it’s been touchandgo for us companies looking to borrow in one of the world’s deepest financial wells in the six days since russia launched its military assault on ukraine the attack on ukraine sparked international backlash a wave of new sanctions designed to punish moscow and some of its largest banks companies and most powerful families by cutting them off from western markets the war also has fueled market turmoil with oil prices topping 100 a barrel and investors piling into gold us treasurys and other traditional haven assets as europe faces its biggest test since world war ii until tuesday it also meant a pause on us corporate bond issuance “while there were no deals thursday friday or monday there are six deals today” said tom murphy head of investment grade credit at columbia threadneedle investments of the us investmentgrade segment of the corporate bond market murphy also said that “probably another six issuers stood down” meaning they opted not to bring new deals yet with market conditions remaining volatile as ukraine’s capital of kyiv braced for an allout assault us stocks tumbled tuesday with the dow jones industrial average djia down about 600 points or 18 according to factset benchmark 10year treasury tmubmusd10y rates plunged to around 17 marking the biggest twoday drop since march 2020 capital one financial corp cof was among the handful of companies back in the market tuesday with a new 25 billion bbbrated investmentgrade bond deal that priced at a roughly 26 rate according to a person with direct knowledge of the dealings the highyield or “junkbond” market has remained quiet too with only consumer goods company bellring brands inc brbr coming to market on tuesday with a roughly 840 million bond deal in the 7 rate range since twitter inc’s twtr 1 billion financing on feb 23 according to informa global markets credit spreads an indication of borrowing conditions for us companies were among the key gauges used by the federal reserve to calibrate highly accommodative monetary policies at the onset of the pandemic including for the first time in history a brief foray into buying corporate debt spread levels on corporate bonds have widened in recent months giving investors a shot to earn higher “premiums” above the riskfree treasury rate but also making it more challenging for borrowers investors pegged investmentgrade bond spreads moving closer to 130 basis points above treasurys on tuesday but still below the roughly 135basispoint average in the post2008 financialcrisis period “the newissue market is still open” said david del vecchio cohead of the us investmentgrade corporate bond team at pgim fixed income by phone “it’s not necessarily open every day but the fact that issuance is able to get done means the fed doesn’t need to worry yet” importantly investors told marketwatch it likely would take another 50 basis points to 75 basis points of widening or more to get the federal reserve’s attention “i don’t think we are anywhere near those levels when they would step back in the market again” del vecchio said also with 10year treasury yields falling allin costs for investmentgrade corporate borrowers remain below 3 for most companies said nicholas elfner breckinridge capital advisors cohead of research in a phone call “for most investmentgrade companies that’s still a low cost of debt capital” he said “certainly if you start to see spreads widening sharply i think that would be sometime that would generate attention at the fed” investors wednesday will be tuning in to congressional testimony from fed chair jerome powell on the economy putting a priority on any updates on how the ukraine crisis might be impacting the central bank’s thinking on fighting inflation by moving away from two years of ultraeasy monetary policy before russia’s attack powell and other fed officials said they may increase policy rates at their midmarch meeting for the first time since 2018 and thereafter start shrinking the central bank’s nearly 9 trillion balance sheet “it’s hard to handicap how the russia and ukraine situation might escalate” said travis king head of us investmentgrade credit at voya investment management or if sanctions and higher oil prices exacerbate existing inflation pressures “the fed doesn’t want to slow things down too much but it can’t really pivot away from at least talking tough and signaling it is being vigilant about inflation” he said