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Issuance has slowed in the US IG primary as bankers and investors alike settle down for the holiday break.

Last year, 12 December was the last day of issuance, falling on the second Thursday of the month, and this year looks to be the same with Campbell Soup pricing a $550m long five-year note that is expected to wrap up the 2025 slate of deals.

Borrowers priced $34.6bn in the month, placing it right around the average for December supply since 2005, according to 9fin data. Supply on the month is down from $41.2bn last year but total supply this year is up around $95bn over last year as issuers have taken any and all opportunities to access the market.

Deals have priced past the first two weeks of December, but the most notable example is from 2008 when the onset of the great financial crisis brought deals to the market all the way through New Year’s Eve. The market is in a much better place as we head into 2026.

Issuance this week was dominated by financial borrowers.

French bank BNP Paribas had the largest deal of the week with a $1.25bn perpetual NC8 that tightened to a coupon of 6.875%. The other deals on the week were all $600m or lower from the likes of life insurance companies Guardian Life, Equitable Financial, CNO Financial and American National.

Away from the primary

The talk of Hollywood and Wall Street this week was certainly the competing bids from Netflix and Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas and HSBC are the leads on a $59bn bridge loan backing Netflix’s $82.7bn enterprise-value bid for the studio and streaming assets from WBD. On the other side, Bank of America, Citi and Apollo are committing $54bn toward Paramount’s $108.4bn EV hostile bid for all of WBD’s assets, including the linear TV division.

We delved into the bridge financing this week including the oddity of seeing Apollo on the bridge and how that could involve a private credit component to term out the debt.

Moving to Northern California, Silicon Valley’s Oracle had a very bad week. The company’s stock sold off by as much as 14% after reporting earnings that missed on expectations while also increasing estimates for capex spending next year.

The underperformance translated to its secondary bond trading where the $2bn 6.1% 2065s that the company priced back in September are now trading under 90 cents on the dollar. At the 10-year part of the curve, its 5.2% 2035s are down to 96.32 having priced near par just a few months ago.

Finally, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by another 25bps this week but the committee seems to be divided about how to proceed next year. They signaled that more cuts are unlikely unless the labor market weakens more significantly.

For investment grade investors that means that spreads should be stable to the end of the year.

“Despite some dissent, the FOMC managed to keep markets happy with its decision and the communication around future expectations,” said Blair Shwedo, head of investment grade sales and trading at U.S. Bank. “Credit spreads should be on a firm footing from now until year end as the Fed decision is behind us and issuance will slow down materially, if not completely, in the coming days.”