Halister News

(Bloomberg) -- Price action in cash credit markets in the past two weeks since this column was last published shows a generally positive picture across both EUR IG and HY cash corporate bonds, Bloomberg strategist Simon Ballard writes.

• Risk appetite remains firm, even as modestly wider synthetic indexes seem to highlight the underlying issues that continue to test investors’ resolve; macroeconomic uncertainty, stock-price gyrations, oil-price volatility and the Q1 corporate earnings season that kicks off in the U.S. this week are all in focus
• Secondary cash credit spreads underpinned; EUR IG cash spreads ~2bps tighter since beginning of April
  • EUR HY cash bonds ~11bps tighter month to date
• Recent corporate new issuance has been generally well absorbed; no meaningful repricing effect on secondary market
• Alcoa Inc. due to report 1Q16 earnings after U.S. market close
• CDX IG +0.5bps at 82.07 in overnight session; iTraxx Asia Ex Japan IG is +0.7bps at 147.20

NEWS

• Corporate News
• Alcoa Looking to Finally Break Metal Shackles as Earnings Sink
• HeidelbergCement Tanzania Unit’s FY Profit Rises 3% Y/Y
• Formosa Chemicals 1Q Net Income NT$6.77b; Est. NT$5.53b

• Financial News
• Standard Chartered Said Selling $4.4 Billion of Asian Assets
• Austria’s Carinthia Province, Heta Creditors to Meet in London
• BBVA May Be Interested in Buying Second Bank in Turkey
• HSBC, Citigroup Among Those Directly Investing in Saudi Stocks

• Credit Rating News
• Moody’s Pemex Cuts Are Ignored by Ratings Rivals, Bond Traders
• Australia Starting to Push Against AAA Rating Boundary, NAB Says

• Other News
• Abenomics Rebuked as BlackRock Joins $46 Billion Japan Pullout
• Panama Papers Have Unintended Consequences: Mohamed A. El- Erian
• Carney’s ‘Brexit’ Headache Intensifies With Rate Outlook Schism

ANALYST VIEWS

• We have to believe that the record lows in corporate yields and spreads will be tested: creditmarketdaily.com

NEW ISSUES

• Digital Realty Trust EU600m 8Y MS +235
• Peugeot EU500m 7Y 2.375%
• European IG credit pipeline here and HY credit pipeline here
• Issuers exposed to S-T rollover and interest-rate reset risk here

• NOTE: Simon Ballard is a credit strategist who writes for Bloomberg. The observations he makes are his own and are not intended as investment advice.