S&P Ratings

After increasing steeply in October, the U.S. distress ratio decreased in November. The ratio reached a post-crisis cycle low in May before increasing over the next few months. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor's Associate Director Gregg Moskowitz explains the key trends and data points.

Asia-Pacific’s financial institutions may face more hurdles in 2014 as pressure on the economic front is likely to bear down on their asset quality. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor’s credit analyst, Naoko Nemoto, tells us what lies ahead for Asia-Pacific’s banking industry in 2014.

アジア太平洋地域の銀行業界は、経済への下押し圧力が資産の質を圧迫することから2014年はより多くのハードルに直面する可能性がある。今回のクレジット・マターTVでは、スタンダード＆プアーズ・レーティング・ジャパンの銀行担当アナリストの根本直子が、2014年のアジア太平洋地域の銀行業界におけるリスク要因や信用力の見通しについて解説する。

The 2014 credit outlook for Asia-Pacific oil and gas sector will largely be stable. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor's Lawrence Lu discusses the key risks and trends for the oil & gas sector in Asia Pacific; the oil companies’ spending plans and the impact to the sector if there is a sharp decline in the oil price.

Standard & Poor’s recently posted a request for comment on its proposed criteria for rating U.S. acute care standalone hospitals. The proposed criteria aim to improve the transparency of our ratings and to provide greater comparability across the public finance sector. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Managing Director Martin Arrick discusses the proposals.

Accounting models used under International Financial Reporting Standards can produce different results for public-private partnership infrastructure transactions. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Director Shripad Joshi explains how some of these models work, the analytical consequences, and the impact on Latin American infrastructure projects.

The U.S. added 203,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in November, an encouraging sign for the economy as the holiday season quickly approaches. Could this upbeat news affect the Fed’s tapering plans? In this segment, Standard & Poor’s U.S. Economist Satyam Panday explains how the situation could play out.

We recently published a request for comment on proposed criteria for rating U.S. not-for-profit acute care standalone hospitals. Our proposals include an enterprise profile to measure a hospital’s operating environment and a financial profile to measure its financial strength. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Director Liz Sweeney explains the four major elements of the enterprise profile and its importance in the ratings process.

We recently published a request for comment on proposed criteria for rating U.S. not-for-profit acute care standalone hospitals. Our proposals include an enterprise profile to measure a hospital’s operating environment and a financial profile to measure its financial strength. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Managing Director Martin Arrick explains the four major elements of the financial profile.

Media and entertainment, high technology, and consumer products sectors are the weakest sectors in the U.S. Among other things, these sectors have experienced more downgrades than upgrades by far. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor’s Associate Director Gregg Moskowitz explains the key trends and data points.

Issuance in the European leveraged finance market is booming for both high-yield bonds and loans, driven in part by a renaissance of the collateralized loan obligation (CLO) market. In this edition of Inside Credit, Standard & Poor's credit analysts Taron Wade, David Gillmor and Matthew Jones discuss these issuance trends, the new vintage of CLOs and dividend recapitalizations.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services recently assigned the senior unsecured debt of Muskrat Falls/Labrador Transmission Assets Funding Trust and the Labrador-Island Link Funding Trust its preliminary ‘AAA’ rating. In this CreditMatters TV video, Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Stephen Goltz explains that the guarantee from the Government of Canada led to the highest rating possible for the debt, which is funding parts of the Lower Churchill Project.

In this Asia-Pacific Economic Update, Paul Gruenwald, Standard & Poor’s Asia-Pacific Chief Economist, discusses his views on growth, risks, and what to watch for Asia-Pacific in 2014.

There is a broad-based improvement in economic conditions in EMEA, according to the Standard & Poor’s Credit Conditions Committee . In this CreditMatters TV, Lapo Guadagnuolo Chief Credit Officer and Chair of the Credit Condition Committee discusses the main factors behind this change, but also highlights that ratings still maintain a negative bias in almost all rated sectors.

Standard & Poor's analysts discuss key topics in the Nordic banking sector. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Associate Director Sean Cotten and Associate Alexander Ekbom focus on risks in the Nordic banking sectors’ from household indebtedness, trends in asset prices and differences in competitiveness across the region.