Companies Rush to Get In on Bond Sales

A slew of companies sold bonds Tuesday, as corporate treasurers rushed to take advantage of the recent slide in market yields.

Investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sprint Capital Corp. spearheaded more than $6.6 billion of corporate bond offerings Tuesday.

Analysts expect that by week’s end, the market will have absorbed up to a staggering $17 billion of new investment-grade corporate bonds, more than half of which are expected to come from banking and finance-related companies.

The successful sales also show that investors’ appetite for high-grade debt remains strong. Put another way, buyers of fixed-rate bonds must be betting that the Federal Reserve is in fact close to the end of its campaign to raise rates.