THE US corporate bond market was not spared this week from global financial disarray, with high grade and high yield issues widening out in the secondary market. Spooked by the freefall in Asian Yankee bond prices, investment grade buyers withdrew from the market, strangling new issuance to a trickle and causing spreads to widen out as much as 5bp to 10bp on top US industrial names such as IBM.
October 31, 1997