The Santa rally comes early and what killed Ithaca’s share price

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• Will the Santa rally in bonds last until Christmas?
• How much bond issuance will TLTRO repayments drive?
• Ithaca Energy: autopsy of an IPO 

The first UK IPO of significance in a year might have been hoped to be a bellwether for future deals and perhaps spark a revival for listings. But the IPO of Ithaca Energy has not worked out quite as the company and its investors might have hoped with the share price tumbling. We take an in-depth look at the company and the listing to find out what happened.

In the primary bond market the tale has been, on the whole, much rosier. Investors have bet that central banks are nearing the top of their interest rate rising cycle – or at least they believe the pace of increases will slow. That means they are buying bonds again, giving a boost to the primary market. A better than expected US inflation number last week turbocharged that dynamic in this week’s primary market.

But how long can this Santa rally last? And is the market good enough for all borrowers to take advantage? We look into some of the successes and failures in the bond market this week and give the tyres on which it is rolling a thorough kicking – no reindeers were harmed in the making of this episode.

Meanwhile, the ECB is revealing data on repayments of its Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations. Banks and some supranational and agency borrowers took trillions in cheap cash from the central bank but now the terms have worsened they are handing it back. A big chunk of this they will have to refinance in the bond market. We take a look at what that means for SSA and covered bond issuance.