Julien Pierrehumbert wrote:
>
> Anyway, don't get carried away with that stock-market thing. As long as the dollar
> and the debt markets hold, the US system will hold. And those are still pretty solid.
> More solid than before Greenspan's cut in fact.
Corporate Bond Defaults Hit Record $10.6B In Feb-Moody's
Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- Moody's Investors Service speculative-grade bond default rate in February
rose
to
6.61%, the highest since a 6.45% default rate was recorded in June 1992, the ratings
agency
said
Wednesday.
In a report scheduled to be released Thursday morning, the ratings agency says that 17
companies
worldwide defaulted on a record $10.6 billion of bonds in February.
February's 6.61% default rate marks an increase from a 6.26% default rate recorded in
January, when
21 companies defaulted on about $9.8 billion of speculative-grade debt, according to
Moody's.
Moody's is now forecasting that 9.57% of rated speculative-grade bond issuers worldwide
will default
during the next 12 months.
The latest forecast is about even with the ratings agency's January 12-month bond
default
forecast of
9.50% and its December 2000 forecast of 9.55%.
For U.S. companies, the speculative-grade default rate in February rose to 7.58% from
7.38%
in
January and 6.02% in February of last year, according to Moody's.
Analysts at the ratings agency say the default rate for U.S. high-yield bond issuers is
likely to approach
11% during the next twelve months.
The largest U.S. defaults in February came from Finova Capital Corp., which defaulted
on
$6.3 billion
of debt, Sunbeam Corp., which defaulted on $2 billion of debt, and Loews Cineplex
Entertainment,
which defaulted on $300 million of debt, according to Moody's.
-by John Dooley, Dow Jones Newswires; 201 938-2078,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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