Here's your week in review for the investment grade corporate bond market:
During the trading week of January 23rd, $71.042 billion of publicly-traded investment grade corporate bonds (LQD) changed hands. On Monday and Tuesday, the ratio of advancers to decliners was relatively even. Notable improvement in the ratio of advancers to decliners began on Wednesday, the day of the Fed's announcement regarding interest rates likely remaining very low, at least through late 2014. The improvement continued through the remainder of the week. The heaviest dollar volume of the week was on Thursday, the same day that advancers outpaced decliners by the largest amount of the week: 2.18 to 1.
Below is a table outlining last week's pertinent bond-specific information from the investment grade corporate bond (BND) market:
| Investment Grade | 1/23/2012 | 1/24/2012 | 1/25/2012 | 1/26/2012 | 1/27/2012 |
| Total Issues Traded | 4,140 | 4,189 | 4,141 | 4,053 | 3,914 |
| Advancers | 1,827 | 2,006 | 2,386 | 2,633 | 2,186 |
| Decliners | 2,014 | 1,919 | 1,487 | 1,209 | 1,483 |
| Unchanged | 64 | 56 | 68 | 56 | 68 |
| Dollar Volume (Billions) | $12.113 | $14.843 | $14.680 | $17.021 | $12.385 |
In terms of the most actively traded issues, all five days of the week saw a financial company lead the way. Morgan Stanley's (MS) note maturing 7/28/2021 with a 5.50% coupon was the only security to appear twice among the two most actively traded issues of the day, leading the way on Wednesday and Thursday.
Below is a table outlining the most actively traded and second most actively traded corporates (AGG) of the week, broken down by day:
| Investment Grade | Most Actively Traded | Second Most Actively Traded |
| Monday, 1/23/2012 | Citigroup (C), CUSIP: 172967EQ0 | JPMorgan Chase (JPM), CUSIP: 46623EJE0 |
| Tuesday, 1/24/2012 | Goldman Sachs (GS), CUSIP: 38141GGQ1 | Dow Chemical (DOW), CUSIP: 260543CF8 |
| Wednesday, 1/25/2012 | Morgan Stanley , CUSIP: 61747WAL3 | Kraft Foods (KFT), CUSIP: 50075NAZ7 |
| Thursday, 1/26/2012 | Morgan Stanley , CUSIP: 61747WAL3 | Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), CUSIP: 29273RAR0 |
| Friday, 1/27/2012 | Citigroup , CUSIP: 172967FT3 | Transocean (RIG), CUSIP: 893830BB4 |
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
Additional disclosure: I am long CUSIP: 172967FT3 (Citigroup). I am long various CUSIPs from Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan (JPM), although none were mentioned in this article.
Disclaimer: All data mentioned in this article came from FINRA's Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE). I cannot vouch for the accuracy of FINRA's data.
