Earnings, recent high yield issues in focus; Frontier, Community Health remain in play

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Seattle, Aug. 3 – A distressed debt trader said investors were focused on the current earnings season, speculating that once the market had digested the various results, volume could pick up.

As it was, “there was a fair amount of focus on all the new [high yield] issue stuff,” he said.

But earnings were in fact playing a role in Thursday trading, with Frontier Communications Inc. and Community Health Systems Inc. being eyed after their results announcements earlier in the week.

For its part, Frontier’s debt lost all of the gains incurred since its announcement on Tuesday. Community Health meantime remained weak.

The hospital operator also reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, iHeartCommunications Inc.’s bonds were “not overly active, but definitely a little softer,” according to a trader.

He pegged the 14% notes due 2021 in a 22˝ to 23 context.

The weakness in the name came as the San Antonio-based multimedia company extended a previously announced exchange offer – for the ninth time.

The exchange was first announced on March 15, with a deadline of April 14. The latest extension pushes the deadline out to 5 p.m. ET on Aug. 18.

As of Wednesday, only about 0.6% of the notes included in the offer had been validly tendered.

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