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By Carol J. Clouse

Sometimes State Bureaucrats Do The Right Thing

July 1, 2009 - It’s hard to see it—especially with the myriad examples of incompetence and corruption and just plain stupidity, especially with the New York State Senate making a mockery of the political system with its Cirque du Squabble...

You Must Remember This ... But You Won't

June 18, 2009 - Here for your consideration is the gist of a conversation between me and my friend Shelly, concerning a lovely Mexican restaurant she’d just had dinner at...

The HY Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am

June 11, 2009 - Don’t get them wrong, high yield bond investors want the loving. After such a long drought, they’re happy the new deals are coming, after all, they have needs too. It’s just that … maybe if you banks could slow down a little. You know, dim the lights...

The New Loan Market: High Yield Bonds

May 28, 2009 - It’s not that we don’t all love a good bank loan. They’re so, you know, secure. (Or they should be.) But evidence is mounting that leveraged loans are also, like, sooooooo 2006...

Could Too Many Falling Angels Be Demons for HY?

May 21, 2009 - While they don’t quite live up to the dazzling cleverness of symbologist Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code and its Angels and Demons sequel—and really, who could?—a couple of UBS analysts...

DIPs and Amendments: The New Primary?

May 14, 2009 - I snagged that headline straight from the title of a session this morning at the Loan Syndications and Trading Association’s “Navigating the Distressed Leveraged Loan Market” conference. Interesting how things change...

Going Backward, We Should Delete "Going Forward"

May 27, 2009 - Sometimes, a plane will crash. And the survivors will find themselves marooned on a mysterious island, with monsters made of black dust and a group of “others” with a diabolical, bug-eyed leader...

100 Days, 100 Nights to Know a Market’s Heart

April 30, 2009 - I know, you’ve been bombarded with analysis of “the first 100 days,” and by now you've heard it, like, 100 times already. But I'll bet you $100 none of this analysis mentioned the high yield loan and bond markets...

Don't Tell My Husband ... Homeownership Is Dead

April 8, 2009 - My husband cannot stand renting. He grew up in the Basque Country in the north of Spain, a country where people have been known to live with their parents until age 30. This isn’t necessarily because they like their parents...

G-20 Governments to Bail Out Sagging Porn Industries

April 2, 2009 - Not really. April Fools and that jazz. Not that saving porn star jobs couldn’t serve as a uniting issue, in an off-the-record kind of way. But I digress...

300 Million American Heads Simultaneously Explode

March 26, 2009 - After months of infighting and finger pointing regarding the country’s financial crisis, the heads of the citizens of the United States of America today collectively exploded. All 300 million are dead...

The Recession's Green(back) Lining

March 12, 2009 - The overuse of a word tends to dilute its meaning, but what if this recession really causes us to change? Like, really. The signs point to a fundamental transformation in our way of life...

Issuers Queue Up, But Will They Get In The Club?

March 5, 2009 - As I write this Thursday afternoon, the high yield primary market has a queue of four companies who’ve announced their intention to issue bonds. Two others priced offerings earlier in the week—one $135 million less than it’d hoped, the other with a supersized OID...

My Biggest Gripe About America, In Black And White

February 26, 2009 - Here you have my biggest gripe about this fine country of ours: Far too many Americans cannot see the gray. Religion, politics, sexuality—it’s always black and white, us and them. And this ridiculously narrow-minded worldview inevitably brings most intelligent discourse to a screeching end...

Sirius Dodges Bullet; Will Debt Holders?

February 19, 2009 - This was a Sirius save. With bankruptcy charging around the bend, Liberty Media rode in on its horse, you know the color, and snatched Sirius XM Radio from the clutches of doom. Or so the story goes...

The Time Is Right, But Can You Pick 'Em?

February 12, 2009 - As the storm that hovered over the high yield debt markets for the second half of 2008 appears to recede, some junk managers are treading default ridden waters hoping to find that oyster with the pearl. And while any portfolio manager worth his or her salt will tell you that fundamental credit analysis is always important, one could argue that in a bull market, with easy flowing credit that can keep a company floating along…

He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules

February 5, 2009 - It’s hard to deny that the party holding the cash generally holds it with the upper hand. Not always fair, true. But in the case of limits on executive pay for the heads of companies receiving “extraordinary assistance” from the government—it is...

Junk Bonds May Beat Loans To A Rebound

January 15, 2009 - I wouldn’t want to call this too early, but it looks like the high yield bond primary is poised for a quicker recovery than its loan counterpart. Certainly this suggestion comes with one hefty caveat...

Not Halfway There, But Could It Be A Start?

January 8, 2009 - Gnarly readers, I beg your forgiveness in advance, but please do consider that I’ve been writing this blog for sometime now and have never once sunk to the depths of the Bon Jovi reference...

Resolved: Stop All This Depression Talk

January 5, 2009 - I’ve always loved the start of a new year. A new year fills me with that warm, fuzzy “fresh start” sensation—-for a few sweet weeks, I believe that all those things I didn’t accomplish the year before will be done...

That Which Does Not Kill Us...

December 12, 2008 - Finish the infamous Friedrich Nietzsche quote as you wish with regards to 2008 and the future of the high yield loan and bond markets. That which does not kill us ...makes us more transparent ...eliminates excessive risk ...promises higher yields...

GM Debt Holders Likely To Get Lemon

December 4, 2008 - I drove a Pontiac Fiero in the late 1980s. I was VERY young and didn’t do much research on the products I bought, not that chatter about engine fires would have deterred me. That car was sweet...

Things To Be Thankful For ... No Really

November 25, 2008 - A year ago, I wrote a post highlighting, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, some reasons for our markets to be thankful. I mean, it all seemed so dreary then. Consumer and investor confidence down, high yield bond deals pulled, leveraged loans trading at 95…

Why Financial Markets Shouldn't Fear Obama

November 6, 2008 - I cannot tell a lie—I did my fair share of dancing in the streets Tuesday night. Something, along with my general tendency toward optimism, that I should disclose before I say what I have to say here...

In The Spirit Of Fairness: Wall Street CEOs Stink

October 17, 2008 - A group of banking and private equity guys, including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan's James Dimon and Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman, have decided they don't much like the idea of taking responsibility...

Weary Investors Battle Confusion, Hang On to Hope

October 9, 2008 - 'How are you?' I say. 'Is that a rhetorical question?' the investor says. And so begins one of the conversations I had with portfolio managers this week. We all know it's bad out there. Really bad. The worst it has been in almost forever. What we don't know is: Could it get worse? When will it get better? …

An Open Letter To Mr. And Ms. American Taxpayer

October 2, 2008 - Over the past week, many of you have voiced your understandable anger at the government's proposed bailout of America’s financial system. Across the country, the chorus rings out: It’s not my fault, why should I pay? So, as one of you, I thought I would join in. Eh, it’s not my fault...

Writing PEs Future—Why Didn't I Think Of That?

September 25, 2008 - I don’t usually take up space here to tout the work of other columnists. I am human after all, and not free of jealousy when someone has a brilliant idea I wish had been mine. Especially when he works for The Wall Street Journal. And looks cocky in his photo...

Some Thoughts On Lev Finance’s New World Order

September 18, 2008 - As those who have suffered through previous down cycles will tell you, the sky is not falling—it never really falls. But man, can it droop. And right about now, it’s drooping like it longs to touch bottom...

Time To Play "You Think You Got It Bad..."

September 11, 2008 - Brace yourself for the spectacular risk I’m about to take—I’m going to guess, right here, right now, that you’ve read all you want about our friends Fannie, Freddie and the Lehman brothers...

As If! Thin Pipeline, Wide Spreads Make For Bogus Fall

September 4, 2008 - As a teenager, in that decade of yore known as the 1980s, I always had mixed feelings about this time of year. Back to school – lame. New clothes – bitchin’! Declining temperatures – bogus. A new season of “Dynasty” – gnarly...

Labor Day Offers No Magic Remedy, Not This Year

August 14, 2008 - In past years, market participants have tended to look to September as a month of promise, a time when the markets come back from their summer holiday, tanned and jazzed for a busy fall...

Disturbing In Hawthorne’s Time, Disturbing Today

August 7, 2008 - The scenario: A New York banker cheats on his wife with a married woman in London. Five years later, after the affair has ended and been confessed, and the man has rebuilt his marital relationship, the London woman’s now ex-husband...

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is ...

July 31, 2008 - Just about everyone has some sort of fear, rational or not, and I’ll start right off by sharing my biggie: confined spaces. I have no memory of a dark closet incident, and I’m pretty positive I’ve never fallen down a well...

Should Bank Analysts Hire Headline Writers?

July 24, 2008 - This week’s news that BankAtlantic Bancorp filed suit against Ladenburg Thalmann banking analyst Richard Bove, accusing him of defamation and negligence over a recently published research report, makes me uneasy...

Forget Jesus, What Would Pollyanna Do?

July 17, 2008 - People tend to toss around the Pollyanna label pretty freely, often using it in its most simplistic form—to define someone, as the American Heritage Dictionary does, as foolishly or blindly optimistic...

The $1 Million (Or Are We Back To $64,000?) Question

July 10, 2008 - Whether you care to define it as a recession, a downturn or a pickle, the big question we all face regarding today’s economy is: When will it recover?

The SEC's Plan For The 21st Century: Sunshine

June 26, 2008 - The Securities and Exchange Commission wants you to know stuff. No really, they do. And they have a plan, otherwise known as a “21st Century Disclosure Initiative” ...

Power Hitters Find Home, While Little Guys Strike Out

June 19, 2008 - As corporate recruiters like to say, there is always a demand for talent. In other words, investment banks tend to follow a code similar to that of the Soprano family—you don’t whack a good earner...

Picking The Perfect Partner For Your Portfolio Of Love

June 12, 2008 - Standing on summer’s doorstep always makes me feel frivolous. Not to mention that I’m a tad tired of those wacky jokesters over at the DealBreaker Web site having all the fun. I mean, they get to cuss and everything...

A Bright Future For Alternative Energy Debt?

June 5, 2008 - Let’s take a look into my crystal ball, into the future to a debt market with a new breed of issuer—energy companies. But not the oil and gas and energy services types that have lately been streaming onto the high yield bond primary market, companies that specialize in nuclear power, or solar, or electric cars.

ResCap May Need A Little Help From Its Friends

May 23, 2008 - ResCap says it has enough support from bondholders to go ahead with the exchange of $14 billion in notes. But for that to happen, it still needs to secure a $3.5 billion senior-secured credit facility from parent...

The Art of Looking Up, But Not Too Far

May 16, 2008 - I seem to find myself forever in search of the 'happy medium.' Extremes have come to define our culture, and the financial markets are certainly not exempt from this. You have your bull; you have your bear. Nothing mythical like a half-bull, half-bear-a beall, perhaps, or a buar...

Energy Issuers Ride Oil Price Geyser To HY Market

May 12, 2008 - As I write this, oil prices hover at a mind-boggling $123 a barrel, and pain at the gas pump has created a happy little boom on the high yield bond market...

A Few Reasons To Break Out Your Horns

May 2, 2008 - Admit it, you woke up feeling a bit bullish this morning. Maybe in your off time you hang with Goldilocks, or maybe the latest bits of good news have yet to convince you that we're 'out of the woods,' as they say...

You Can't Keep Lev Loans Down, Kind Of Like Hillary

April 25, 2008 - Furiously compelling (and long) as the campaign has been, I somehow have neglected to employ any sort of clever presidential simile or metaphor...

It's Like Rain On Your Wedding Day ... Or Not

April 11, 2008 - A certain temptation exists to label it 'ironic' when a group of private equity firms, including Apollo Management, Blackstone Group and TPG, buy up $12 billion in discounted buyout debt...

If Clear Channel Were His Turf, What Would Tony Say?

April 4, 2008 - The war of words being fought by the private equity sponsors and six banks over the financing of the Clear Channel Communications buyout got me to thinking about The Sopranos...

I-Banks Not Quite Springing Forward

March 31, 2008 - If life on Wall Street were produced in Hollywood, right about now would come the trite 'passage of time' sequence-the flipping of calendar pages on an abandoned desk, possibly, or a view of Battery Park from a downtown window, the seasons rolling by, time-lapse style. The credit crisis: summer, fall, winter, um, spring...

Nobody Promised Fair, But This Is Ridiculous

March 24, 2008 -

At least once during our teenage years there comes a moment when life deals us what we perceive to be a horrible injustice, and in response to our cries of, 'It's not fair!' many of us likely got the unsatisfying parental response: 'Who ever said life was fair?' Well, if this truism was unsatisfying then, when it was about something trivial like the dance on Friday night, then it qualifies as downright infuriating with regard to the Bear Stearns situation, with the stakes so incredibly high for so many.

Believe me, if it were just a few bigwigs losing, for example, $100 million of their $250 million severance, I could say with total sincerity: I couldn't care less. But the news that many Bear Stearns employees, who own one-third of the company, will not only likely lose their jobs but a good chunk of their life savings makes the whole debacle difficult to stomach.

Can Your Stomach Stand A Little Good News?

March 10, 2008 -

I'm wondering if good news for the debt markets might create a reaction akin to what apparently happens when a vegetarian decides she's had it with broccoli and wolfs down a T-bone steak.

From what I understand, what follows can be ugly. Unaccustomed to digesting dense chunks of cow, the system rebels, leaving said vegetarian in agony and possibly cured of any future meaty indiscretions.

A Little Forethought Never Hurts

March 13, 2008 - I've heard it said that when news from the financial world hits the mainstream press ... it's a clear sign the markets have landed in deep muck...