Life insurers have been moving more of their $7 trillion of investments into riskier securities, data show. That could hurt some insurers’ credit ratings in the next recession according to Fitch Ratings. 

Signs that the Federal Reserve may be done with its yearslong campaign to raise interest rates are sending ripples through fixed-income markets, holding down interest rates for a wide swath of borrowers.

“The FX market used to be dealer-driven until the banks withdrew from taking risk,” he added. “Technology developed in FX can be deployed in fixed income algos, and to provide anonymous liquidity in an agency model.”

The financial health of Britain’s companies is deteriorating toward a point where their debt risks being classed as junk, according to a measure of distress aggregated from data provided by the largest U.S. and U.K. banks. 

Defaults by Chinese companies on bonds they issued in China (“onshore” bonds, as opposed to “offshore” bonds) soared to a record in 2019, according to a report by FITCH Ratings.

• 45 companies defaulted on 117 bonds, with a total principal amount of 110.5 billion yuan ($16.3 billion)

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s bond traders just reported their worst quarter in a decade a day after Citigroup Inc. said it was also pummeled by market turmoil.

After working as an attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in 1999 he joined Island ECN, which played a major role in creating the modern stock market.

Ford and GM could face the highest cost of refinancing of any investment-grade sector next year, according to a note published by CreditSights. Ford, GM, and GE also risk getting their credit ratings downgraded to junk—which would also make it more expensive to borrow.

With volatility spiking in global stock and bond markets, there’s been a profound shift in market psychology from chasing higher yields to focusing on risk in the credit markets, according to a recent webinar.

“More than half of BBB companies in the U.S. and Europe look more like high yield than high grade” based on their leverage multiples, strategists including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a note to clients. “This suggests that the downgrade and fallen angel risks look pretty elevated at the moment.”