Credit Rendezvous: And breathe...
The unanimous verdict is that credit spreads will be moving wider – they have to. But the difficulty credit fund managers face is predicting when the next sell-off comes and how sharp it will be. In the Q3 instalment of Creditflux’s Credit Rendezvous, the over-riding message from portfolio managers is that there’s little point in taking on too much risk. The report features the views of prominent credit figures including Paul Horvath (Orchard), Himani Trivedi (Nuveen), Ronnie Jaber (Onex), Graham Rainbow (Alcentra) and Michelle Russell-Dowe (Schroders). The report looks at 14 segments of the market including CLOs, direct lending, leveraged loans, distressed debt and credit derivatives.  

Credit grind pushes back volatility bets
With recent weeks having all-but crushed volatility from the market, uncertainty about the timing of future risk triggers is leading credit options traders to spurn traditional horizons to focus on longer-dated expiries

Credit slumbers in departure lounge as airline equities take off
Credit and equity markets have been in a balancing act on Tuesday between the positive and negative implications of surging oil prices and Germany opting to relax travel restrictions

Chicken supplier takes courage from earnings improvement
Boparan, one of the riskiest companies in the European high yield credit market, is among the biggest movers in bonds and CDS on Wednesday, as the market resumes its rally to the tightest prints of the year

Triple Bs in the firing line as Fed turns hawkish, says BofA
Triple B and long duration credit are likely to be casualties of tightening central bank policy, Bank of America strategists have warned. But high yield and cyclical investment grade sectors could fare better

Credit grind makes it five days out of five in bullish week
Credit markets are heading into the weekend on a fifth straight day of improving spreads, amid signs of returning economic confidence and appetite to invest in the asset class

French equipment rental firm gets big lift on Q1 results
Loxam, one of the widest trading names in the iTraxx Crossover universe, is leading index constituent tighteners on Wednesday after posting first quarter results showing improvement in revenue and ebidta

Financials and high yield outperform as rally gathers momentum
Credit spreads are enjoying a second day of improvement to regain some of the ground they lost last week, with Italian banks, commodity traders and higher yielding borrowers among outperformers in a broad rally of both indices and single name borrowers

Saipem moves sharply on Mozambique moans
Saipem, the Italian energy engineering group, was a big underperformer in a flattish credit market on Wednesday, as uncertainty over a project in Mozambique weighed on first quarter results and its outlook for the year

French foodco CDS jumps on bond offering
Picard, the French frozen foods company, is a big underperformer in credit markets on Monday, as it limbered up to bring a triple-tranche bond deal

Travel company CDS soars wider as bond issue converts to concern
TUI, the Anglo-German travel operator, is under pressure in credit and equity markets just it has launched an offering of convertible bonds

Single names make big gains as indices dither
Single name CDS in the US and Europe have strongly outperformed from the start of the week, rallying sharply and across most of the credit universe despite direcctionless trading for indices

Corp hybrid popularity mounts, but strategist outlooks diverge
Corporate hybrid bonds are becoming a focal point for investors in the second quarter, with one bank's credit strategy team making them a top pick to trade spread compression while another's has expressed caution on their likely performance

Spreads rally sharply ahead of US high yield index roll
Credit markets are rallying into the weekend, pushing US high yield index CDX HY inside a key trading level ahead of its roll to a new series on Monday

TRS goes electronic on Tradeweb with iBoxx trade
Tradeweb Markets has completed what it says is the first ever fully standardised total return swap trade based on IHS Markit’s iBoxx US Dollar Liquid High Grade index

Seaport hires veteran for European loan trading push
Seaport Global, an investment bank focused on capital markets, has hired a leveraged finance veteran as a managing director in Emea loans trading

US and Europe diverge as loan trading bands emerge on the continent
Europe and the US are on different courses with credit indices having drifted apart over the past month, say trading sources. Europe is expected to suffer fewer defaults to the extent that "it’s getting quite difficult for borrowers to default”, as one source put it. But the US has "higher growth potential due to its more dynamic economy"

Fair Oaks tops up on double B CLO tranches in May
Fair Oaks topped up on double B-rated CLO tranches in its listed CLO fund in May, adding $79 million par value of BB-rated paper

Denominator effect expected to drive LP-led private debt secondaries
Institutional investors are expected to engage in rebalancing trades to counter the 'denonimator effect', a move that should lead to an increase in private debt secondary trades

Structured credit dragged very wide — but CLOs stand to gain
Senior tranches of securitisations widened 220% in less than a month as the coronavirus pandemic has meant an increase in systemic risk — a sharp turnaround from the past few months when idiosyncratic risks were being cited as the main concern for structured credit investors.

‘Hoard credit’ says PM as markets swing
As Creditflux went to press, the covid-19 death toll in Italy surged by 700 after two days of slowing, and the US congress agreed a $2 trillion stimulus package.

CDS show the way as prices move and volumes surge
CDS volumes provide an eye-opening view of how the asset class has grown in prominence during the coronavirus pandemic, with index trading near doubling year-to-date on 2019, even as secondary bond markets hit lockdown.

Managed accounts pose flexibility check for direct lenders
Direct lenders are closely analysing portfolio companies hit by coronavirus volatility for signs of financial stress, ready to inject capital and extend flexibility to companies where needed.

Silver lining: credit investors provided with lower entry points than Q4 2018
Oil shocks and the coronavirus outbreak, along with aftermath effects such as US Federal Reserve interventions and lockdowns, is providing credit investors with lower entry points than the Q4 2018 sell-off, say sources. Furthermore, an expected U-shaped rather than V-shaped recovery could provide a greater money multiple for opportunistic investments - if they can access them 

Tranche traders aim to navigate default risk while staying clear of coronavirus contagion
The CDS market is navigating between two sources of risk for equity and mezzanine high yield index tranches. The default of US media company McClatchy has focused idiosyncratic concerns, while the spread of the coronavirus has stoked fears of a systemic sell-off.