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Dan Toscano, managing director, group head at Deutsche Bank, on the record number of sponsor-backed leveraged loans in the first half of 2005.

David Heike, senior v.p. and head of asset-backed research at Lehman Brothers, is moving to become the firm's chief U.S. credit strategist, a slot regarded a top bond market research role on Wall Street.

Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments is looking to invest up to £125 million, or 5% of its £2.5 billion European government bond portfolio, in long-dated inflation-linked bonds.

S&T Wealth Management Group sees value in callable intermediate-term agency debentures amid a rising interest-rate environment, said Chuck Frank, v.p. and senior portfolio manager.

The bank debt for McLeodUSA took a 10-point dive last week and is now quoted at 28-30. One trader noted that the distressed company has been looking for a buyer, but no viable bids have come in.

This chart, provided by Citigroup Global Markets, tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market.

Credit market participants are turning increasingly bullish on fundamentals for the second half of the year, noting the market has so far withstood the upheaval generated by the General Motors and Ford Motor Co. downgrades to junk, rising interest rates and even the London bombings.

The stable VIX, which measures the implied volatility of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, is no longer a good measure of volatility in the high-yield market and is lending high-yield investors a false sense of security, argues Brian Arsenault, high yield strategist at Morgan Stanley.

The US dollar bond market was deluged with about $25bn of new deals this week — by far the most in any week this year — as governments, companies, banks, supranationals and agencies all rushed in to get deals done before the August summer lull.

BNP Paribas recently closed a five-year constant maturity credit-default swap trade in Asia, a product which is still in its early days in the region.

Vlaamse Gemeenschap Pensioensfond, a Belgian public authority pension fund worth EUR180 million, is mulling a EUR5-10 million investment in collateralised debt obligations.