It carries a floating interest rate which is currently at about 1.75%, well below the 5.2% average rate on commercial-construction loans by U.S. banks in the fourth quarter, according to Trepp LLC.

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Take, for example, one indicator of the market's appetite for risk, the spread between swaps of fixed- and floating-rate interest payments (see chart).

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If more people want to pay a fixed rate in exchange for a floating rate than want to receive a fixed rate, the swap spread the fixed interest rises compared with Treasury yields.

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Another reason demand for the long bond has been so voracious is that a lot of investment banks still use them to hedge their corporate-bond positions and interest-rate swaps (between fixed- and floating-rate obligations).

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The company estimates that the savings from interest payments -- a big chunk of the borrowings carry floating-rate terms -- would make up for the foregone profits from the sold assets.

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Floating-rate funds are pools of bank loans made to companies, and the interest rates on those loans adjust as interest rates change.

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Typically, one series of cash flows would be considered the fixed leg of the agreement while the other would be less predictable, such as cash flows based on an interest rate benchmark or a foreign exchange rate, usually referred to as the floating leg.

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For one thing, it is hard to know how much companies have in fact lengthened the maturity of their debts because the interest-rate swap market allows them to swap those fixed bond payments into cheaper floating debt, a popular strategy in the investment-grade market.

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