JPMorgan, American Honda price; credit spreads end week tighter; bank paper tightens

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., March 15 – Primary action continued in the high-grade bond market on Friday with two reported deals priced.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. sold $2.25 billion of four-year fixed-to-floating rate notes.

American Honda Finance Corp. brought $400 million of 18-month floating-rate medium-term notes to the market.

The transactions bring week-to-date corporate deal volume to more than $27 billion, beating market forecasts of about $25 billion of supply.

JPMorgan Chase’s deal follows other bank and financial issuers over the week, including BB&T Corp., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc.

Looking to the week ahead, about $20 billion to $25 billion of bond supply is expected by syndicate sources.

Market focus also will be on the Federal Reserve’s upcoming monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade 31 index ended the day mostly unchanged at a spread of 58 basis points, about 7 bps tighter on the week.

Investment-grade corporate spreads have tightened 5 bps to 121 bps from 126 bps over the past six week, according to a Wells Fargo Securities, LLC research report on Friday.

In the secondary market, new issues priced this week remained mostly tighter than issuance on Friday, a source said.

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