Credit-Spread Behavior Throughout the Crisis

Manuel Rueda

Credit spreads widened substantially after the onset of the coronavirus crisis, but not all issuers were affected equally. Issuers from regions such as Latin America were hit particularly hard, while those in Japan were impacted less.

Source: MSCI issuer curves. Spread levels are calculated as the market-cap-weighted averages of the 5-year spread of issuers in the group. Bubble sizes are proportional to the total outstanding of the groups.