-who messed up my perfectly clear instructions and landed me with a lot of low-grade bonds.

"However, as we survey the field, most low-grade bonds still look unattractive," he wrote.

Prices for the high-risk, low-grade bonds have improved sharply, and major buyers, sellers and underwriters are starting to describe the recovery as viable and real.

"If there is nothing worse than a growth recession, then I expect the market for low-grade bonds will bounce back."

While it was possible to underwrite low-grade bonds, the interest premiums demanded by purchasers were enormous.

Yields on low-grade corporate bonds are six percentage points above 10-year Treasury yields, a spread also seen in 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debt.

The signals from low-grade bonds of small companies are even worse than in 1998.

Like Proust's madeleine on low-grade bond, it flung me back, to hundreds of undergraduate bulletin boards, dozens of speeches, but especially to one march in 1972.

In fact, the yield differential between high-grade and low-grade municipal bonds remains near the historic lows of the past two years.

Specifically, the savings and loan units must sell holdings of low-grade bonds by 1994.