High-grade issuance misses forecast; Moody’s, Texas Instruments price; June supply eyed

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., June 1 – Two issuers tapped the investment-grade bond market on Friday, bringing week-to-date volume to about $5.4 billion.

Syndicate sources had expected about $20 billion of bond issuance for the week.

During the session, Moody’s Corp. priced $300 million of three-year senior notes.

Texas Instruments Inc. placed a $200 million add-on to its 4.15% notes due May 15, 2048.

Supply over the week includes BB&T Corp.’s $1.5 billion two-tranche offering of notes on Thursday and about $3.4 billion of high-grade bonds on Wednesday from L3 Technologies, Inc., Southern California Edison Co., Dominion Energy, Inc. and MetLife Inc.

The markets were closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.

Because of the light pricing action over the week, June’s deal pipeline is expected to be stronger than usual, according to BofA Merrill Lynch analysts.

“June is seasonally a slow month for supply with 8-year average volume of $72.3 [billion], or 6.6% of annual supply,” the analysts said in a note released Friday. “However, with only $5 [billion] of new issue supply this week due to Italy-induced global market weakness, much of this week's activity was likely postponed till next week, adding to the June pipeline.”

BofA Merrill Lynch analysts forecast about $90 billion to $100 billion of deal volume in June.

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