The macroeconomic analysis of corporate bond markets typically is based on aggregate measures of growth, employment, interest rates and monetary policy. The impact of changes of these variables on corporate revenues and cash flows and thus on credit risk depends on financial and operating leverage and on the ratio of earnings or cash flows to [...]
Strategic asset allocation is the first step in the investment process for credit portfolios. At this stage, all analyses are from a top-down perspective. In other words, the medium to long-term outlook for credit quality and the future direction of credit spreads is assessed on an aggregate basis, that is, for the credit market as [...]
Additional features of commercial applications include, for example, time-varying default barriers, continuous monitoring of the default threshold, the use of alternative option pricing models and different assumptions for the behavior of asset values. They typically incorporate short-term and long-term liabilities, convertible debt, preferred equity and common equity, although this substantially enhances complexity of the model. [...]