Distressed debt trading light post-holiday; Intelsat bonds seen better to unchanged

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Seattle, March 28 – With market players just returning from the long holiday weekend, distressed debt traders lamented a lack of liquidity in Monday trading.

The European markets also remained closed on Monday in observance of Easter.

“It’s pretty quiet,” one trader said. “Everyone is just coming back from a three-day weekend or spring breaks.

“The amount of bonds [trading] over $10 million in volume was pretty low,” he added.

For instance, Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s 8% second-lien notes due 2022 traded only a single time, the trader noted.

“That’s one that trades all the time,” he said.

He said the trade occurred at 51.

But even trading in domestic crude oil futures was said to be on the thinner side, despite prices dipping a shade to $39.43 a barrel.

Elsewhere in the commodity space, AK Steel Holdings Corp. bonds were trending higher, albeit in more-than-modest trading.

There was also no fresh news out to push the paper higher.

One trader said the 7 5/8% notes due 2021 were “pretty much unchanged” at 55¾. However, he said the 7 5/8% notes due 2020 were “maybe a smidge better,” trading “61-ish.”

At another desk, a market source placed the 2020 paper at 62 bid, up a point for the day.

That source also deemed United States Steel Corp.’s 7% notes due 2018 better by over a point at 90 bid.

A trader said Intelsat SA bonds “continue to trade,” though he called Monday’s performance “kind of mixed.”

© 2015 Prospect News.
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