MAPF Portfolio Composition: July 2009

Trading activity eased slightly in July, with portfolio turnover of about 100%, while the market extended its gains.

Trades were, as ever, triggered by a desire to exploit transient mispricing in the preferred share market (which may the thought of as “selling liquidity”), rather than any particular view being taken on market direction, sectoral performance or credit anticipation.

MAPF Sectoral Analysis 2009-7-31
HIMI Indices Sector Weighting YTW ModDur
Ratchet 0% N/A N/A
FixFloat 0% N/A N/A
Floater 0% N/A N/A
OpRet 0% N/A N/A
SplitShare 10.1% (-0.6) 8.99%% 7.01
Interest Rearing 0% N/A N/A
PerpetualPremium 0.6% (+0.6) 5.49% 2.64
PerpetualDiscount 71.9 (-0.3) 6.14% 13.69
Fixed-Reset 11.3% (-0.2) 4.18% 4.22
Scraps (OpRet) 5.2% (-0.4) 11.59% 6.00
Cash +0.7% (+0.6) 0.00% 0.00
Total 100% 6.44% 11.37
Totals and changes will not add precisely due to rounding. Bracketted figures represent change from June month-end. Cash is included in totals with duration and yield both equal to zero.

The “total” reflects the un-leveraged total portfolio (i.e., cash is included in the portfolio calculations and is deemed to have a duration and yield of 0.00.). MAPF will often have relatively large cash balances, both credit and debit, to facilitate trading. Figures presented in the table have been rounded to the indicated precision.

Not much change in the sectoral distribution!

Credit distribution is:

MAPF Credit Analysis 2009-7-31
DBRS Rating Weighting
Pfd-1 0.3% (-0.1)
Pfd-1(low) 81.5% (+14.3)
Pfd-2(high) 2.0% (-11.8)
Pfd-2 0.3% (+0.3)
Pfd-2(low) 9.8% (-3.4)
Pfd-3(high) 5.2% (-0.4)
Cash +0.7% (+0.6)
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding. Bracketted figures represent change from June month-end.

The shift from Pfd-2(high) to Pfd-1(low) is attributable to sale of some POW issues (Pfd-2(high)) in the PerpetualDiscount sector to fund the purchase of GWO PerpetualDiscounts (Pfd-1(low)):

Trades Contributing to
the Shift from Pfd-2(high) to Pfd-1(low)
July, 2009
Date POW.PR.B GWO.PR.H GWO.PR.G
6/30
Bid
20.10 18.70 20.61
7/16 Sold
20.43
Bought
18.75
 
7/17 Sold
20.46
Bought
18.75
 
7/23 Sold
20.96
  Bought
20.50
7/24 Sold
21.00
  Bought
20.75
7/31
Closing Bid
21.45 20.10 21.78
Dividends
Ex-Date
     
This is an attempt to show fairly the effect of numerous trades in tabular form. The trades shown are not necessarily precise dollar-for-dollar swaps. Trade details will be released on the main MAPF web page in the future.

The fund does not set any targets for overall credit quality; trades are executed one by one. Variances in overall credit will be constant as opportunistic trades are executed. The overall credit quality of the portfolio is now superior to the credit quality of CPD at August month-end (when adjusted for the downgrades of BCE and the banks).

Claymore provides the following ratings breakdown:

Ratings Breakdown
as of 12/31/08
Pfd-1 61.15%
Pfd-2 23.26%
Pfd-3 15.60%

Three events have occurred since the Dec. 31 calculation date of CPD’s credit quality:

Liquidity Distribution is:

MAPF Liquidity Analysis 2009-7-31
Average Daily Trading Weighting
<$50,000 0.3% (-3.0)
$50,000 – $100,000 11.2% (-10.0)
$100,000 – $200,000 5.8% (-20.1)
$200,000 – $300,000 49.6% (+34.5)
>$300,000 31.9% (-1.6%)
Cash +0.7% (+0.6)
Totals will not add precisely due to rounding. Bracketted figures represent change from June month-end.

There is no real pattern to the increase in liquidity experienced this month. For instance, a positions in SLF.PR.C (ATV = 167,986) and SLF.PR.E (ATV = 185,774) were swapped into SLF.PR.B (ATV = 239,639). The trades from POW to GWO (partially noted above) also contributed to the increase, as did trades from BPO into YPG.

MAPF is, of course, Malachite Aggressive Preferred Fund, a “unit trust” managed by Hymas Investment Management Inc. Further information and links to performance, audited financials and subscription information are available the fund’s web page. A “unit trust” is like a regular mutual fund, but is sold by offering memorandum rather than prospectus. This is cheaper, but means subscription is restricted to “accredited investors” (as defined by the Ontario Securities Commission) and those who subscribe for $150,000+. Fund past performances are not a guarantee of future performance. You can lose money investing in MAPF or any other fund.

A similar portfolio composition analysis has been performed on The Claymore Preferred Share ETF (symbol CPD) as of August 29. When comparing CPD and MAPF:

  • MAPF credit quality is better
  • MAPF liquidity is similar (although CPD now has a lot of entries in the ‘super-heavy’ >300,000 class)
  • MAPF Yield is higher
  • Weightings in
    • MAPF is more exposed to PerpetualDiscounts
    • MAPF is much less exposed to Operating Retractibles
    • MAPF is more exposed to SplitShares
    • MAPF is less exposed to FixFloat / Floater / Ratchet
    • MAPF weighting in FixedResets is much lower

One Response to “MAPF Portfolio Composition: July 2009”

  1. […] PrefBlog Canadian Preferred Shares – Data and Discussion « MAPF Portfolio Composition: July 2009 […]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.