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.     

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.     

Corporate Bond Returns and Volatility

Recent literature emphasizes the relation of stock volatility to corporate bond yields. We demonstrate that during 1996–2005 corporate bond excess return volatility is directly related to contemporaneous corporate bond excess returns. In fact, the decompositions of aggregate bond volatility have a higher contemporaneous correlation with bond yields in comparison to idiosyncratic stock risk. Additionally, bond volatility and idiosyncratic risk are significant predictors of corporate three‐month and six‐month ahead bond excess returns. We also find that corporate bond volatility contains both slow moving and time‐varying components.     

Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective

We study corporate bond default rates using an extensive new data set spanning the 1866-2008 period. We find that the corporate bond market has repeatedly suffered clustered default events much worse than those experienced during the Great Depression. For example, during the railroad crisis of 1873-1875, total defaults amounted to 36% of the par value of the entire corporate bond market. Using a regime-switching model, we examine the extent to which default rates can be forecast by financial and macroeconomic variables. We find that stock returns, stock return volatility, and changes in GDP are strong predictors of default rates. Surprisingly, however, credit spreads are not. Over the long term, credit spreads are roughly twice as large as default losses, resulting in an average credit risk premium of about 80 basis points. We also find that credit spreads do not adjust in response to realized default rates.     

中美可转换债券比较研究

通过对中国和美国的可转换债券市场的规模、条款、风险收益特征和套利机会进行对比分析,结果表明中国可转债市场规模仍远不及美国,尤其对创新性中小企业融资需求的支持上差距更大。中国可转债的条款设计更多替发行人考虑,而较少关注投资者的需求,具有明显的扩股融资动机。从风险收益特征和套利机会来看,发现美国可转换债券市场的债性凸显,股性较弱,而中国可转换债券市场具有偏股性。     

我国企业债券违约的特征趋势、融资特点及风险处置机制研究

本文从债券违约的数量规模、行业分布、地域分布、企业属性、债券品种及违约率等方面阐述了我国企业债券违约的特征趋势,分析了我国企业债券违约的主要原因及其所呈现出来的融资特点,探讨了我国企业债券违约后的五种处置方式,认为我国债券违约风险处置机制还不完善,缺少独立法律制度、处置的市场化程度较低、投资者保护机制不健全、对发行人缺乏硬性约束,影响了违约债券的整体兑付水平,投资人利益难以得到有效维护。建议采取多种措施降低债券违约发生率、优化发行人融资结构、建立债券违约的市场化处置机制,以降低债券违约风险,推动债券市场健康发展。     

公司债市场是新常态下证券市场的风险信号标吗？——基于公司债与股票市场间风险溢出的研究

以发行债券的上市公司为样本,分别编制公司债指数与股票指数,据此运用Copula-CoVaR模型测度公司债与股票市场间风险溢出的方向与强度。结果发现：股票市场的风险大于公司债市场;公司债与股票市场间存在双向不对称的正向风险溢出,公司债市场对股票市场的风险溢出强度显著强于股票市场对公司债市场的风险溢出强度。经济新常态下,公司债市场成为证券市场的风险指示标,具有较强的风险信号作用。     

基于MSV与CoVaR模型的公司债市场与股票市场间风险溢出效应研究

依据2015—2017年中证公司债指数与沪深300指数的日收益数据,运用GC-t-MSV模型,检验中国公司债市场与股票市场间的风险溢出效应,并通过条件在险价值(CoVaR)模型度量两市场间风险溢出效应。结果表明：公司债市场与股票市场间存在不对称的双向风险溢出效应,且公司债市场对股票市场的风险溢出效应强于股票市场对公司债市场的风险溢出效应;公司债市场与股票市场的波动受其自身波动的影响较大,鉴此,监管部门和投资者应增强对公司债市场的关注,根据公司债市场的风险变化及时采取应对措施,充分发挥其风险信号作用。     

On the Term Structure of Default Premia in the Swap and LIBOR Markets

Existing theories of the term structure of swap rates provide an analysis of the Treasury–swap spread based on either a liquidity convenience yield in the Treasury market, or default risk in the swap market. Although these models do not focus on the relation between corporate yields and swap rates (the LIBOR–swap spread), they imply that the term structure of corporate yields and swap rates should be identical. As documented previously (e.g., in Sun, Sundaresan, and Wang (1993)) this is counterfactual. Here, we propose a model of the default risk imbedded in the swap term structure that is able to explain the LIBOR–swap spread. Whereas corporate bonds carry default risk, we argue that swap contracts are free of default risk. Because swaps are indexed on "refreshed"-credit-quality LIBOR rates, the spread between corporate yields and swap rates should capture the market's expectations of the probability of deterioration in credit quality of a corporate bond issuer. We model this feature and use our model to estimate the likelihood of future deterioration in credit quality from the LIBOR–swap spread. The analysis is important because it shows that the term structure of swap rates does not reflect the borrowing cost of a standard LIBOR credit quality issuer. It also has implications for modeling the dynamics of the swap term structure.     

Catastrophe bond pricing in the primary market: The issuer effect and pricing factors

COVID pandemic has highlighted the importance of hedging against catastrophic events, for which the catastrophe bond market plays a critical role. Our paper develops a two-level modelling and uses a unique, hand-collected dataset, which is one of the largest and most detailed datasets to date containing: 101 different issuers, 794 different bonds, spanning 1997–2020. We identify issuer effects robustly, isolating them from bond specific pricing effects, therefore providing more credible pricing factor results. We find that bond pricing and volatility are heavily impacted by the issuer, causing 26% of total price variation. We also identify specific issuer characteristics that significantly impact bond pricing and volatility, such as the issuer’s line of business accounting for up to 36% of total price variation. We further find that issuer effects are significant over different market cycles and time periods, causing substantial price variation. The size and content of our data also enables us to identify the counter-intuitive relation between bond premiums and maturity, and bond premiums and hybrid bond triggers.     

极端风险事件下股票市场与公司债券市场的尾部风险溢出研究——基于MVMQ-CAViaR模型

构建MVMQ-CAViaR模型,结合金融市场内部极端风险事件和外部极端风险事件,考量股票市场与公司债券市场的尾部风险溢出问题。结果表明,在金融市场内部极端风险事件下,股灾期间仅存在股票市场对公司债券市场单向的尾部风险溢出。公司债券违约潮期间,股票市场与公司债券市场之间存在双向不对称的尾部风险溢出,且公司债券市场对股票市...     

基于VAR模型的我国主要金融市场间波动性的关系研究

本文运用VAR模型从投资收益波动性的角度分析了我国股票市场、国债市场、企业债市场、银行间拆借市场的相互关系,运用格兰杰因果检验和脉冲分解两种方法对模型进行分析,并与已有的研究结果进行对照,研究结果表明股票、国债、企业债市场之间存在较强的相互作用,银行间拆借市场与上述三个市场的关系并不十分紧密,只是会受到债券市场的微弱的影响。要规范和做大做强股票市场,大力发展国债和企业债市场,引进更多的市场参与者,完善市场的软硬件建设,加快银行利率市场化步伐。     

On the Relative Performance of Investment‐Grade Corporate Bonds with Differing Maturities

We find that short‐maturity investment‐grade corporate bonds perform better, controlling for risk differences, than similar bonds with longer maturities. Our results are at least partially attributable to insurance companies’ trading behavior and align with the preferred‐habitat theory of the term structure. We find that insurance‐company purchases create a strong demand for long‐term bonds and that their rebalancing activity results in sales of short‐term bonds. As documented by extant literature, such demand‐supply imbalance is not easily resolved by arbitrageurs or firms seeking to time the market with bond issuance.     

Hedging Corporate Bonds

We examine Treasury bond and stock index futures, the swap curve and two types of hypothetical corporate bond assets as alternative hedging instruments for portfolios of corporate bonds. Conducting ex post and ex ante tests we find evidence that credit quality and maturity are important sources of basis risk when hedging corporate bonds whose credit rating are below triple A. We conclude that a new corporate hedging instrument may be useful for those wishing to hedge corporate bond portfolios provided that transaction costs are not too high relative to existing futures contracts.     

Inflation Risk in Corporate Bonds

We argue that corporate bond yields reflect fears of debt deflation. When debt is nominal, unexpectedly low inflation increases real liabilities and default risk. In a real business cycle model with optimal but infrequent capital structure choice, more uncertain or procyclical inflation leads to quantitatively important increases in corporate log yields in excess of default‐free log yields. A panel of credit spread indexes from six developed countries shows that credit spreads rise by 14 basis points if inflation volatility or the inflation‐stock correlation increases by one standard deviation.     

Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey

Corporate bonds offer higher yields than government bonds with similar maturity. This higher reward comes at the cost of higher risk. The question then arises of how this risk is priced into corporate bonds. This literature review provides a classification and summary of papers studying corporate bond prices and the premium they offer to investors over the return on risk-free securities. The review ranges from theoretical models to empirical determinants of corporate bond prices. A specific section is dedicated to the liquidity impact as this component has received special attention.

     

Corporate Credit Spreads and the Sovereign Ceiling in Latin America

We exploit a panel of 72 US dollar-denominated bonds issued by Latin American publicly listed firms between 1996 and 2004, a period of regional financial crises, to answer the following three questions: (1) Is sovereign risk a statistically and economically significant determinant of the corporate credit spread, controlling for firm- and bond-specific characteristics? (2) If yes, do market participants apply the sovereign ceiling rule adopted by rating agencies in the pricing of our bond market data? And (3) how do market views compare with the rating agencies ceiling policy for each corporate bond? We find strong evidence of an economically and statistically significant effect of sovereign risk on corporate spreads across different panel econometric specifications and bonds. Moreover, markets do not apply the ceiling rule in 77–90% of the bonds we sample and these findings are consistent with rating agencies’ policies toward the latter for about 50% of the firms. These results are robust to the inclusion of firm- and bond-specific variables derived from the structural approach to credit risk and to the business cycle in each country.     

Historic Changes in the High Yield Bond Market

In a history that now stretches about four decades, the high yield (HY) market has experienced growth in issuance and out‐standings that is remarkable both for its level (about 13% per annum, with HY bonds now accounting for about 25% of the total corporate bond market) and its cyclicality and sensitivity to the broad economy. The HY market has also experienced a notable shift away from B‐rated bonds and toward both lower‐risk Ba‐rated bonds and, to a lesser extent, more risky Caa‐rated bonds. Consistent with this development, studies of the performance of HY bonds show Ba‐rated bonds experiencing not only lower risk, but also higher returns than Caa‐rated bonds, which have produced surprisingly low average returns along with exceptionally high volatility. At the same time, studies of the correlation of HY bond returns with returns on other major asset classes report that all classes of HY bonds (but particularly the riskier B‐ and Caa‐rated bonds) have consistently stronger relationships with common stocks (especially small‐cap stocks) than with Treasuries and investment‐grade bonds. Analysis of the volatility of HY bond returns over time shows that during periods of stability in the economy and financial markets, the volatility of HY bond returns has been very similar to that of investment‐grade bonds. But during periods of political or economic uncertainty, the volatility of HY bonds has become two or three times that of investment‐grade bonds, approaching the volatility of common stocks. The main driver of the significant increase in the risk of the aggregate HY bond market during periods of uncertainty has been Caa‐rated bonds, whose risk pattern has been remarkably similar to that of small‐cap common stocks. Analysis of the credit risk spread (or CRS) series for both the composite HY bond market and each of its rating categories shows markedly non‐normal distributions with significant positive “skewness”—that is, periods of exceptionally high spreads (that are not counterbalanced by periods of exceptionally low spreads). The authors also report a consistently strong relationship of the CRS series with default rates and the general state of the economy, with major peaks occurring during or shortly after economic recessions. Near the end of 2008, however, there was a clear break in this relationship when the CRS reached an historic peak of 2,000 basis points, or more than five standard deviations above its long‐term mean, while the default rate (at 4%) was below its long‐term average. The authors offer two explanations for this break in CRS‐default rate relationship: the jump in the CRS caused by the extreme flight to quality and drop in liquidity for all risky securities during the second half of 2008; and the use of covenant‐lite securities and other sources of financial flexibility that appear to have enabled many HY issuers to defer defaults (if not avoid them entirely).     

The Illiquidity of Corporate Bonds

This paper examines the illiquidity of corporate bonds and its asset‐pricing implications. Using transactions data from 2003 to 2009, we show that the illiquidity in corporate bonds is substantial, significantly greater than what can be explained by bid–ask spreads. We establish a strong link between bond illiquidity and bond prices. In aggregate, changes in market‐level illiquidity explain a substantial part of the time variation in yield spreads of high‐rated (AAA through A) bonds, overshadowing the credit risk component. In the cross‐section, the bond‐level illiquidity measure explains individual bond yield spreads with large economic significance.     

债务结构优化与企业创新——基于企业债券融资视角的研究

本文在我国保持宏观杠杆率基本稳定及实施创新驱动发展战略的现实背景下,从债券融资的视角,探讨债务结构优化对企业创新的影响。研究发现,债券融资与企业创新之间显著正相关,表明债券融资优化企业债务结构、提升企业创新能力的积极作用占据主导地位。进一步研究表明:(1)债券融资能够通过降低整体债务融资成本并延长整体债务期限促进企业创新;(2)债券融资对于银行贷款存在溢出效应,即企业通过债券融资,还能降低银行贷款利率、延长银行贷款期限,进而促进企业创新;(3)产品市场竞争和代理问题会在一定程度上削弱债券融资对企业创新的促进作用;(4)不同类型的债券对企业创新能力的作用存在异质性,债券发行的便利性是其影响企业创新的一个重要因素。