Today's Bonds Pulse
US Treasury market steadies after Iran conflict sparks volatility
The US Treasury market has settled back to pre‑war calm following turbulence triggered by the Iran conflict, and expectations for bond‑market swings have fallen to near their lowest level of the year. Meanwhile, 30‑year Treasury yields slipped from a 19‑year high as optimism builds.
US Stock Market | Investor Rush Sparks Historic Scramble for New Bond Issuances
Investor demand for U.S. corporate bonds has surged to historic levels, making new issuances harder to access and allocations tighter. Barclays’ analysis of TRACE data shows competition in investment‑grade debt is up 15% and high‑yield debt up 30% compared with 2017. Early‑stage secondary trading has intensified, with turnover on large deals rising from 15% to 26% in the first ten days post‑issuance. The trend reflects a broader, more diverse investor base and stronger foreign appetite driven by higher coupon levels after the Fed’s 2022 rate hikes.
IMF Confirms US Fiscal Boost Exceeds Estimates
People keep telling me I'm wrong about the US fiscal boost this year, but the IMF just published this.. thats bigger than our estimates btw https://t.co/HKAuw6DenI
Banks Snap up Bonds as Holdings Approach Regulatory Floor
Indian banks are accelerating purchases of government bonds as their sovereign‑debt holdings edge toward the RBI’s 18% regulatory minimum. In February, state‑owned lenders bought a net ₹225.8 billion ($2.5 billion), the largest monthly purchase recorded since Bloomberg began tracking in 2006. Their...
Recent Changes in Credit Markets and Their Implications for Monetary Policy
The February 2026 bulletin outlines three post‑pandemic credit‑market shifts that have eased financial conditions: bank‑funding cost spreads fell about 70 basis points, variable mortgage‑rate spreads narrowed roughly 65 basis points, and business‑credit supply expanded with non‑bank lenders gaining market share. These...
International Seaways Inc (INSW) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
International Seaways reported Q3 2025 net income of $71 million ($1.42 per share) and adjusted EBITDA of $108 million, while generating roughly $63 million of free cash flow. The company ended the quarter with $985 million of total liquidity, a cash balance of $413 million...
KBRA and Fitch Downgrade Chicago
Chicago’s general‑obligation bonds were downgraded by both KBRA and Fitch to BBB‑plus from A‑minus, with a negative outlook maintained. The agencies cited a shrinking fund balance, tightening liquidity, rising pension costs and consecutive operating deficits. The downgrade precedes the city’s...
Morningstar DBRS Assigns Credit Rating of BBB With a Stable Trend to ARC Resources Ltd.'s Offering of Senior Unsecured Notes
Morningstar DBRS assigned a BBB rating with a Stable trend to ARC Resources Ltd.'s senior unsecured notes offering, comprising C$400 million at 3.349% due 2029 and C$550 million at 4.104% due 2033. The company plans to use net proceeds to refinance existing...
A&D Mortgage Raises $602.7 Million in Non-Prime RMBS
A&D Mortgage issued $602.7 million of non‑prime residential mortgage‑backed securities (RMBS) through its 2026‑NQM2 transaction, backed by 1,793 loans with four months of seasoning. The pool is dominated by single‑family homes (68.4 %) and condos (20.5 %), with 48.1 % of borrowers self‑employed and...
Tokenized US Treasurys Rise by over $1B Since Start of 2026
Tokenized US Treasury market grew to $10.8 billion, up $1.9 billion since the start of 2026. The sector has expanded 50× since 2024, propelled by BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), now worth over $1.2 billion. Growth persisted despite a broad crypto...
JPMorgan, BofA Favor Venezuela Bonds With More Unpaid Interest
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America are urging clients to buy Venezuelan global bonds that carry large amounts of unpaid interest, known as accrued coupons. The banks argue that these distressed securities could deliver outsized returns if Venezuela...
Columbus Planning $500M Affordable Housing Bond
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther unveiled a $500 million affordable‑housing bond framework dividing funds into four buckets: $150 million for new construction and preservation, $125 million for transitional shelters, homeowner upgrades and supportive housing, $175 million for land acquisition linked to transit‑oriented and mixed‑use development,...
Meta’s Digital Dollar Comeback Could Unlock a $1 Trillion Treasury Shift Washington Is Not Ready For
Meta is planning to introduce stablecoin‑based payments in the second half of 2026 by partnering with a third‑party provider, avoiding the need to issue its own token. The initiative leverages the 2025 GENIUS Act’s regulatory framework, positioning digital dollars as...
Cohen & Company Raises €481.5m for Subordinated Insurance Debt Funds
Fixed income specialist Cohen & Company announced that its European subsidiary raised €481.5 million for the PriDe IV subordinated insurance debt fund, the firm’s largest European vintage to date. The fund continues the company’s strategy of providing Tier II capital to small and...
US Treasury Borrowing No Longer Cheap Despite 4% Yield
There's lots of buzz about 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4%. But when you look at this yield vs US peers - hedging those yields back into US Dollars - the US picture isn't nearly so sanguine. The days when...
USDJPY‑Yield Spread Correlation Rebounds to Strong Positive
The rolling 40-day (2 month) correlation between $USDJPY and the US-Japan 2-year yield spread has rebound to a stronger positive (+0.6) after 10 months of inversion. Will it just start syncing up or will this gap in carry standing close?...
XFLT: The Yield Is Eroding NAV While Earnings Struggle (Rating Downgrade)
XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust (XFLT) has been downgraded to a sell as earnings continue to decline and growth remains limited. The fund now trades at a roughly 20.21 % discount to NAV, reflecting persistent portfolio challenges rather...
Rich 5s Cheapen Ahead of Auction; Yields Rise
Not surprising to see some cheapening of very rich 5s before the auction later today. 2s5s10s up a few bps from Monday's Citrini low. Interesting to see if the move has legs post-auction https://t.co/ZQjjNm6NwT
Oppenheimer Hires Former Stern Brothers Managing Director Vien Le
Oppenheimer has added former Stern Brothers managing director Vien Le to its public finance investment‑banking group in Los Angeles. Le brings more than two decades of municipal finance experience, having advised the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the state...
Allstate Secures $1.2bn Reinsurance with New Sanders Re Cat Bonds, Its Largest Placement Ever
Allstate has priced and closed two catastrophe‑bond series, Sanders Re IV Ltd. (2026‑1A) and Sanders Re III Ltd. (2026‑1B), delivering a record $1.2 billion of multi‑peril, multi‑year reinsurance in a single market visit. The issuance comprises four tranches—two four‑year and two...
Credit Crunch: Around the World of Global Credit in 60 Minutes
The Bloomberg Intelligence FIC team examined global credit trends, focusing on a surge in Asian convertible bonds driven by higher rates, equity volatility, and issuer demand for cheap funding, while noting a slowdown in Chinese dollar bond issuance as firms...
Hiscox Capital Partners Grows ILS AUM to $1.5bn, Secured $330m of Inflows over Last Year
Hiscox Capital Partners lifted its insurance‑linked securities (ILS) assets under management to $1.5 billion as of 1 January 2026, driven by $330 million of new inflows over the past year. The inflows offset planned capital returns and boosted deployable capital for the January reinsurance...
Sustainable Debt Issuance Slows as Markets Position for 2026 Rebound
Sustainable debt issuance slipped 12% year‑on‑year to about $1.4 trillion in 2025, marking the slowest growth in five years, even as clean‑energy investment hit a record $2.3 trillion. Research from ING expects a modest rebound to roughly $1.62 trillion in 2026, with Europe...
CME Group U.S. Treasury OI Sets New Record of 36.3M Contracts
CME Group reported a record 36,328,151 open interest contracts in U.S. Treasury futures and options on February 19, surpassing its previous high from November 2025. The milestone spans the entire yield curve, with new peaks in 2‑year, 5‑year, 10‑year, and...
Debtwire Middle-Market – 2/23/2026
Sponsor‑backed merger and acquisition activity surged to $165 billion in December 2025, marking the second‑largest monthly volume in the past decade, just shy of the $168 billion peak recorded in April 2021. Data from Mergermarket shows that leveraged buyouts and other sponsor‑driven deals now...
Crescent Capital BDC Inc (CCAP) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Crescent Capital BDC reported Q4 2025 net investment income of $0.46 per share, delivering 110% coverage of its $0.42 regular dividend. Net asset value slipped to $19.28 per share, driven by $0.15 per share of unrealized losses from tariff‑impacted borrowers....
Monetary Policy Committee Policy Rate Likely to Remain Unchanged
The Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee is expected to leave its policy rate unchanged at 1.25% during Wednesday’s meeting, buoyed by a stronger‑than‑expected 2.5% year‑on‑year GDP growth in Q4 2025 and a clearer political environment after the election. Economists...
Panoro Energy ASA - Announcement of Fixed Income Investor Meetings
Panoro Energy ASA announced a series of fixed‑income investor meetings, appointing Arctic Securities and DNB Carnegie as joint bookrunners and SB1 Markets as co‑manager. The company is considering a $150 million tap issuance of its senior secured bond, pending market conditions...
Unlocking Value in Private Credit: Inside Loomis Sayles’ Integrated Approach
Loomis Sayles sees the expanding private‑credit market as a source of higher yields and structural protections for fixed‑income investors. To exploit this, the firm created a dedicated Private Credit Team that works alongside its public‑markets portfolio managers, credit researchers, and legal...
HYI: Discount Widens But Still Looking For Better Entry Level
Western Asset High Yield Opportunity Fund (HYI) converted from a term‑structured to a perpetual fund last year, prompting the discount to widen to roughly its historical average. The fund’s non‑leveraged, high‑yield strategy delivers a 10.23% distribution yield, but semi‑annual and...
AI‑Driven Revenue Drop Threatens Sovereign Bonds, Raises Capital Costs
This is an incredibly thought-provoking global macro piece from @infraa_. If the gov't revenue decline from AI disruption of white collar workers isn't counter-balanced by taxation from AI productivity, we could be tip-toeing into a potential Sovereign Bond Implosion....
Private Credit Boom Delays Maturity Wall, Now Cracks Appear
What my post from December 2023 overlooked was the massive expansion in private credit. Private credit stepped in aggressively to fill financing gaps, refinance maturities, and provide bridge capital, delaying the "wall of maturities" many buyers were eager to capitalize on. Now...
BAM Hires Philip Moos to Join Its Muni Capital Markets Team
BAM Mutual announced the hiring of Philip Moos, a 30‑year municipal sales veteran from Wells Fargo, to bolster its municipal capital markets team. Moos will report to Bryan Baebler and focus on expanding BAM’s secondary‑market insurance business with institutional investors. The insurer currently...
TWIA Board Opts to only Buy Reinsurance and Cat Bonds up to 1-in-50 Year PML in 2026
At its Galveston meeting, the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) Board voted to purchase reinsurance and catastrophe bonds only up to the statutory 1‑in‑50 year probable maximum loss (PML) level for 2026. The revised funding target of $4.3051 billion translates to...
Guest Contribution: “Understanding Bond-Stock Price Comovements”
The article examines how Treasury bond returns move together with U.S. stock returns, showing that comovement has shifted from positive in the 1980s to negative in the 2000s and back to positive after 2022. Using rolling 90‑day regressions on daily...
Bloomberg Pro Tips: Fast-Forward Your Credit Research with CRAN
Bloomberg’s latest Pro Tips episode demonstrates how analysts can accelerate issuer credit research using CRAN, the Credit Research Analysis tool on the Bloomberg Terminal. The tutorial walks users through data retrieval, rating analysis, and key financial metrics in minutes. Bloomberg...
Yield Curve Shifts From 2023 Inversion to 2025 Flattening
Chart shows the shape and evolution of the yield curve (3-Month Treasury yields (blue) and 10-Year Treasury yields (red)) from Feb 2023 to Feb 2026. It's been a wild ride from the extreme inversion in 2023 to normalization beginning Q4 2025....
Strong Demand for GSE-Eligible Loans in Non-Agency MBS
Investors are showing strong appetite for GSE‑eligible loans embedded in non‑agency mortgage‑backed securities, tightening spreads and lifting prices across the segment. The surge reflects limited agency supply and the premium investors assign to loans that meet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eligibility...
Bond ETF Bulls on Parade
In January 2026, fixed‑income ETFs attracted $56 billion of net inflows, pushing total inflows to over $105 billion across ETFs and mutual funds. Nearly half of the bond‑ETF money went into actively managed funds such as PIMCO’s PYLD and iShares BINC, while...
Short Takes: Home Prices Tick Up / Chase Offering Rate Discount / Bed Bath & Beyond Getting Into Mortgages /...
Home prices edged higher in the latest quarter, while Chase announced a modest rate discount to spur loan demand. Retail giant Bed Bath & Beyond entered the mortgage origination space, signaling non‑traditional players’ interest in housing finance. Bayview Capital began stocking GSE‑eligible loans...
Despite March Weakness, Long‑term Muni Yields Stay Attractive
"March has historically been the weakest month for munis over the past 30 years. Even so, we continue to favor the long end of the muni curve, where tax-equivalent yields remain attractive." -Larry Adam, Raymond James
Bonds Poised to Surprise in 2026 as Growth Cools
Bonds may be setting up the surprise of 2026. Equities own the narrative. Duration owns the asymmetry. If growth cools, fixed income becomes leadership. Framework here: https://t.co/NWtS4ggYI5 @JDHatfield_ICAP @InfraCap
Oklahoma Supreme Court to Rule on Utilities' Winter Storm Bonds
The Oklahoma Supreme Court is set to rule on $1.45 billion of winter‑storm bonds issued by Oklahoma Gas & Electric and Public Service Company of Oklahoma. Republican lawmakers allege the Oklahoma Corporation Commission violated state audit and ethics rules when authorizing...
AI Disruption Could Trigger $420 Bn Credit Default Wave
UBS’s Matt Mish lays out a scenario for credit involving “rapid, aggressive AI disruption.” US high yield, leveraged loan & private credit default rates could rise to 3–6%, 8–10%, & 14–15%, respectively: Mish. “Defaults could approach ~$420bn, w/losses of roughly...
2‑Year Auctions Shine During Nasty Treasury Roll Week
2y auctions during roll week are usually more interesting esp when TU (ZT) roll is this nasty
Canton Advances Cross-Border Repo to Free up $300 Trillion Assets via Tokenization
A consortium of leading financial institutions executed the first cross‑border, intraday repurchase agreement using tokenized U.K. government bonds on the Canton Network. The trade featured the inaugural cross‑currency swap of tokenized gilts for tokenized deposits, with smart contracts encoding interest...
Plenum Investments Surpasses $2bn of Assets Under Management
Zurich‑based Plenum Investments announced that its assets under management have topped US$2 billion, roughly doubling the figure achieved in July 2023. The growth stems from four UCITS catastrophe‑bond and insurance‑linked securities funds, which now enjoy institutional‑scale assets. The firm’s organic expansion reflects...
Turkey’s BIST Soars 24% Amid Inflows, Loose Policy
#TurkeyWatch 🇹🇷: Turkey's main stock index, the BIST 100, is up nearly 24% YTD, and foreign investors are piling into Turkish bonds and equities. Turkey's disinflation story is gaining credibility and capital is flowing in. BEWARE. TURKEY'S MONETARY POLICY REMAINS TOO LOOSE. https://t.co/ubNTzVl6KH
California FAIR Plan Secures $400m Wildfire Reinsurance From Second Golden Bear Re Cat Bond
The California FAIR Plan secured a $400 million wildfire reinsurance cat bond from Golden Bear Re Ltd. (Series 2026‑2), priced at a 9.5 % spread and an expected loss of 2.65 %. The single‑tranche issuance runs three years to February 2029 and brings the plan’s...
BDCs: The Liquid Way to Access to Private Credit>
Business development companies (BDCs) are experiencing a resurgence, highlighted by a 30‑day SEC yield of 9.21% for VanEck’s BIZD ETF and an industry‑wide yield of roughly 11.3%. Credit metrics show non‑accrual rates at 1.2% and loan prices near par, indicating...
Boom Times for Muni Bonds
State and local governments issued a record $498 billion in municipal bonds in 2024 and topped $580 billion in 2025, driven primarily by infrastructure, education, and transportation projects. The surge reflects a shift from waning federal pandemic aid to local financing for...