As expected, the Pandora’s box called the “Pension Protection Act of 2006” is full of nasty surprises. The Wall Street Journal (October 25, 2006) reported that the new “Pension Law Shrinks Lump-Sum Payments” to workers. See: New Pension Laws Will Alter Capital Flows Here is how Congress managed to cheat American workers: Under the old law, when […]

Consistent with a leveling of the rate of increase in the US trade deficit in 2006, the price of investment grade corporate bonds has been holding steady, as the graph indicates. Driven by a trade deficit that has been increasing since the early 1980s, the persistent flow of funds into the US bond market has caused […]

According to statistics published by the Bond Market Association, based on Thomson Financial Securities Data, corporate bond issues for the first five months of 2006, totaled $339 billion. This was an 18.3% increase over the same period in 2005. New issues were concentrated on investment grade bonds that made up 91.7% of the total — […]