Who Says Nobody is Issuing Debt

A statistic that may surprise some, is that January 2009 has seen a record amount of new Investment Grade issues: $104 billion so far. This easily surpasses the 2008 total of $83 billion. Granted, of this tally $61 billion is FDIC-guaranteed paper, but the $43 billion non-financial balance is still much higher than the $28 billion comparable in 2008 and $11 billion in 2007. Even more surprising is that 56% of new issues were BBB rated, up from 25% in December. This is summarized below:

And while the high yield market is not quite as active as the HG market, it is starting to ramp up. So far in January (and this excludes yesterday's $700 million in deals from Chesapeake (BB) and Inergy(B+)), there has been $4 billion issued in 6 deals. This compares to one deal in October (MGM), none in November and two in December (KSU and EP). New issue prices continue to reflect distressed levels, with new issuance spreads over 1,000 bps, and coupons in 8-9% range.

One other statistic: all bonds issued in the past 4 months were issued at a discount to par, with January discounts varying from 7-11 pts, pushing yields 200bps from par levels to an average of 11.8%.

As for secondary market levels: the HY BB index is averaging about 13.3% yield, while single Bs are at 16.7%.