Daily commentary

It's no surpsise that we're weaker today.  However, we're outperforming equities as most of the news that's hurting stocks is not all bad for debtholders.  Dividend cuts and potential bank nationalization help debt metrics at the expense of equityholders.  In addition, those 'income' seeking investors now have fewer places to invest given the recent dividend cuts.

I'm not surprised that the Vix popped ~10% today.  The follow through (will it reach last fall's peaks) will be closely watched by credit investors.

There have been some recent company buybacks of their own hybrid bonds.  It's encouraging to have a company reduce it's debt outstanding acknowledge cheapness of the lower parts of the capital structure.

The AIG serial bail-out does have echoes of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as noted in this WSJ editorial from January.