About $7.5 billion of investment grade corporate bond supply hit the market for the week ended December 13, with the $3.75 billion two-tranche Verizon Wireless deal accounting for half of the flow. It looks as though the corporate bond market will end the year with close to $600 billion of debt issued, about 50% more than 1999's then-record pace of $400 billion. The weighted average credit quality for the week dropped to BBB, its lowest level in months as high yield syndicate desks rushed to bring deals into a hot market. About $3.3 billion in junk bonds were brought to market, with a high concentration ($2.5 billion) of single B names. In fact, over _ of total issuance for the yield was single B rated, the first time this year that high yield has been such a large proportion of total issuance. Total high yield issuance for the year is likely to end up around $90 billion, over 2.5 times issuance last year although still well short of 1998's record pace of $140 billion.
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