By Shankar Ramakrishnan and Matt Tracy
(Reuters) -Investors have begun to de-risk their equity portfolios and buy more investment-grade corporate bonds as U.S. stock indices near new record highs, in turn pushing corporate borrowing costs to their tightest levels since 1998 for the second time in eight months.
Credit spreads have recovered since they were forced sharply wider on April 2, or ‘Liberation Day’, when President Donald Trump announced trade tariffs and the market became uneasy about corporate fundamentals in a potential environment made susceptible to inflationary pressures and slower economic growth.
The average investment-grade bond spread last stood at 80 basis points (bps), which is just 3 bps away from its lowest point of 77 hit in 1998 and had previously touched last November, according to ICE BAML data. It had touched 121 bps, or its highest since November 2023, in the days after Liberation Day.
The recovery has…
