credit markets and analysis
Educational articles in this subcategory.
Distressed Debt Restructuring Paths
The restructuring path you choose determines more than timeline—it determines recovery. Prepackaged bankruptcies resolve in **45-60 days** with **70%+...
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Credit Research Workflow
Starting credit research from the wrong direction cost analysts dearly in 2008. Researchers who built beautiful issuer-level models for Lehman, Bear S...
Covenant Quality and Protections
**Difficulty:** Intermediate **Published:** 2025-12-29 Covenant-lite loans now represent **91% of outstanding US leveraged loans** ($1.29 trillion...
Credit Default Swaps as Market Signals
Credit default swaps (CDS) function as the bond market's real-time stress detector. When Credit Suisse CDS spreads jumped **36 bps in a single day** t...
Credit Spread Components and Drivers
**Intermediate** | Published: 2025-12-29 ## Why Credit Spread Decomposition Matters Credit spreads are not one thing. They contain at least thre...
Investment Grade vs. High Yield: The Line That Separates Measured Risk from Speculation
The BBB/BB boundary—one notch on a rating scale—separates **0.3% annual default rates from 1.5%**, a 5x difference that determines whether you're coll...
Analyzing Debt Maturity Walls
**Intermediate** | Published: 2025-12-29 ## Why Maturity Walls Break Portfolios Debt maturity walls are not abstract credit concepts. They show ...
Understanding Fixed Charge Coverage Tests
Fixed charge coverage ratio (FCCR) covenants are the early warning system that **45% of leveraged borrowers are currently failing**. When FCCR drops b...
Leverage, Coverage, and Cash Flow Ratios
Credit ratios show up in bond portfolios as **pricing signals you either exploit or ignore at cost**. Every **1x increase in Debt/EBITDA above 4x** co...
Default Probability and Recovery Rate Basics
When a bond defaults, you don't lose everything. Senior secured bondholders historically recover **50-60 cents** on the dollar; subordinated debt hold...
Liquidity Considerations in Corporate Bonds
Corporate bond liquidity is a latent risk factor that crystallizes during market stress, often amplifying losses beyond credit fundamentals. Instituti...