- The restoration of Ford Motor Co's investment-grade credit rating this week after almost four years as a "junk"-rated company is set to boost demand for high-quality U.S. corporate bonds, analysts said.
" $41 billion currently in the high-yield index, upgrade is bound to create a massive positive technical tailwind in its wake," Bank of America analysts said on Friday.Investment-grade funds have seen net inflows of $1.7 billion over the past week, after outflows of $5.7 billion over the previous two weeks, according to JPMorgan research using data from EPFR.
Just days after regaining its investment-grade rating, Ford Motor Credit raised $2.75 billion through the issue of 5- and 10-year bonds on Thursday. That was the largest narrowing in a single day for the investment-grade index since the aftermath of regional banking stress in March, BMO Capital Markets noted in a report. -- Japan’s state pension fund, the world’s largest, posted a loss of ¥683.2 billion on total assets during the three months through September as its holdings of domestic debt slumped by a record.