CVS, Prudential lead corporate-bond issues

Prudential Financial Inc., the second-biggest U.S. life insurer, and drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. led a jump in U.S. corporate-bond issuance as borrowing costs fell to the lowest in almost four years, Bloomberg News reported last week.
Issuance more than quadrupled to at least $28.9 billion from the prior week, the most sales in three months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Prudential Financial offered $1.5 billion of notes in a two-part transaction, and Woonsocket-based CVS sold $1.5 billion worth of 30-year bonds, Bloomberg data show.
Borrowers are raising cash while investors seek out riskier, higher-yielding assets amid optimism an economic recovery may begin to take hold next year, said Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management. Investment-grade bond yields fell to 5.1 percent as of Sept. 10, the lowest since September 2005, according to Merrill Lynch’s U.S. Corporate Master index.
“The market may have gotten a little ahead of itself, but who wants the zero to 1 percent return of a money market?” Mikelic said in a telephone interview from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Fifth Third has $14 billion in fixed-income assets under management. &#8226