• Another week of significant spread tightening
  • Moody’s set to downgrade a large number of Nordic banks

Headlines from the credit market this week

The tone in the financial markets continues to be very positive and consequently VIX is lower, spreads are tighter and equities are up. The most noteworthy event during the week was the biannual testimony by Ben Bernanke to the US congress and, although he noted that significant challenges remain for the US economy, markets eventually reacted positively to the speech.

Furthermore, data from the US housing market showed signs of stabilisation. Data from FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency) showed that home prices increased by 0.9% m/m in May. In our view, a stabilisation of the US housing market would be a significant positive driver as it would increase downside visibility for the value of the residential collateral banks have. Thereby it could – over time – increase the banks’ willingness to lend to the benefit of the US economy.

The investment grade index, iTraxx Europe, has tightened 12bp compared to last week whereas the high yield index, iTraxx Crossover, has tightened 55bp. The two indices now trade at 95bp and 645bp respectively. Cash spreads in the short end of the curve continue to tighten tremendously, and for the better names among the banks we now see spreads below Euribor. We believe that last month’s one-year repo auction by the ECB, where the banking system was allocated EUR442bn at the benchmark interest rate of 1%, is a key explanation for the strong rally in the short end. Going forward, we consider it likely that investors will move further out on the credit curve in order to pick up additional yield.

Consequently we expect the credit curve to flatten from its current shape. In the primary market we have seen a few deals this week (see table). Fiat came to the market with a deal that was very cheap compared to secondary levels; unsurprisingly the deal was heavily oversubscribed and performed strongly after launch.

Moody's set to downgrade large number of Nordic banks

On Wednesday, Moody’s put the ratings of a large number of Nordic financial institutions on review for possible downgrade. The reason for this action is a change in the agency’s expectation for credit losses in the Nordic region, which were outlined in a recent report. In particular, Moody’s expects asset quality within the corporate sector to develop unfavourably compared to what is factored into current ratings.

Moody’s expects to finalise its reviews in 1-2 weeks and generally the agency expects it to result in downgrades of 1-2 notches. In the table below we have listed the institutions affected by the review.

As can be seen from the table attached, the larger banks currently have Aa1 ratings. Consequently, a 1-2 notch downgrade would still leave them as “Aa” banks. As long as this remains the case we do not think the downgrades by Moody’s will cause substantial negative effects in terms of higher funding costs. For the “second tier” banks that are at risk of moving from the double A class to the single A class, the downgrade could have some effects due to a smaller investor base. However, we do not consider this to be a significant issue.

Furthermore, it should be of no surprise to anybody that credit losses will further increase in the Nordic region in 2009 and 2010. This is probably going to be the rule rather than the exception for banks globally as company defaults and unemployment ratios continue to climb.