Jan 4 (IFR) – The yield-to-worst in the high-yield market dipped to its lowest level ever this week, as risk markets rallied on the fiscal cliff agreement. Dropping below 6% for the first time in history, the yield to worst on the Barclays high-yield index fell to 5.96% on Wednesday and pushed even lower to 5.90% on Thursday. This compares to 6.13% on Monday and 8.14% at the start of 2012.

Amazon was set to issue a bond for the first time in more than a decade on Monday, taking advantage of rock-bottom borrowing costs as it continues an investment drive that is withering its profits.

From S&P ‘s Global Fixed Income research team on Tuesday, “Europe’s Sovereign Crisis Continues To Erode Credit Quality.”

In Europe… Societe Generale’s credit strategists have an interesting round-up:

Not only is it expensive and risky to manage bonds, equities or commodities, there’s the fact that the old models push the boundaries of what’s acceptable in terms of principal risk and proprietary trading.

Feels like it’s been building a trading platform since forever actually…

Either this indebted fibre company would default on a RMB400m ($63m) bond coming due on April 15 – thus becoming the first domestic corporate default in Chinese history, and so maybe a sign of a maturing bond market – or it wouldn’t. Shandong Helon could simply get a local government bailout or a bank loan refinancing instead, under the ‘old’ rules of the game in China.