Weekly Notables
Weekly Notables Performance in the loan market was steady this week. For the seven-day period ended November 21, the Morningstar® LSTA® US Leveraged Loan Index (Index) returned 0.20%, pushing the YTD return over 8%. The average Index bid price gained 8 bp, finishing the week at 97.15.
The primary market saw another wave of repricings, as there were 28 repricing transactions during the week, totaling $47.2 billion. This pushed the repricings monthly volume to a new high since June 2024. Away from repricings, this week’s total new issue supply was about $8.5 billion. Looking at the forward calendar, net of the anticipated $14 billion of repayments not associated with the forward pipeline, the amount of new supply projected to enter the market is about $710 million, versus repayments outstripping new supply by $2.4 billion last week.
Higher-rated names continued to outperform lower-rated names. For the week, Double-Bs and Single-Bs returned 0.24% and 0.21%, respectively. In contrast, CCCs have experienced a modest decline compared to prior weeks’ significant losses, posting a return of -0.02%.
CLO issuance was in high gear this week, as managers priced 13 new deals, pushing the YTD tally to roughly $181 billion. According to Morningstar, loan retail funds saw another sizeable weekly inflow of $1.24 billion for the week ended November 20. This marks the ninth straight weekly inflow for the asset class, for an aggregate total of $3.81 billion over that period, pushing the YTD net inflow to $6.9 billion.
There were no defaults in the Index during the week.
Source: Pitchbook Data, Inc./LCD, Morningstar ® LSTA ® Leveraged Loan Index. Additional footnotes and disclosures on back page. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investors cannot invest directly in the Index. *The Index’s average nominal spread calculation includes the benefit of base rate floors (where applicable).