Year-to-date US high yield corporate rating downgrades accumulated to more than 475 – even surpassing the previous crisis in 2008. The up-/downgrade ratio (proportion of upgrades among total rating actions of Moody’s and S&P) marked a low of 0.16 in Q2 2020 and the accumulated YTD ratio reached 0.25, a similar low level as experienced during the DotCom-Bubble burst.
Since Q3 2020, rating actions are normalizing and in October 2020 the overall downgrades shrank to only 26 issuers, which is ~90% lower compared to Q2 2020 with 208 downgrades.
