December 15, 2008

A House of Congress committee head announced today that he wants the heart of the financial world to move to Dubai:

Credit-default swap clearing would become mandatory under legislation slated to be introduced next month by House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson.

Peterson of Minnesota, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said in an interview today he had Republican support to proceed with a comprehensive bill. The committee oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. futures exchanges it regulates.

“It’s hard for me to understand what useful purpose these things are serving,” Peterson said, referring to CDS contracts. “I’m not out to get Wall Street, but what’s gone on there is jeopardizing the entire global economy.”

Apparently the current moves to reduce systemic risk aren’t good enough, which is one in the eye for the Treasury Secretary designate.

it has been reported that Royal Bank placed client money with Madoff:

Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY.TO) says some of its clients have less than $50 million in exposure to alleged US$50-billion Ponzi scheme run by Wall Street investment manager Bernard Madoff.

In a statement issued Monday, the bank said it doesn’t have any direct exposure to the investments, which has left the U.S. financial industry reeling.

I will admit I look forward with some fascination to the various determinations of due-diligence with respect to the Madoff funds.

The market was down again today on continued high volume.

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.
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 8.08% 8.42% 97,997 12.16 6 -4.0054% 656.6
Floater 9.42% 9.48% 78,194 10.02 2 -4.8855% 343.3
Op. Retract 5.51% 6.56% 152,931 3.97 15 -0.0397% 986.7
Split-Share 6.86% 13.01% 79,172 3.96 14 +0.2541% 901.6
Interest Bearing 9.89% 21.93% 54,767 2.73 3 -0.9315% 741.7
Perpetual-Premium N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Perpetual-Discount 7.93% 8.06% 220,520 11.36 71 -0.7821% 699.0
Fixed-Reset 6.02% 5.37% 1,202,281 14.48 18 +0.6126% 1,003.8
Major Price Changes
Issue Index Change Notes
BCE.PR.G FixFloat -7.2753%  
BCE.PR.Y Ratchet -6.2456%  
BCE.PR.S FixFloat -6.1806%  
BAM.PR.B Floater -6.1562%  
BCE.PR.A FixFloat -5.8672%  
FFN.PR.A SplitShare -5.8659% Asset coverage of 1.3+:1 as of November 28 according to the company. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 13.56% based on a bid of 6.74 and a hardMaturity 2014-12-1 at 10.00. Closing quote of 6.74-00, 45×18. Day’s range of 6.99-20.
BCE.PR.Z FixFloat -5.7534%  
BCE.PR.I FixFloat -4.7587%  
BAM.PR.N PerpetualDiscount -4.3077% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 12.86% based on a bid of 9.33 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 9.33-60, 1×12. Day’s range of 9.50-09.
BSD.PR.A InterestBearing -4.2793% Asset coverage of 0.8-:1 as of December 12, according to Brookfield Funds. Now with a (currently dubious) yield of 24.63% based on a bid of 4.25 and a hardMaturity 2015-3-31 at (a currently dubious value of) 10.00. Closing quote of 4.26-37, 4×4. Day’s range of 4.43-44.
CM.PR.H PerpetualDiscount -4.1612% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.45% based on a bid of 14.51 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 14.51-00, 4×2. Day’s range of 14.51-30.
MFC.PR.C PerpetualDiscount -3.7931% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.14% based on a bid of 13.95 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 13.95-24, 20×15. Day’s range of 13.90-79.
BAM.PR.K Floater -3.7090%  
BNA.PR.C SplitShare -3.6810% Asset coverage of 1.6+:1, based on BAM.A at 16.96 and 2.4 BAM.A per preferred. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 21.28% based on a bid of 7.85 and a hardMaturity 2019-01-10 at 25.00. Closing quote of 7.85-04, 1×3. Day’s range of 7.80-50.
BCE.PR.C FixFloat -3.6545%  
BMO.PR.K PerpetualDiscount -3.3033% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.27% based on a bid of 16.10 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.10-44, 4×5. Day’s range of 16.00-95.
HSB.PR.D PerpetualDiscount -3.1410% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.33% based on a bid of 15.11 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 15.11-68, 5×2. Day’s range of 15.00-16.40.
CM.PR.E PerpetualDiscount -3.1017% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.49% based on a bid of 16.87 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 16.87-96, 4×1. Day’s range of 16.84-51.
SLF.PR.B PerpetualDiscount -3.0529% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.45% based on a bid of 14.29 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 14.29-38, 2×4. Day’s range of 14.10-00.
RY.PR.F PerpetualDiscount -3.0046% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.60% based on a bid of 14.85 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 14.85-20, 5×20. Day’s range of 15.10-58.
TD.PR.S FixedReset +3.7598%  
BNA.PR.B SplitShare +4.0526% See BNA.PR.C, above. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 9.71% based on a bid of 19.00 and a hardMaturity 2016-3-25 at 25.00. Closing quote of 19.00-89, 15×1. Day’s range of 18.26-19.90. Now trading substantially through BAM OpRets, indicating that at least some players are looking at the retraction.
POW.PR.C PerpetualDiscount -4.9679% Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 7.55% based on a bid of 19.65 and a limitMaturity. Closing quote 19.65-80, 5×4. Day’s range of 19.49-00.
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Volume Notes
RY.PR.N FixedReset 121,178 National crossed 56,800 at 25.26.
BAM.PR.O OpRet 88,600 TD bought two blocks (one of 10,000, one of 20,000) at 16.25 from Scotia. CIBC crossed 12,300 at 16.01. Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 16.65% based on a bid of 16.00 and optionCertainty 2013-6-30 at 25.00.
CM.PR.I PerpetualDiscount 64,450 Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.28% based on a bid of 14.50 and a limitMaturity.
CM.PR.H PerpetualDiscount 58,798 Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.46% based on a bid of 14.51 and a limitMaturity.
GWO.PR.I PerpetualDiscount 52,005 Now with a pre-tax bid-YTW of 8.36% based on a bid of 13.55 and a limitMaturity.

There were seventy-eight index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today

2 Responses to “December 15, 2008”

  1. prefhound says:

    “…wants the heart of the financial world to move to Dubai”

    There is an interesting summary of the history and mechanics of CDS on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap). Apparently they snuck in as unregulated in the Clinton years.

    Given the huge size of the market — often bigger than the outstanding supply of corporate bonds — and the systemic risks from “domino” effects, where the bankruptcy of one counterparty triggers more payment obligations that might bankrupt other counterparties in a chain reaction, and given the opaqueness of CDS and derivative contracts on bank balance sheets, it seems prudent to have more visibility for sure.

    I worry that small percentage losses on big positions might translate into mighty big dollar losses (e.g. 2% of $50T is still $1T; and these amounts are over and above sub-prime). The credit crunch has gone way beyond sub-prime and I wonder what role CDS are having.

    As the wikipedia article shows, however, the CDS’s are somehow marked to market with counterparties on a daily (probably net) basis, so there does seem to be some underlying capital commitment — which is a good thing. Also, at least in the Lehman bankruptcy, there was an orderly position squaring with only about 1.5% of notional value having to change hands as cash, despite a recovery of only 8 cents on the dollar. So, it could be argued that banks have been behaving responsibly (so far) with these products and they have worked as advertised.

    Unfortunately, banks and other financial firms are prone to screwing up from time to time and their still-increasing leverage has to be a worry for all investors and regulators. One benefit of a CDS exchange will be more transparency, and another may be higher capital requirements. If the Americans move CDS to an exchange, then other major developed economies will too.

    All Dubai has to do is have one major glitch and the big banks will stay away.

    I for one, am glad that not all regulatory action is in the direction of further “forebearance” like avoiding mark to market, loosening insurance and bank capital requirements, and fudging pension accounting — which can all add systemic risk. At least moving CDS to an exchange (a lot of which had already been committed to by major players) goes in a different direction.

  2. jiHymas says:

    exchange

    It’s not an exchange that’s being talked about, it’s a clearinghouse. I’ve made the distinction before, in response to a post by Accrued Interest.

    marked to market with counterparties on a daily (probably net) basis, so there does seem to be some underlying capital commitment — which is a good thing.

    Not just marking, but collateralization. As I noted in a response to a piece by Econbrowser, the Bear Stearns

    financial statements for 2007 show $15.6-billion “Securities Received as Collateral” and $15.7-billion “Securities Owned and Pledged as Collateral”.

    The major pro-cyclical problem with the usual collateralization agreements are also highlighted in the report:

    Additionally, a reduction in our credit ratings could also trigger incremental collateral requirements, predominantly in the OTC derivatives market.

    I consider the snowballing of collaterallization to be the big problem – essentially, that’s what killed AIG and the monolines. But I suggest that a more direct method of addressing the problem is to tighten up the capital requirements rather than using the big stick of enforced central clearing.

    All Dubai has to do is have one major glitch and the big banks will stay away.

    It will just be regulatory arbitrage. As long as somewhere exists that you can book a trade without too many rules, but with enough rules to enforce the contract … that’s where the business will get done.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.