Bonds trading at Lehman-collapse highs

The cost of borrowing in the bond markets is at its highest since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Companies are having a hard time selling their debt with the cost of borrowing so high.

Guy Lebas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott, says conditions boil down to volatility. “Investors’ level of concern and fear is waxing and waning so rapidly that a corporation who’s looking to the bond markets to borrow money can’t be sure how much they’re going to pay for that borrowing. So many corporations have been pulling bond deals that they had planned to issue.”