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The U.S. corporate bond market has been going so strong for so long that we have come to think of it as being somewhat bulletproof and, given how often January delivers some of the year's best performance, the fact that the market looked sluggish earlier in the week is somewhat disquieting.

William Ross, head of global asset securitization research at ABN AMRO, on European collateralized debt obligations that may not be able to find enough attractively priced bonds to structure an arbitrage vehicle.

--Kelly Baker, v.p. and treasurer for Anteon International Corp., explaining the market environment surrounding the company's decision to complete its debut "B" loan.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market.

Two high-yield gaming companies were in the market with deals last week as the primary market heated up. Demand for junk bonds remained high with investors moving down the credit curve to capture yield.

William Blair Investment Management may reduce its investment-grade corporate exposure in the coming months to take advantage of tight spreads and shift assets into other sectors it expects to outperform this year.

JP Morgan Chase is to unite with Bank One in an all-share "merger of equals" that has delighted the capital markets and may set off a chain reaction of consolidation.

Countrywide Capital Markets has made another hire to its fledgling government bond sales and trading operation.

New York state is unlikely to fall into line with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ position that weather derivatives should be regulated as insurance contracts.

Implied volatility for the the Norwegian krone/euro currency pair jumped as the euro rose last week sparking a series of risk reversal trades.

Some of the most active derivatives houses operating in Europe, including Morgan Stanley, UBS and HSBC, are expected to come under increasing peer pressure to adopt the 2002 International Swaps and Derivatives Association equity derivatives definitions, according to City lawyers.