NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Corporate bondland has been on fire this month. Suddenly, corporate bond issuers (that's big U.S. companies) and corporate bond buyers (that's big U.S. companies, too) have emerged again -- like a lovely Bond babe surfacing bikini-clad from a turquoise sea.

So far in November U.S. corporations have issued $45 billion of bonds, leaving October's $29 billion in the dust.

The struggling economy Leading indicators flat Economists cut outlook by half The economy: Better, but...

Thank the Fed's big half-percentage point rate cut, at least in part. It was supposed to restore investor confidence and it looks like it did to some extent. When institutions stop buying U.S. government bonds (backed by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam) and start buying corporate bonds (which carry the risk of the company going bankrupt and defaulting, however small) it shows they are less "risk averse."

In other words, they are no longer scared that the investment world is coming to an end.

I don't want to "jinx" anyone's investment bets, but some corporate bond experts aren't exactly ready to jump on the bandwagon, or should I say "bondwagon"?

As for the idea that bond buyers are ready to embrace riskier investments, John Lonski of Moody's Investor's Service says, "We have gone from a situation where investors were on the verge of a nervous breakdown to a level of high anxiety."

Maybe that's still prudent, because credit quality ain't lookin' so good in the fourth quarter. Lonski tracks this stuff closely and only 14 percent of credit ratings have been upgrades, while 86 percent have been downgrades. That's worse than October when 22 percent of the total were upgrades.

In a note Friday, bond mavens Ken Hackel and Rajiv Setia of Merrill Lynch sound a cautious note, asking if the corporate bond market has run "Too Far, Too Fast?"

"Christmas may be arriving before Thanksgiving in 2002, as the financial markets have far outpaced the data," this week, they say, arguing that recent reports, at best, show an economy that has stabilized, but that it "certainly cannot be described as robust."

The better performance of "riskier assets" (stocks and corporate bonds) may show that investors see healthier fundamentals in the future, but it may also be due to "a technical need, especially on the part of insurance companies, to invest cash ahead of year end."

One of the potential pluses of the pick-up in corporate bond issuance is a pick-up in capital spending. After all, if companies are selling bonds, they are getting cash in return, and that could be used to buy a computer or two, maybe even upgrade a network.

Recently by Kathleen Hays What, us worry Fedwatch: Don't count out another cut Big, small or no cut at all?

But Lonski says it looks like companies are mostly issuing bonds to refinance higher-interest rate bonds and to build a war chest for possible merger and acquisition plans. Less that 20 percent of the firms Moody's follows mention capital expenditures.

What will it take for companies to put more cash to work? A healthier economy could help, especially if it helps boost earnings.

The outlook for GDP growth in the current quarter is rather anemic. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve bank issued its survey of professional forecasters today and the average number for the fourth quarter was cut in half: to 1.3 percent from 2.6 percent. For 2003, the consensus number is 2.6 percent down from 3.0 percent.

If investors continue to take risks, if they continue to bet on a safer (or at least less dangerous) world, and a stronger (or at least less weak) economy, this could create the kind of virtuous cycle that keeps stocks, and corporate bonds, in an uptrend. If risk once again becomes a four-letter word, the twin rallies may just go the way of Timothy Dalton.

Kathleen Hays co-anchors Money & Markets, airing Monday to Friday on CNNfn, and appears throughout the day reporting on the economy and how it affects financial markets. As part of CNN's Business News team, she is also a regular contributor to Lou Dobbs Moneyline.