Pre-crisis complacency in credit markets
Mention 2007 to a group of professional investors, and watch them bristle (reagera med ilska, ovilja eller irritation, ofta synligt genom kroppsspråk).
The year was a bad one. It marked the end of the great moderation—a long period of low inflation and steady economic growth that began in the 1980s—and the start of strains in credit markets which became the global financial crisis.
You would not be the only one bringing up the year, though. Gloomier investors now sense pre-crisis complacency in credit markets.
Over the past month, the spread between yields on corporate bonds and Treasuries has fallen to its lowest since 2007.
Junk bonds offer spreads of just 2.8 percentage points, far below the 4.5-point average of the past two decades.
The market is priced for perfection; investors think the risk of disorder is just about as low as it has ever been.
Just how risky is corporate lending? A boom in alternative markets has made it difficult to answer that question.
America’s private-credit market, home to roughly $1.6trn of outstanding loans at the end of 2024, is now about the same size as its junk-bond market.
Warning for Private Credit: Feels Like 2006
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/06/warning-for-private-credit-feels-like.html
Spreads on junk debt are compressed to levels seen during the wildest phases of pre-Lehman speculation
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/junk-bond-investors-are-giving-zero.html
Finanskrisen 2007
https://www.internetional.se/hedgefunds2016.htm
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