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Post-holiday ABS market sees strong demand

In a slow-to-develop post-holiday week of trading, $7.5 billion was marketed to heavy demand, but as of press time Thursday just $2.7 billion had priced, as numerous trades were scheduled to wrap up either Friday or early this week. The recent spate of home equity supply made it somewhat challenging for mortgage-related product but auto loan and credit card deals came and went in the blink of an eye, some being increased in size and pricing in line with initial guidance.

The non-prime auto-loan offerings from Capital One Financial, via Wachovia Securities, priced after just one session of marketing, which saw the deal increased to $1.1 billion from $800 million. The 2002-B transaction - boosted by a full MBIA wrap - offered investors both fixed- and floating-rate classes.

AmeriCredit Corp., with an all fixed-rate, FSA-wrapped, 2002-D offering, was expected to launch and price Friday through JPMorgan Securities and Wachovia Securities jointly.

Sears Roebuck Acceptance Corp. placed $1.08 billion of three-year credit card paper through the joint leads of Credit Suisse First Boston and Merrill Lynch & Co. The $1 billion triple-A class priced at 13 basis points over one-month Libor versus initial talk in the 14 basis point area over Libor following an increase from the initial $750 million. The split-rated $81 million B tranche priced at auction and pricing details were not disseminated.

Bank One's new credit card issuance trust tapped the market with a fixed-rate offering, its third senior from the trust, announcing and pricing in a matter of hours Thursday. The single-tranche triple-A rated deal, with a five-year average life, priced at 15 basis points versus swaps, to yield 3.626%.

Despite the generally wider spreads across all sectors, particularly evident in the credit card sector, the persistently low absolute yields have issuers happy to give up a basis point to lock in such cheap funding, analysts said.

Also awaiting the final touches last week were sizeable self-led trades from MSDW Capital, UBS Warburg's Master trust home equity issuance vehicle, Bank of America's ABFC and Delta Funding's Renaissance Mortgage Acceptance Trust. Northern Rock was in the process of marketing a $4 billion (USD equivalent) U.K. RMBS offering from its Granite Trust.

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