Determinants of yield spread dynamics: Euro versus US dollar corporate bonds

This paper presents a systematic comparison between the determinants of euro and US dollar yield spread dynamics. The results show that US dollar yield spreads are significantly more affected by changes in the level and the slope of the default-free term structure and the stock market return and volatility. Surprisingly, euro yield spreads are strongly affected by the US (and not the euro) level and slope. This confirms the dominance of US interest rates in the corporate bond markets. Interestingly, I find that liquidity risk is higher for US dollar corporate bonds than euro corporate bonds. For both regions, the effect of changes in the bid-ask spread is mainly significant during periods of high liquidity risk. Finally, the results indicate that the credit cycle as measured by the region-specific default probability significantly increases US yield spreads. This is not the case for euro yield spreads.     

A jump to default extended CEV model: an application of Bessel processes

We develop a flexible and analytically tractable framework which unifies the valuation of corporate liabilities, credit derivatives, and equity derivatives. We assume that the stock price follows a diffusion, punctuated by a possible jump to zero (default). To capture the positive link between default and equity volatility, we assume that the hazard rate of default is an increasing affine function of the instantaneous variance of returns on the underlying stock. To capture the negative link between volatility and stock price, we assume a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) specification for the instantaneous stock volatility prior to default. We show that deterministic changes of time and scale reduce our stock price process to a standard Bessel process with killing. This reduction permits the development of completely explicit closed form solutions for risk-neutral survival probabilities, CDS spreads, corporate bond values, and European-style equity options. Furthermore, our valuation model is sufficiently flexible so that it can be calibrated to exactly match arbitrarily given term structures of CDS spreads, interest rates, dividend yields, and at-the-money implied volatilities.     

Modelling bonds and credit default swaps using a structural model with contagion

This paper develops a two-dimensional structural framework for valuing credit default swaps and corporate bonds in the presence of default contagion. Modelling the values of related firms as correlated geometric Brownian motions with exponential default barriers, analytical formulae are obtained for both credit default swap spreads and corporate bond yields. The credit dependence structure is influenced by both a longer-term correlation structure as well as by the possibility of default contagion. In this way, the model is able to generate a diverse range of shapes for the term structure of credit spreads using realistic values for input parameters.     

Value investing in credit markets

We outline a parsimonious empirical model to assess the relative usefulness of accounting- and equity market-based information to explain corporate credit spreads. The primary determinant of corporate credit spreads is the physical default probability. We compare existing accounting-based and market-based models to forecast default. We then assess whether the credit market completely incorporates this default information into credit spreads. We find that credit spreads reflect information about forecasted default rates with a significant lag. This unique evidence suggests a role for value investing in credit markets.     

Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market

We use the information in credit default swaps to obtain direct measures of the size of the default and nondefault components in corporate spreads. We find that the majority of the corporate spread is due to default risk. This result holds for all rating categories and is robust to the definition of the riskless curve. We also find that the nondefault component is time varying and strongly related to measures of bond‐specific illiquidity as well as to macroeconomic measures of bond market liquidity.     

Pricing default swaps: Empirical evidence

In this paper we compare market prices of credit default swaps with model prices. We show that a simple reduced form model outperforms directly comparing bonds' credit spreads to default swap premiums. We find that the model yields unbiased premium estimates for default swaps on investment grade issuers, but only if we use swap or repo rates as proxy for default-free interest rates. This indicates that the government curve is no longer seen as the reference default-free curve. We also show that the model is relatively insensitive to the value of the assumed recovery rate.     

CDOs and the financial crisis: Credit ratings and fair premia

We study risk and return characteristics of CDOs using the market standard models. We find that fair spreads on CDO tranches are much higher than fair spreads on similarly-rated corporate bonds. Our results imply that credit ratings are not sufficient for pricing, which is surprising given their central role in structured finance markets. This illustrates limitations of the rating methodologies that are solely based on real-world default probabilities or expected losses and do not capture risk premia. We also demonstrate that CDO tranches have large exposure to systematic risk and thus their ratings and prices are likely to decline substantially when credit conditions deteriorate.     

Credit Spread Changes and Equity Volatility: Evidence from Daily Data

We investigate the determinants of daily changes in credit spreads in the U.S. corporate bond market. Using a sample of liquid investment grade and high‐yield bonds, we show that both systematic bond and stock market factors as well as idiosyncratic equity market factors affect changes in the yield spread at the daily frequency. In particular, we find that increase in stock market volatility has a positive effect on changes in the spread of corporate bonds over the corresponding Treasuries beyond that captured by standard term structure variables. Our results show that there is an almost contemporaneous inverse relationship between changes in the bond yield spread and the stock return of the issuing firm.     

Market conditions,default risk and credit spreads

This study empirically examines the impact of the interaction between market and default risk on corporate credit spreads. Using credit default swap (CDS) spreads, we find that average credit spreads decrease in GDP growth rate, but increase in GDP growth volatility and jump risk in the equity market. At the market level, investor sentiment is the most important determinant of credit spreads. At the firm level, credit spreads generally rise with cash flow volatility and beta, with the effect of cash flow beta varying with market conditions. We identify implied volatility as the most significant determinant of default risk among firm-level characteristics. Overall, a major portion of individual credit spreads is accounted for by firm-level determinants of default risk, while macroeconomic variables are directly responsible for a lesser portion.     

Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets

To identify disruptions in credit markets, research on the role of asset prices in economic fluctuations has focused on the information content of various corporate credit spreads. We re-examine this evidence using a broad array of credit spreads constructed directly from the secondary bond prices on outstanding senior unsecured debt issued by a large panel of nonfinancial firms. An advantage of our “ground-up” approach is that we are able to construct matched portfolios of equity returns, which allows us to examine the information content of bond spreads that is orthogonal to the information contained in stock prices of the same set of firms, as well as in macroeconomic variables measuring economic activity, inflation, interest rates, and other financial indicators. Our portfolio-based bond spreads contain substantial predictive power for economic activity and outperform—especially at longer horizons—standard default-risk indicators. Much of the predictive power of bond spreads for economic activity is embedded in securities issued by intermediate-risk rather than high-risk firms. According to impulse responses from a structural factor-augmented vector autoregression, unexpected increases in bond spreads cause large and persistent contractions in economic activity. Indeed, shocks emanating from the corporate bond market account for more than 30 percent of the forecast error variance in economic activity at the two- to four-year horizon. Overall, our results imply that credit market shocks have contributed significantly to US economic fluctuations during the 1990-2008 period.     

A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt

We develop a simple approach to valuing risky corporate debt that incorporates both default and interest rate risk. We use this approach to derive simple closed-form valuation expressions for fixed and floating rate debt. The model provides a number of interesting new insights about pricing and hedging corporate debt securities. For example, we find that the correlation between default risk and the interest rate has a significant effect on the properties of the credit spread. Using Moody's corporate bond yield data, we find that credit spreads are negatively related to interest rates and that durations of risky bonds depend on the correlation with interest rates. This empirical evidence is consistent with the implications of the valuation model.     

The cost of private debt over the credit cycle

We identify global and regional fluctuations in international private debt flows to emerging and developing countries using data on cross-border loans and international bond issuance over 1993–2009. We use micro-level data on syndicated cross-border loans and international bond placements to estimate the effects of individual borrower characteristics as well as macroeconomic conditions on the cost of foreign borrowing and test whether these effects differ across phases of the lending cycle. First, we find that borrower characteristics associated with lower loan spreads are not necessarily associated with lower bond spreads. Second, we find differential effects of borrower characteristics between cycle phases for loans and bonds separately. Third, we find strong reductions in the cost of debt finance during periods when international debt flows are more than one standard deviation above their mean, but not for expansionary periods, when the growth rate of debt flows is increasing. We also find that higher trade ratios in the borrower's home country raise loan spreads more in periods of high credit flows but have no effect on bond spreads. At the same time, borrowers residing in countries with high investment ratios pay lower spreads on bond issuance particularly during periods of high credit flows, but we find no similar effect for loan spreads. Inflation rates, real exchange rates and previous banking crises have small impacts on loan and bond spreads.     

Do significant risk warnings in annual reports increase corporate bond credit spreads? Evidence from China

Based on listed companies issuing bonds on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2007 to 2017, this study analyzes the relationship between significant risk warnings in Chinese companies’ annual reports and corporate bond credit spreads. The main findings are as follows. First, in the Chinese market, “substantial warnings of significant risks” can significantly improve corporate bond credit spreads, reflecting the risk-warning effect; second, state-owned property rights weaken this effect, which only pertains to listed companies with poor risk management and low information quality; third, significant risk warnings increase investors’ heterogeneous beliefs, also affecting credit spreads; and fourth, through textual analysis, it is found that the corporate bond credit spread is greater when the disclosed risk factors are more pessimistic and less similar to those of the previous year. The findings of this paper help to enrich the literature on credit spreads and risk disclosure.     

Leverage Choice and Credit Spreads when Managers Risk Shift

We model the debt and asset risk choice of a manager with performance‐insensitive pay (cash) and performance‐sensitive pay (stock) to theoretically link compensation structure, leverage, and credit spreads. The model predicts that optimal leverage trades off the tax benefit of debt against the utility cost of ex‐post asset substitution and that credit spreads are increasing in the ratio of cash‐to‐stock. Using a large cross‐section of U.S.‐based corporate credit default swaps (CDS) covering 2001 to 2006, we find a positive association between cash‐to‐stock and CDS rates, and between cash‐to‐stock and leverage ratios.     

The Information Content of Ratings: An Analysis of Australian Credit Default Swap Spreads

We examine the information content of Australian credit rating announcements by measuring the abnormal changes in credit default swap (CDS) spreads. CDS spreads provide a direct view of credit quality and thus should impound information quickly when investors receive new credit risk related information via a rating event. Using an event study methodology, we show that watch downs and rating upgrades contain valuable information even after controlling for sources of contamination. We find that watch downs elicit statistically significant market reactions, while subsequent downgrades are anticipated. Upgrades are associated with a significant but small abnormal reduction in CDS spreads, whereas watch ups appear to contain no new information.     

Individual stock-option prices and credit spreads

This paper introduces measures of volatility and jump risk that are based on individual stock options to explain credit spreads on corporate bonds. Implied volatilities of individual options are shown to contain useful information for credit spreads and improve on historical volatilities when explaining the cross-sectional and time-series variation in a panel of corporate bond spreads. Both the level of individual implied volatilities and (to a lesser extent) the implied-volatility skew matter for credit spreads. Detailed principal component analysis shows that a large part of the time-series variation in credit spreads can be explained in this way.     

债券市场的评级信息能改善股票市场信息环境吗?——来自分析师预测的证据

本文研究发现,信用评级增加了分析师预测的公共信息,同时没有减少分析师预测的私有信息,即信用评级信息能够改善股票市场信息环境。具体地,本文利用2006-2016年上市公司数据实证发现,信用评级能显著提高分析师预测精度、降低分析师预测分歧度与乐观偏差,且这种效应在信息不对称程度高、低能力分析师跟踪的企业以及外资参股的评级机构中更加显著,这说明信用评级向分析师提供了新的信息。进一步地,信用评级只增加了分析师预测的公共信息,对私有信息没有显著影响,同时也不影响分析师的调研行为,上述结论表明信用评级信息披露并不影响分析师拥有私有信息的优势,且信用评级机构与分析师之间存在互补而非替代关系。因此,金融监管应该加强对评级机构尽职调研的要求,充分发挥信用评级机构的信息中介功能。     

Regime dependent determinants of credit default swap spreads

Credit default swap (CDS) spreads display pronounced regime specific behaviour. A Markov switching model of the determinants of changes in the iTraxx Europe indices demonstrates that they are extremely sensitive to stock volatility during periods of CDS market turbulence. But in ordinary market circumstances CDS spreads are more sensitive to stock returns than they are to stock volatility. Equity hedge ratios are three or four times larger during the turbulent period, which explains why previous research on single-regime models finds stock positions to be ineffective hedges for default swaps. Interest rate movements do not affect the financial sector iTraxx indices and they only have a significant effect on the other indices when the spreads are not excessively volatile. Raising interest rates may decrease the probability of credit spreads entering a volatile period.     

Credit derivatives and loan pricing

This paper examines the relation between the new markets for credit default swaps (CDS) and banks’ pricing of syndicated loans to US corporates. We find that changes in CDS spreads have a significantly positive coefficient and explain about 25% of subsequent monthly changes in aggregate loan spreads during 2000–2005. Moreover, when compared to traditional explanatory factors, they turn out to be the dominant determinant of loan spreads. In particular, they explain loan rates much better than same rated bonds. This suggests that CDS prices contain, beyond general credit risk, to a substantial extent information relevant for bank lending. We also find that, over time, new information from CDS markets is faster incorporated into loans, but information from other markets is not. Overall, our results indicate that the markets for CDS have gained an important role for banks.     

中债估值识别了债券信用风险吗？——基于跳跃视角的实证分析

本文以2011—2018年中国A股上市公司发行的一般公司债为样本,探究了中债估值跳跃对债券信用利差的影响及作用机制,以此说明中债估值对债券信用风险的识别作用。研究发现:中债估值跳跃能够显著提高债券信用利差,其中,中债估值上跳降低了信用利差,下跳提高了信用利差,且相对于上跳,下跳对信用利差的作用更大。异质性分析发现:中债估值跳跃对信用利差的作用在机构投资者中较大,同时在信息不对称性较严重、流动性较差及违约风险较高的债券中也较大。进一步研究发现:中债估值跳跃不仅包含了公共信息,还含有私有信息,并能改善股票分析师预测表现。本研究说明中债估值能够识别债券信用风险,具有信息含量,对于债券市场信息环境建设和系统性金融风险防范具有重要意义。