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Inflation dominated Q3 financial news, and the resulting short rate squeeze is biting while credit volatility is rising and the COVID recovery is running out of steam. Risk indicators are high in the UK, and oil and gas price volatility has brought havoc to Europe. In North America, weaker credit trends are appearing in several sectors. Believe it or not, there are some bright spots amidst this turmoil. This whitepaper elaborates on some of these trends and shows where credit could be headed next.

The Business Development Company sector in the US has grown steadily over the past 20 years. While BDCs allow retail investors to gain liquid exposure to portfolios of private companies, their historically high returns have been dented recently by some steep falls in valuations and – in some cases – discounts to net asset values.

In the newly published special report from Structured Credit Investor (SCI), Mark Faulkner, co-founder, Credit Benchmark, investigates how Credit Consensus data can help support growth in SRT activity.

The recent award of the 2022 Nobel memorial prize in Economics to Bernanke, Diamond and Dybvig for their work on banking regulation and liquidity highlights the connection between credit and liquidity, making the point that credit assessments are a form of market information.

The Basic Materials Industry includes Chemicals, Metals, Mining, Forestry and Paper. Output prices for these sectors have been very volatile in the past 12 months, reflecting recent rapid structural changes in the global economy. However, US Basic Materials has shown a recent turning point.

As pandemic-related spending continues to fall, the US Health Care sector is beginning to show credit deterioration.

European Governments are pledging hundreds of billions of Euros in financial aid to power generators and distributors, plus support for consumers facing massive energy price hikes. But an even larger crisis may be lurking in European energy trading, with the FT reporting sector margin requirements as high as €1trillion – vastly in excess of current sector liquidity.

Credit Benchmark’s Transition Matrices show that post-COVID credit recovery has been strong across most credit categories, but at the same time a significant number of investment grade firms have started to be subject to multi-notch downgrades.