Something is afoot in the land of credit markets. As we have been warning for a few weeks, credit appears to have 'turned' in the cycle suggesting equity should not be too far behind; but today's price action is rather stunning. Not only is investment grade credit spreads trading at their widest since the first day of the year, the high-to-low range of the day is huge. Aside from the extreme jump on the opening day of 2013, this is the biggest range in IG credit since Nov 2011. The last time we were at these levels was early 2011 and the rise in range then signaled the start of an extreme correction (from 80bps to over 150bps). Today's over 6bps range (from 76.9bps to 83.3bps) is extreme by any measure. Perhaps it is delta-hedging - since the low spread vol has driven many to the CDS options market for juice but whatever way one looks at it - something significant is changing (for the worse) in credit.
The lower pane is daily range...
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