Morning Commentary: Convertibles continue to improve; energy sector extends gains; Seacor over 90

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 4 – Some the names that have been rebounding this past week continued to do so early Friday, including beaten down energy names such as Whiting Petroleum Corp., Cobalt International Energy Inc. and Chesapeake Energy Corp., a New York-based market source said.

Seacor Holdings Inc.’s 2.5% convertibles due 2027 traded up above 90 early Friday, with the underlying shares at $51.75. That compared to earlier in the week when the bonds jumped several points to 86.5 bid, 87.5 offered when shares were $48.50 on Tuesday after the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based offshore oil, gas and marine equipment company bought back bonds.

Otherwise there was “very little focus” in the convertibles market early Friday.

“You have the junk rebound and equities are rallying, so that has helped out a lot,” the market source said.

Equities were climbing after an initial drop into negative territory. In economic data, U.S. non-farm payrolls for February came in much better than expected in the Labor Department’s report Friday. There were 242,000 additional jobs added to payrolls in the month, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9%.

The number of jobs added was much better than the 190,000 jobs that economists estimated. But despite the blowout headline number, the closely watched average hourly wages declined for the month.

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