Fear eases its grip on rallying corporate bond markets

Corporate bonds have seen something of a rally lately, borne not only out of widely-held expectation...

Corporate bonds have seen something of a rally lately, borne not only out of widely-held expectations for an economic recovery in 2010 but also the return of banks to profit. However, the market for corporate bonds remains a two-tier one. 'Plain vanilla' bonds issued by leading non-financial companies such as Vodafone, Shell and Tesco, reached their lowest point around the end of last year and have been in recovery mode ever since. In contrast, financial issues remained under pressure into early March, before rallying strongly as several major financial groups reported a return to profi...