Displaying items by tag: investment grade

(New York)

Bond investors are getting nervous, and not about the Fed or interest rates. Rather, they are worried about corporate credit. Most will be aware that corporate credit issuance surged over the last decade, especially in fringe investment grade BBB debt. Now, investors are fearing a “wall of maturities”. In the next three years, one third of all triple B rated US debt will come due, a huge test for the group of highly indebted companies. Companies will then need to refinance in this much-less-friendly environment. The Bank for International Settlements warns that in the next downturn, many BBB rated bonds will be downgraded to junk, which will cause fire sales.

FINSUM: Our big worry here is that many institutional investors have strict mandates to not hold junk bonds, so if a solid number of companies fall from the BBB level, there will indeed be huge fire sales in credit markets.

(New York)

The market has been very worried about a potential bond market meltdown. Both investment grade and high yield debt have seen major losses lately as fears have mounted about high corporate debt heading into a possible recession and downturn in earnings. One of the big worries is that there will be a surge in BBB (the lowest rung of investment grade) debt that falls into junk status. However, Bank of America is more sanguine, arguing that growth is solid and companies have actually been issuing much less debt, and will continue to do so. Their view is that companies are in a much sounder financial position than before the last crisis.

FINSUM: The debt gorge that happened over the last several years is inevitably going to have consequences, and we think BAML is way too relaxed about the risks.

(New York)

This is a tricky environment for income investing. On the one hand, rising rates generally mean better yields, but at the same time, the chance of rate-driven losses is high. What if investors wanted to get safe 5% yields? Doing so is a little bit tricky and requires a blend of riskier credit and a mix of durations. However, investors can get pretty close with some individual ETFs. For instance, BlackRock’s iBoxx $ Investment Grade Bond ETF yields 4.39% and has shorter dated maturities with comparable credit quality to other funds.

FINSUM: This seems like a good choice, but there are also a number of rate hedged ETFs that have similar yields and almost no interest rate risk.

(New York)

Everyone is watching the BBB bond market with a very close eye. The bottom fringe of the investment grade market, it saw an extraordinary jump in issuance over the last few years. Now, with rates rising, it looks very vulnerable. However, all that suspicion hasn’t amounted to much as investors have kept the area afloat. Ratings agencies and the IMF have both warned about the startling growth of BBB issuance, but so far, the sector is holding up.

FINSUM: Don’t be fooled. There is a massive amount of BBB debt and when a recession finally arrives alongside much higher rates, there seems bound to be a reckoning. That said, there are pockets of the market, like utilities credits, that seem like they will hold up better.

(New York)

There is some alarming data flowing out of the bond market. First it was the huge amounts of bond fund withdrawals, and now new info—issuance is plunging. US investment grade issuance fell 34% in October (from September). High yield issuance was down 50% from last October. Overall annual issuance fell a great deal on both fronts as well. The numbers reflect slumping demand for bonds as rates and yields rise. Investors also pulled $3.1 bn from investment grade bond funds in the week leading up to November 1st.

FINSUM: This is not surprising given what has been going on in markets this month. Even the annual figures make sense given the rise in rates. The big worry is to what degree this will translate into lower demand for Treasuries at the same time as the deficit (and issuance) is about to surge?