Junk market ends week with second straight loss, energy names lead retreat; primary still quiet

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Dec. 18 – The high-yield market closed out the final full trading week of 2015 on Friday on a down note, its second consecutive mostly lower session. The next two weeks, the last of 2015, will see market closings in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Junk followed stocks down on Friday, with equities pulled sharply lower in line with falling energy prices.

Energy-sector bonds led the high-yield downturn, with the retreating credits including names such as California Resources Corp., EP Energy Corp., Consol Energy Inc., Linn Energy, LLC and Chesapeake Energy Corp.

The downturn also extended to non-energy names such as Frontier Communications Corp., Charter Communications, Inc. and Community Health Systems, Inc.

The junk primary market remained quiet for a fifth consecutive session, with no new deals either announced or priced; although several prospective offerings remain listed on the forward calendar, market sources say new-deal activity has wrapped up for the year.

Statistical measures of junk market performance were lower across the board on Friday for a second straight session; they had turned downward on Thursday after two straight sessions of having been higher and one mixed session before that, which followed five straight losing sessions.

The indicators were mixed versus where they had finished the previous Friday, after having been lower all around last week; it was the fourth mixed week out of the last five trading weeks.

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