Commercial Paper Market Rises to Most Since September (Update1)
By Bryan Keogh
Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Corporate borrowing in the commercial paper market expanded to the highest level since before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy in September as companies took advantage of the lowest rates on record.
U.S. commercial paper
outstanding rose $83.1 billion, or 4.9 percent, during the week ended Jan. 7 to a seasonally adjusted $1.76 trillion, the
Federal Reserve said today in Washington. That’s the highest since the week ended Sept. 10, five days before Lehman’s filing.
Companies borrowed more in the commercial paper market as rates for all but the lowest-rated issuers were near record lows, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Rates are falling and the market is expanding as borrowers look past the yearend cash shortages and a “sense of collapse,” said
Adolfo Laurenti, a senior economist at Mesirow Financial Inc. in Chicago.
“We are moving beyond panic,” Laurenti said in a telephone interview. “But we are still at the time of economic pain, and that really is the boundary that is holding back some of this progress.”
Continued improvement now depends on how investors react to the deepening economic recession, he said.
Lehman Effect
Lehman’s bankruptcy, which signaled to investors that even investment-grade financial companies may fail, helped trigger a collapse in credit markets that sent yields relative to benchmark rates to record highs and caused the commercial paper market to slump 20 percent over six weeks.
The increase in unsecured commercial paper was the biggest since the week ended Oct. 29, when the market expanded $100.6 billion, or 6.9 percent. The Fed began buying the debt directly from companies through its Commercial Paper Funding Facility on Oct. 27.
Debt backed by assets including mortgages and car loans rose $46.3 billion, or 6.3 percent, to $779.6 billion, the Fed said. Non-financial paper jumped $36.2 billion, or 19.3 percent, to $223.8 billion, according to Fed data.
Rates on the highest-rated 30-day commercial paper fell one basis point to 0.17 percent today, about the lowest on record, Bloomberg data show. That’s eight basis points less than the Fed’s target lending rate. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
The Fed today set the rate it’s willing to accept for 90-day commercial paper at 2.18 percent, including a one-percentage- point unsecured credit surcharge. The rate would be 1.68 percent for commercial paper guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which assesses its own 0.5 percentage-point fee.
The 90-day secured asset-backed rate was set at 3.18 percent, Fed data compiled by Bloomberg show. Commercial paper, which matures in 270 days or less, is used by companies to finance daily expenses such as payroll and
)
scherzo 
sembra una belinata, ma è roba grossa: di sicuro io non terrò mai un kuleej (già non ci fidiamo della moneta dei banksters nostrani, figuriamoci quella degli arabi 
Ah, poi vedremo questo "legal standard" in che modo ci ciulerà libertà e denaro 
