Independents' pace of public-debt deals this spring cooled markedly as conditions began to turn back. While producers' hard assets may look more appealing to bondholders as former high-flying-stock companies' luster grows dim, upstream firms aren't taking this for granted. "Financial discipline remains the key. It's what the investment community likes to see," says Bruce H. Vincent, executive vice president, corporate development, Swift Energy Co. "It also likes to see companies that can produce growth at the same time. They're the ones that will be most able to attract outside investment." Debt markets turned favorable this spring when an in-flow of fixed income funds created a need for many investors to buy more paper, he says. A defensive reaction that favored energy and other sectors-as telecom and high-tech markets collapsed-let Swift and other companies take advantage of the situation. "With what happened in the telecom and high-tech industries, real-asset businesses like oil and gas have come back into the fold as areas of interest for bondholders," says Timothy Dove, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. "There also were very tight high-yield spreads and low underlying interest rates which led the E&P side to take advantage of the situation."