/STOCKS: BA/ML analysts Hans..........>

US CORPORATES: /STOCKS: BA/ML analysts Hans Mikkelsoen and Yunyi Zhang called

the US tax-tied mood swings in the markets, "tax reform on, tax reform off."

They said Thursday "represented the culmination of increasing doubts about the

prospects and effectiveness of tax reform in recent days. In particular,

speculation that the cut in corporate tax rate will be delayed one year to 2019

was confirmed by Senators." 

- They said that "hence equities declined at one point more than 1%" Thursday

"before recovering and closing down only 0.4%. That the probability of tax

reform has declined over the past three days can be seen in the underperformance

of the Russell 200 (Down 1.6%), banks (down 3.9%) and HY (down 1.3%) vs. the SP

500 down only 0.3%." 

- They added Thursday, "UPS issued $5.2bn" in high-grade corporate bonds "to

"make early contributions to certain of the company's primary domestic pension

plans".