No pricings; Oneok hits road; new Post, AMAG issues firm smartly; funds lose $1.21 billion

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Aug. 13 – After three straight billion-dollar-plus sessions, the high-yield primary market quieted down on Thursday, syndicate sources said.

They saw no pricings of any new junk-rated, dollar-denominated paper from domestic or industrialized-country borrowers.

The syndicate sources said that one prospective new deal emerged and joined the forward calendar. Natural gas company Oneok Inc. opened a roadshow for its $500 million offering of eight-year notes.

Otherwise, the sources saw no fresh news coming from the new deal sphere, surmising that the traditional “dog days” of mid-summer were at last upon Junkbondland.

Even so, in the secondary realm, traders saw brisk activity in several recently priced issues. The Post Holdings, Inc. megadeal and the new bonds from AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc., all of which had priced on Wednesday, were seen trading more than 2 points above their respective issue prices, on heavy volume.

Away from the new deals, a better tone in the market allowed oil and natural gas credits such as California Resources Corp. and Energy XXI to buck continually sliding crude oil prices and finish higher on the day.

Statistical measures of junk market performance turned mixed on Thursday after having been lower across the board on Tuesday and Wednesday.

High-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds meanwhile stayed on the downside this week, their third consecutive weekly downturn, with $1.21 billion more having left those funds than had come into them during the week ended Wednesday.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.