Larry Berman CFA, CMT, CTA Horizons Active Preferred Share ETF HPR-T BUY Mar 05, 2018

Preferred shares are a great investment due to the favorable tax treatment. With active management you are getting a great benefit. They will be holding a balance of fixed versus floating holdings. A casual investor can get caught in the various different covenants associated with this class. He thinks this is an excellent way to add preferred exposure to your portfolio.

ZPR-T vs HPR-T? Preferred shares in Canada are subject to resets, so they’re a great thing when interest rates rise. But when rates go down, they get creamed. It’s unlikely that rates will go down anytime soon. ZPR-T is laddered, and very short term and floating rate. Not a bad strategy. A better strategy would be HPR-T, which is actively managed by Fierra a fantastic manager in the fixed income space. The price on HPR-T is kinda in the same category as ZPR-T but you get the advantage of Fierra without paying a lot. Prefers HPR-T to ZPR-T.

For recent years, he's been off and on preferred shares. Preferreds are volatile. When interest rates plunged 2-3 years ago, this asset class got reamed. HPR pays a big dividend, but also offers huge volatility. Also, it lacks the growth of stocks but carries the volatility. He had a terrible experience with this. Look at ZUP-T, which covers US preferreds which are largely fixed-rate, a key difference to Canadian preferreds. Also, US preferreds are less volatile than Canadians.

Likes active approach to preferred asset class.
Very sensitive to interest rates.
Would wait to buy when prices fall.
Very volatile.

Preferred share market is risky - not a good place for average investor.
Not much upside with lots of downside risk.
Income oriented investors have better options.
Canadian Dividend Index a better product.