Here's a snapshot of Moody's newest investor publication, "Bottom Rung".
“Tight credit markets and the global economic downturn are rapidly swelling the population of U.S. companies with high default risk and weak liquidity. The Bottom Rung, a new Moody’s database and quarterly publication, captures and comments on these low-rated companies.”
March 10th marked the inaugural debut of Moody’s newest ratings publication by its Global Credit Research Division, listing Moody’s lowest-rated U.S. non-financial speculative grade companies. The announcement of this new quarterly given by the rating agency gives investors another valuable tool as we continue buckling down for this economic long haul. Davis Keisman, Senior Vice-President at Moody’s, reported, “Even as the overall number of speculative-grade companies increases, the percentage in the Bottom Rung continues to rise sharply as well. The expansion of this low-rated tier reflects wide-ranging stress in corporate credit markets and the pronounced effects of the global economic slowdown.” Moody’s speculates that the trailing 12 month default rate for all U.S. speculative-grade issuers will reach 14.5% in November 2009 compared with the actual default rate of 4.4% at the end of 2008.
The Bottom Rung considers 283 companies for the first quarter of 2009 currently “at risk” of default, carrying an additional 73 from last quarter’s figures. The publication also places Media, Automotive, Retail and Manufacturing industries as its top four industries for speculative-grade distress. For the full listing of “Bottom Rung” companies, updated monthly, click the following link: http://www.moodys.com/BottomRung
