North America

Microsoft led a stampede by high grade borrowers to the dollar bond market this week as the latest Fed meeting pointed to the chance that it may raise rates in December.

As overall credit market liquidity has eroded, total return swaps (TRS) are providing an alternative for market participants to access or hedge their corporate bond exposure, according to financial information services provider Markit.

The US Federal Reserve this week appeared to move closer to raising its key policy rate in December but the shift in tone drew little reaction from options and futures markets.

Goldman Sachs and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust raised $500m of five year funding this week using a novel triple recourse special purpose vehicle called SumitG.

World Bank has priced the first deal from a new retail focused socially responsible investment programme — and it could sell more notes as often as once a month.

Goldman Sachs and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust showed on Tuesday that it is possible to place bonds in the market backed by other rated debt with recourse back to the issuer – and that it was possible to do so at an advantageous spread to a differentiated group of investors. Though abhorred by some covered bond stalwarts, the deal suggests a potentially new funding avenue and a new source of highly rated debt for investors.

SSA borrowers this week provided investors with a strong line up of innovative products. A new standard was set in SRI bonds, Cyprus raised €1bn via an innovative switch offer, Italy sold two year debt at a negative yield and British Columbia is lining up its debt Panda bond.

Procter and Gamble, the US consumer goods company, brought a €1.25bn bond issue to the European market on Tuesday, bringing life to an otherwise moribund reverse Yankee market.

The Province of British Columbia (BC) is mulling a debut Panda bond, which would set another record for the province as the first foreign government issuer in China's onshore bond market. However, to go ahead BC will need the Chinese regulator to allow sovereigns into the recently reopened Panda bond market.

Euronext has launched AtomX, a service that offers central clearing for bilaterally negotiated derivatives trades that would otherwise have been over the counter.

Trad-X, the trading platform for global interest rate derivatives, reported on Monday that is has traded more than $2.5tr of swaps since launch, with 2015 having accounted for over half this volume.

In this round-up, the Swiss franc set to become directly convertible with RMB, CCB gets a Zurich branch, QDII2 could launching in Shanghai FTZ, booming RMB trade in Korea, Los Angeles tries to get the edge, DBS launches in Qingdao to leverage Belt and Road plans, and CSOP launches two new China ETFs in New York.