The debt-ceiling debate has heated up in Congress, and the U.S. government’s ability to borrow could be exhausted sometime between July and September. But what does the market for credit-default swaps say about the likelihood of U.S. default?

Russian bond market losses have cut deep. Still, certain sectors fared better than others. The question now is how trade policy and sanctions may be shifting, and whether there may be greater impact on sectors that have shown relative strength.

Do high-yield and investment-grade bonds carry the same level of risk? For investors using common measures like value-at-risk models, IG- and HY-bond portfolios’ risk levels appear to have converged. But traditional models may miss important aspects of HY risk.

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, credit markets deteriorated under the stress of a sharply diminished economic outlook. We analyze three indicators of credit-market conditions: default risk, relative value and contagion risk.

The Basel committee’s revised market-risk capital requirements contain a small surprise with potentially big implications. Cliff effects remain in the framework.