An Ominous Week for NewPage

If you like gambling, forget blackjack, horses or the lottery. The debt of NewPage Corp. is the hot item these days at that grand casino known as Wall Street, as speculators wager on whether the big paper manufacturer will be able to make its bond payments and stay out of bankruptcy court.

On several days recently, the company’s bonds have been the most heavily traded debt instruments in the U.S.

The betting turned sour this week as the company’s bond prices hit their lowest level in more than two years “on concern that the junk-rated coated-paper maker owned by Cerberus Capital Management