High-grade primary quiets; corporate inflows steady; December funds, ETF inflows solid

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., Dec. 17 – The investment-grade bond market stayed quiet on Thursday with no reported issuers and little activity expected over the remainder of the year.

Just three companies have priced $2.28 billion of high-grade bonds week to date, including Rule 144A and Regulation S deals from Microchip Technology Inc. on Monday and Berry Global, Inc. on Tuesday and a registered offering from Fidus Investment Corp. on Wednesday.

Light issuance was expected this week and for the rest of the month with zero up to $10 billion of volume anticipated by market participants.

In January, pricing action is expected to pick up with about $125 billion to $135 billion of supply forecast.

Investment-grade corporate fund inflows were mostly unchanged over the week ended Wednesday at $2,898,000, Refinitiv Lipper US Fund Flows said Thursday.

Corporate fund inflows totaled $2.9 billion in the prior week and $5.94 billion in the week previous.

Meanwhile, the pace of inflows to daily reporting U.S. investment-grade bond funds and ETFs “remains solid” at $1.1 billion a day on average in December so far, up from $1 billion in November, according to a BofA Securities, Inc. research note released on Thursday.

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