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| Credit risk tumbles to lowest since Lehman crisis |
| Bloomberg / London May 08, 2009, 00:11 IST |
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The cost of protecting corporate bonds from default fell to the lowest since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc on speculation banks will resume lending after withstanding Federal Reserve stress tests.
“The key to any sustainable recovery is to restore confidence in the banking sector,” said Gary Jenkins, head of credit research at Evolution Securities in London. “If the ultimate result of the stress tests is they manage to do this, then they’ll have been a success.”
Credit markets froze when Lehman declared bankruptcy in September as banks hoarded cash to guard against losses on toxic debt assets. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tests designed to gauge bank capital will provide a “reassuring” picture of the U.S. banking system.
Credit-default swaps on the benchmark CDX North America Investment-Grade Index dropped 8.5 basis points to 135.5, the lowest since Aug. 18, according to Phoenix Partners Group prices at 8:15 am in New York. The Markit iTraxx Europe index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings fell 12 basis points to 118.5, the lowest since Oct. 1 and below the closing level the day Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection, JPMorgan Chase & Co prices show.
Contracts on Morgan Stanley fell 20 to 265, Citigroup Inc was 85 lower at 375 and General Electric Co’s finance arm dropped 100 basis points to 450, Phoenix prices show. Bank of America Corp declined 21 basis points to 207, JPMorgan fell 7 to 125 and Goldman Sachs Group Inc slid 15 to 187, according to CMA DataVision.
The thaw in credit markets drove the rate at which banks lend to each other to record lows, with the London interbank offered rate for three-month loans in dollars dropping to 0.96 per cent. Libor reached an all-time high of 5.73 per cent September 7.
The Libor-OIS spread, which increases as banks become more reluctant to lend, was at 75 basis points, the lowest level since Aug. 4. The difference between what banks and the Treasury pay to borrow for three months, the so-called TED spread, narrowed to 77 basis points, the least since May 28 last year. It widened to 464 basis points on October 10. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
“The credit markets are very strong on Thursday,” said Andrea Cicione, a London-based strategist at BNP Paribas SA. “But we’re not out of the woods, the economy is still slowing and bank writedowns will keep mounting.”
UK corporate bondsr rose, reversing an earlier decline, after the Bank of England said on Thursday it will buy another £50 billion ($75) of assets, after it left interest rates unchanged at 0.5 per cent.
The Markit iBoxx Sterling Corporates index climbed 0.1 per cent to 76.27, after earlier falling 0.4 per cent.
Investor confidence also improved after US companies eliminated fewer jobs than analysts forecast. Employers cut 491,000 jobs in April, ADP Employer Services said on Wednesday, compared with the average economist estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 154,000.
The jobs data tally with other labour market indicators and suggest the pace of layoffs is slowing, according to Brayan Lai, a Hong Kong-based analyst for Calyon. Australian employers added workers in April and the jobless rate dropped, the statistics bureau said in Sydney on Thursday.
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