Morning Commentary: National Rural Utilities, JPMorgan market bonds; Verizon, Chevron gain

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., April 18 – At least two high-grade issuers are in the deal pipeline for Tuesday’s session.

National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp. is marketing a two-tranche high-grade offering of collateral trust bonds.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to price floating-rate notes and fixed-to-floating-rate notes.

Deal activity has been light following the long holiday weekend with one issuer in the primary market on Monday.

In secondary trading, Verizon Communications Inc.’s 4.125% notes due March 16, 2027 have climbed more than 3 points since pricing in March and continued to improve early Tuesday.

Chevron Corp.’s 2.498% senior notes due March 3, 2022 showed modest improvement in the secondary market.

On Monday, $9.6 billion of investment-grade issues were traded, according to Trace.

Verizon improves

Verizon Communications’ 4.125% notes due March 16, 2027 edged up to 103.07 on Tuesday, a market source said.

The notes headed out on Monday at 102.85.

Verizon sold $3.25 billion of the notes (Baa1/BBB+/A-) on March 13 at 99.256 and a spread of Treasuries plus 160 basis points.

The telecommunications company is based in New York City.

Chevron better

Chevron’s 2.498% notes due March 3, 2022 traded early Tuesday at 101.24, up from where the notes went out on Monday at 101.11, a market source said.

Chevron priced $700 million of the five-year notes (Aa2/AA-) on Feb. 28 at par to yield Treasuries plus 60 bps.

The petroleum, chemical, mining, power and energy company is based in San Ramon, Calif.

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