Financial markets

• December 9, 1996

  The Canadian market for zero-coupon bonds

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 1996-1997 Miles Whittingham

  A conventional bond is a debt instrument consisting of a series of periodic coupon payments plus the repayment of the principal at maturity. As the name suggests, a zero-coupon bond has no coupon payments. It has only a single payment consisting of the repayment of the principal at maturity. The zero-coupon bond is sold at a discount and then redeemed for its face value at maturity. The return to the investor is the difference between the face value of the bond and its discounted purchase price. In this article, the author examines the investment characteristics of zero-coupon bonds. In particular, a type of zero-coupon bond known as a strip bond is discussed. A strip bond is created by stripping coupon payments from conventional bonds. The strip bond market in Canada has grown substantially since the late 1980s and is now an integral part of Canadian fixed-income markets. As well, the opportunity to trade in the strip bond market improves the liquidity and efficiency of Canadian fixed-income markets, thus helping to reduce the overall cost of borrowing to the government.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets
• November 10, 1996

  The market for futures contracts on Canadian bankers' acceptances

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 1996 Nancy Harvey

  The Montreal Exchange introduced futures contracts on 3-month Canadian bankers' acceptances, known as BAX, in 1988. In this article, the author explains the nature of this new instrument, which is bought and sold on the floor of the Exchange, and its role in hedging, speculation, and arbitrage. She briefly reviews the technical aspects of the market and explains the difference between BAX contracts and forward rate agreements. She also examines the market's rapid growth and its relationship to the market for treasury bills.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets

• Speculative Behaviour, Regime-Switching and Stock Market Crashes

  Staff Working Paper 1996-13 Simon van Norden, Huntley Schaller

  This paper uses regime-switching econometrics to study stock market crashes and to explore the ability of two very different economic explanations to account for historical crashes. The first explanation is based on historical accounts of "manias and panics."

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C4, C40, E, E4, E44, G, G1, G12

• Provincial Credit Ratings in Canada: An Ordered Probit Analysis

  Staff Working Paper 1996-6 Stella Cheung

  The author estimates the relationship between the provincial credit ratings, as assessed by Standard & Poor's, and a number of economic variables, using the ordered probit methodology. All the variables in her estimation prove to be significant. In particular, she finds that downgrades take place at almost the same speed at different levels of the debt-to-GDP ratio, based on a pooled sample of nine provinces.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): H, H6, H63

• Switching Between Chartists and Fundamentalists: A Markov Regime-Switching Approach

  Staff Working Paper 1996-1 Robert Vigfusson

  Since the early 1980s, models based on economic fundamentals have been poor at explaining the movements in the exchange rate (Messe 1990). In response to this problem, Frankel and Froot (1988) developed a model that uses two approaches to forecast the exchange rate: the fundamentalist approach, which bases the forecast on economic fundamentals, and the chartist approach, which bases the forecast on the past behaviour of the exchange rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C4, C40, G, G1, G12