Corporate credit spreads widen on Treasury volatility, equity sell-off
By Matt Tracy
Aug 2 (Reuters) -Corporate credit spreads widened and primary bond issuance came to a halt on Friday as equity markets sold off for the second day in a row, following data that raises expectations of a hard landing for the U.S. economy and more interest rate cuts in coming months.
The credit spreads or premium over Treasuries paid by corporate borrowers on investment-grade rated bonds were about 5-7 basis point wider on average Friday from Thursday levels. Junk-rated bond prices were also quoting about 5-10 basis points lower, investors said.
"It is not pretty out there at the moment with credit spreads on newly issued bonds widening out by as much as 5-10 basis points from where they were issued," said Scott Schulte, head of U.S. investment-grade syndicate desk at Barclays Capital.
The weaker ISM data on Thursday followed by the employment numbers a day after put fuel on the fire that the Fed may actually be behind the curve in their ability to successfully achieve a soft landing, he added.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yields US10YT=RR dropped as low as 3.79% on Friday, the lowest since December, and were last down 15.9 bps at 3.818%.
The drop came as Friday's data showed that nonfarm payrolls increased by 114,000 jobs last month after rising by a downwardly revised 179,000 in June. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls advancing by 175,000 jobs after gaining 206,000 in the previous month.
"We have been in an extremely low volatility period for quite some time now," said Connor Fitzgerald, fixed income portfolio manager at Wellington Management.
"Now I think there's some data that says...things are finally slowing. So if you start pricing even a small percentage chance of a recession, I think investment grade credit spreads will be very sensitive to that," he said.
The spike in market volatility is already increasing funding costs for investment-grade rated companies. The seven new deals that priced on Thursday paid an average 5.8 basis points more in new issue premium. This is higher than the average 2.72 basis points that companies paid to issue new bonds in all of July, according to data from Informa Global Markets.
Persistent volatility in Treasuries could slow the issuance momentum seen in corporate bond markets all through this year. Some $80 billion of new investment-grade bonds are expected to be issued in August, including the $8.8 billion of bonds issued on Thursday, according to IGM.
Reporting by Matt Tracy; Editing by Shankar Ramakrishnan and Toby Chopra
면책조항: XM Group 회사는 체결 전용 서비스와 온라인 거래 플랫폼에 대한 접근을 제공하여, 개인이 웹사이트에서 또는 웹사이트를 통해 이용 가능한 콘텐츠를 보거나 사용할 수 있도록 허용합니다. 이에 대해 변경하거나 확장할 의도는 없습니다. 이러한 접근 및 사용에는 다음 사항이 항상 적용됩니다: (i) 이용 약관, (ii) 위험 경고, (iii) 완전 면책조항. 따라서, 이러한 콘텐츠는 일반적인 정보에 불과합니다. 특히, 온라인 거래 플랫폼의 콘텐츠는 금융 시장에서의 거래에 대한 권유나 제안이 아닙니다. 금융 시장에서의 거래는 자본에 상당한 위험을 수반합니다.
온라인 거래 플랫폼에 공개된 모든 자료는 교육/정보 목적으로만 제공되며, 금융, 투자세 또는 거래 조언 및 권고, 거래 가격 기록, 금융 상품 또는 원치 않는 금융 프로모션의 거래 제안 또는 권유를 포함하지 않으며, 포함해서도 안됩니다.
이 웹사이트에 포함된 모든 의견, 뉴스, 리서치, 분석, 가격, 기타 정보 또는 제3자 사이트에 대한 링크와 같이 XM이 준비하는 콘텐츠 뿐만 아니라, 제3자 콘텐츠는 일반 시장 논평으로서 "현재" 기준으로 제공되며, 투자 조언으로 여겨지지 않습니다. 모든 콘텐츠가 투자 리서치로 해석되는 경우, 투자 리서치의 독립성을 촉진하기 위해 고안된 법적 요건에 따라 콘텐츠가 의도되지 않았으며, 준비되지 않았다는 점을 인지하고 동의해야 합니다. 따라서, 관련 법률 및 규정에 따른 마케팅 커뮤니케이션이라고 간주됩니다. 여기에서 접근할 수 있는 앞서 언급한 정보에 대한 비독립 투자 리서치 및 위험 경고 알림을 읽고, 이해하시기 바랍니다.
