume Notes
NA.PR.L PerpetualDiscount 181,265 Nesbitt crossed 175,000 at 18.50. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.51% based on a bid of 18.75 and a limitMaturity.
BNS.PR.L PerpetualDiscount 112,595 National crossed 100,000 at 19.00. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.97% based on a bid of 19.02 and a limitMaturity.
POW.PR.D PerpetualDiscount 80,258 CIBC crossed 73,900 at 20.40. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.26% based on a bid of 20.23 and a limitMaturity.
TD.PR.O PerpetualDiscount 65,084 National crossed 60,000 at 20.95. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 5.84% based on a bid of 20.85 and a limitMaturity.
SLF.PR.B PerpetualDiscount 55,504 CIBC crossed 50,000 at 19.32. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 6.40% based on a bid of 19.06 and a limitMaturity.

There were twenty-two other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

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