As U.S. tax cuts prompt Apple Inc. and other tech companies to bring home their overseas cash hoards, that shift is leaving a void in the market for short-term corporate bonds where those firms had invested much of the money. That's now making it more expensive for other companies to borrow.
Once the biggest buyers of short-dated corporate debt, Apple along with 20 other cash-rich companies including Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. have turned into sellers. While they once bought $25 billion of debt per quarter, they're now selling in $50 billion clips, leaving a $300 billion-a-year hole in the market, according to data tracked by Bank of America Corp. strategists.
The reversal is adding pressure to a market already buffeted by Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Yields on corporate bonds with maturities between one and three years have jumped 0.85 percentage point this year, to 3.21 percent, close to the highest in almost eight years, Bloomberg Barclays index data show. That increase has happened at a faster pace than longer-dated bonds, which tech companies bought less frequently.
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