Here’s a breakdown of the 2024 corporate debt “maturity wall” by sector (from Torsten Sløk via The Daily Spark on October 12)…

The sectors that have higher refinancing needs in 2024 are Leisure, Retail, and Capital Goods in investment grade. And Transportation, Real Estate, and Autos in high yield, see charts below. Source: ICE BofA, Bloomberg, Apollo Chief Economist Source: ICE BofA, Bloomberg, Apollo Chief Economist Continue reading here.

A huge wave of junk debt is coming due in the next few years (from Bloomberg on October 20)…

US junk bond issuers are poised to unleash a new wave of refinancing activity after back-to-back years of low volume, as the share of debt with near-term maturities climbs to the highest level in over a decade. The amount of outstanding junk bonds set to mature in 18 to 36 months has soared to levels
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The gap between corporate credit spreads and yields hasn’t been this wide since just before the Great Financial Crisis (from Torsten Sløk via The Daily Spark on October 21)…

Higher credit yields increase corporate capital costs. And higher cost of capital puts pressure on coverage ratios and corporate profitability. With lower coverage ratios and lower profitability, credit risks increase, and the result is that credit spreads should go wider. That is, however, not what is happening at the moment. The current disconnect between credit
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Torsten Slok, chief economist for alternative asset manager Apollo Global, believes the credit default cycle is now underway (from The Daily Spark on August 26)…

Since the Fed started hiking in March 2022, default rates have been moving higher, and every day there are companies that cannot get a new loan or refinance an existing loan. This is how monetary policy works. A higher cost of capital makes it harder for firms to get financing. With the strong uptrend in
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Billionaire distressed debt investor Howard Marks expects defaults to keep rising (from Bloomberg on September 6)…

Oaktree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks said he expects more companies to default on their debt as higher interest rates make it harder for struggling companies to raise capital. “When you go through a period when it’s super easy to raise money for any purpose or no purpose, and you go into a period when
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Despite plenty of reasons for concern, the spreads between high-yield corporate debt and U.S. Treasuries have been falling for most of the year (from David Dierking via X on September 18)…

How in the world are high yield spreads going DOWN right now? Consumers are running out of money to spend. Consumer credit is through the roof. Defaults are rising. Bankruptcies are rising. We’ve got a de facto recession in Europe. China is imploding. Student loan payments just restarted. Yet investors are demanding LESS return for
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The average company’s net interest payment has actually fallen over the past couple years (from Charlie Bilello via X on September 19)…

The Fed has hiked rates 525 bps since March 2022 but the net interest payments of corporations has actually declined. Why? Many companies locked in low interest rates on their debt in 2020-21 and are now earning much higher yields on their cash.