“Credit standards have dropped and non-investment grade debt issuances reached record levels,” John Frank, Oaktree’s managing principal, said July 31 on a conference call with investors and analysts. “Aggressive extensions of credit of the sort we’re seeing today have always been a precursor to a substantial distressed-debt opportunity.”Century bond surge defies rate fears [H/T Will] (LINK)
Investors are seizing the chance to lend money to US companies and municipalities for up to 100 years in exchange for a chance to capture higher yields for longer.
Sales of the so-called ultra long bonds, those maturing in 50 years or longer, have exploded this year despite expectations of higher US bond yields, which may hit long-dated corporate and municipal debt.
Cleveland Clinic, the Ohio-based medical and research centre giant, became on Thursday the first not-for-profit healthcare company to sell 100-year bonds....Cleveland Clinic completed the sale of $400m in securities maturing in 2114, with yields of about 4.85 per cent, compared with 3.27 per cent for the US 30-year note, according to people familiar with the sale.Venture Capitalist Sounds Alarm on Silicon Valley Risk (LINK)
I also posted these quotes from Thiel's book on Twitter earlier this morning that may be of interest:And if you follow this blog in an RSS reader, you may have missed the Ben Franklin stuff I added later in the day to yesterday's links, which you may want to check out.
- "You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future."
- "...you can't trust a world that denies the power law to accurately frame your decisions for you, so what's important is rarely obvious."