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.  

US loan managers capture secondary opportunities as new issues struggle
US loan managers switched gears by sourcing loans in the secondary market in the second quarter. This came as pricing in the primary market became less attractive in the early part of Q2 and with new loan issuance slowing in May and June

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

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

Global CLO trading lab: quality and optionality shine as 2020 and 2019 mezz trades up
The primary and secondary CLO markets are moving in tandem with both markets drifting wider amid a wealth of supply

Past returns: Having a whale of a time in tranches
In Creditflux 10 years ago we reported on JP Morgan’s “little known prop book” making waves in index tranches

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

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

Global CLO trading lab: Octagon CLO comes out top in CLO double B spike
Double B-rated bonds made up 40% of the European and US CLO secondary markets last week. $222 million of US CLO double B bonds were on sale and a further €105 million of European CLO double B items were listed

Control position in strong 2018 Axa CLO on sale today
$29.2 million of Allegro VII, a 2018 CLO managed by Axa Investment Managers, is on sale today in an all US CLO equity b-wic at 10am EST (3pm UK time). The bond is the fifth US CLO majority equity position to be listed on a b-wic this year

CLOs come up smelling of roses
The coronavirus crisis could have cut back 10 years of CLO market progress, but investors’ foresight, trading chops and flexibility meant many saw their strategies blossom during 2020  

ESG factors show up in leveraged loan pricing in US
Environmental, social, and corporate governance factors are filtering through to the US CLO market and influencing loan prices

First Eagle CLO notches up highest control equity trade on b-wic since at least 2017
The fourth control position in a US CLO was listed yesterday at 12pm EST (5pm UK time) as $33.43 million of Wind River 2017-4, a First Eagle managed CLO, was up for sale along with two other US CLO equity items

Global CLO trading lab: secondary volumes inflate and easily get absorbed
Weekly secondary CLO volume has been lower across the capital structure in recent weeks as 2021’s refinancing wave left investors with plenty of choice

Citi and BofA to bring others on board with groundbreaking CLO/loan b-wic platform
Further details have emerged of Citi and Bank of America's multi-dealer trading platform for CLOs and loans, nicknamed project octopus, with officials at Citi telling Creditflux that they are accelerating talks with dealers to join the initiative

BofA and Citi unveil multi-dealer platform for CLOs and loans
Bank of America and Citi have joined forces with plans for a multi-dealer CLO and loan platform which will cover trading, data and analytics

Loan technical and supply glut keeps CLOs in check
CLO asset and liability spreads moved wider in March owing to unprec-edented volumes of issuance, despite investors rotating into floating-rate products amid rising treasury rates

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

Big US CLO investor crystalises gains with $101 million mezz sale
A well-known CLO investor has emerged as a repeat seller of CLO tranches this year, with sources indicating the firm has been monetising gains it made from purchases over the past year

Secondary CLO spike pushes double Bs to 800bp as KKR resets
KKR Credit has priced a US CLO reset in another example of how junior CLO spreads have gapped out over the last two weeks

Global CLO b-wic round-up: record level of CLO paper stalls rally
Record levels of primary and secondary CLO supply has left investors spoilt for choice and led to the CLO rally stalling