NEW YORK: Today is the last trading day in April, a month that has so far recorded USD56.572bn in new volume. Only one deal is making the rounds this morning to add to the total, Colgate-Palmolive's USD500m offering, split evenly between threes and sixes.

Price talk is Treasuries plus 30bp area and 80bp area, respectively. The new trade follows yesterday's first-quarter earning report. The Aa3/AA/AA rated borrower had net sales of USD3.99bn last quarter, a 4.5% increase versus a year ago. New income was USD576m in the first quarter 2011; the figure was 61.3% more than the year-ago figure if a one-time USD271m charge is included without it, last quarter's earnings fell short by 8%.

On the three-year tranche Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC are active books, and BNP Paribas and Bank of America are passive books. On the six-year tranche Citigroup, BofA Merrill and JP Morgan are active books, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are passive books. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

Colgate-Palmolive was in the market last October 29. It printed a USD188m offering of 1.375% five-year notes at Treasuries plus 38bp and a USD250m tranche of 2.95% 10-year notes at plus 53bp.

Elsewhere, the Chicago PMI hit the tape this morning. The seasonally adjusted index fell three points to 67.6 in April. Despite the slackening, however, the index indicated that economic activity has been expanding for the 19th straight month.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released personal income and outlays data for March 2011. Personal income increased by USD67bn (0.5%) last month compared to a USD53.1bn (0.4%) increase in February. Disposable personal income rose USD64.4bn (0.6%) versus a rise of USD49.6bn (0.4%) the month before. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased USD60.7bn (0.6%), less than the USD94.4bn (0.9%) growth recorded in February.

The PCE price index, an inflationary measure, rose 0.4%, the same increase as in February. The core index, which excludes food and energy, gained 0.1% in March, less than the 0.2% the month before.

Copyright Reuters, 2011

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