The Effects of Credit Rating and Watchlist Announcements on the U.S. Corporate Bond Market

Author(s):  
Alberto Crosta
Author(s):  
Stephanie Heck ◽  
D. Margaritis ◽  
Aline Muller

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 46-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Díaz ◽  
Ana Escribano

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Bessembinder ◽  
William Maxwell

For decades, corporate bonds primarily traded in an opaque environment. Quotations, which indicate prices at which dealers are willing to transact, were available only to market professionals, most often by telephone. Prices at which bond transactions were completed were not made public. The U.S. corporate bond market became much more transparent with the introduction of the Transaction Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) in July 2002. Beginning that date, bond dealers were required to report all trades in publicly issued corporate bonds to the National Association of Security Dealers, which in turn made transaction data available to the public. In this paper, we describe trading protocols in the corporate bond market and assess the impact of the increase in transparency on the market. We review how TRACE has affected the costs that corporate bond investors paid to bond dealers for their transactions. We canvass the opinions of a variety of finance professionals and consider articles in the trade press to obtain a broader view of the impact of transparency on the corporate bond market


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (5(J)) ◽  
pp. 100-115
Author(s):  
Xueying Zhang ◽  
Shansheng Gao ◽  
Jian Jiao

This study examines corporate bond guarantees by developing a theoretical model that decomposes the overall impact of a guarantee into signalling and incentive effects and presenting empirical evidence based on data from China’s corporate bond market. Our empirical research yields considerable evidence for the effects we posit in the model and provides some important insights into the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard in China’s bond market. The empirical evidence shows that the bond issuer with lower credit rating are more willing to purchase a bond guarantee and guaranteed bonds have a higher issue spread yield than those non-guaranteed bonds, even though both have the same bond credit rating. Our findings suggest that moral hazard would be better than adverse selection to explain the self- selection of bond guarantees. Prior to bond issuance credit rating signal provides a mechanism to mitigate information inequality, while bond guarantees relieve information asymmetry afterwards. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (009) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Michael Smolyansky ◽  
◽  
Gustavo Suarez ◽  

Does expansionary monetary policy drive up prices of risky assets? Or, do investors interpret monetary policy easing as a signal that economic fundamentals are weaker than they previously believed, prompting riskier asset prices to fall? We test these competing hypotheses within the U.S. corporate bond market and find evidence strongly in favor of the second explanation—known as the "Fed information effect". Following an unanticipated monetary policy tightening (easing), returns on corporate bonds with higher credit risk outperform (underperform). We conclude that monetary policy surprises are predominantly interpreted by market participants as signaling information about the state of the economy.


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