Abdullah Karatash

Stocks closed flat on the day and corporate credit spreads closed relatively unchanged.

Treasury bonds continued to rally today and the U.S. dollar gained slightly against the Euro.

JP Morgan's earnings were pretty good but European sovereign concerns weighed down on the markets slightly as talk of a financial restructuring in Greece and Portugal continued.

President Obama, in a bid to steal the fiscal mantle from the Republican Party, announced a plan to trim the deficit by $4 trillion by 2023.

2023 is a long way away and the proof is in the pudding.

In corporate bond new issues, the luster seems to have worn off Yankee issuance (foreign issuers issuing USD denominated debt).

Asian issuers, particularly Australian issuers, have seen their bond issues underperform in secondary trading.

European issuers are facing the same problem.

French bank Credit Agricole decided to join the covered bond FRN (floating rate note) party and issued $1.5 billion of 3 year FRNs at +75.

Aluminum giant Alcoa hit the market with a $1.25 billion 10 year bond issuance at +195; the deal did not perform as well as the recent FUEL (Ford-linked) issue in secondary trading.

The deal size grew from $750 million to $1.25 billion and the deal priced 10-15 bps tighter than the initial price talk.

Are issuers and underwriters getting greedy? They have always been greedy...

But we may have hit a nexus point of sorts with investors becoming a little more selective.

Come May, we will see whether or not this trend holds.

Initial jobless claims and producer price index inflation numbers are out tomorrow.