United States

After a booming 2017, with record deal volumes across securitized asset classes, S&P Global Ratings has predicted there will be $1tr of issuance across global ABS markets in 2018, driven by sustained economic expansion.

Economic conditions are ripe for the mergers and acquisitions that drive capital markets. Into this mix comes a potential US tax reform more radical than any for decades. This is bound to tilt boardroom decisions about strategy — if nothing else, US CEOs could suddenly have more cash back at HQ than they know what to do with. Jon Hay and Sam Kerr report.

Non-US financial institutions have favoured going to the dollar market for unsecured offerings in the first two days of the year, with Crédit Agricole looking to raise tier two capital in the currency on Wednesday.

BNP Paribas opened the new year’s unsecured market on Tuesday with a seven year senior non-preferred deal in dollars, undeterred by a less attractive cross currency basis swap.

Exchange-traded fund provider ALPS has joined CBOE Global Markets as a new issuer, bringing a new technology-focused ETF to the table last Friday.

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said this week that the largest US banks had made ‘significant progress’ in drawing up resolution plans.

Olivier Grimonpont, veteran of bond clearing platform Euroclear, will step up to the role of CEO of GlobalCollateral, a collateral management venture between Euroclear and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday proposed an interpretation of a crucial derivatives rule with regard to virtual currencies like bitcoin.

Humana came to the dollar market on Thursday to defy predictions by bankers that supply would dry up for 2017 following the latest rate hike from the US Federal Reserve.

Futures based on cryptocurrency bitcoin exploded onto US exchanges this week, with traders looking to expose themselves to the asset's incredible volatility and authorities sounding warnings.

The US high yield market has enjoyed another steady week of new issuance, but not all borrowers have come through unscathed — and weak earnings reports have caused turbulence in the secondary market for some names.

Bank and finance names are expected to hit the dollar bond market in size during the opening weeks of 2018, as they look to take advantage of attractive spreads and strong risk appetite among investors.