Using dealer’s quotes and transactions prices on straight industrial bonds, we investigate the determinants of credit spread changes. Variables that should in theory determine credit spread changes have rather limited explanatory power. Further, the residuals from this regression are highly cross-correlated, and principal components analysis implies they are mostly driven by a single common factor. Although we consider several macroeconomic and financial variables as candidate proxies, we cannot explain this common systematic component. Our results suggest that monthly credit spread changes are principally driven by local supply0 demand shocks that are independent of both credit-risk factors and standard proxies for liquidity.

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We test the theoretical equivalence of credit default swap (CDS) prices and credit spreads derived by Duffie (1999), finding support for the parity relation as an equilibrium condition. We also find two forms of deviation from parity. First, for three firms, CDS prices are substantially higher than credit spreads for long periods of time, arising from combinations of imperfections in the contract specification of CDSs and measurement errors in computing the credit spread. Second, we find short-lived deviations from parity for all other companies due to a lead for CDS prices over credit spreads in the price discovery process.

Packer, Tony Rodrigues and Paul Schultz. We purchased the bond dealer market transactions data from Capital Access International (CAI). We also thank Chung-Chiang Hsiao for excellent research assistance. The views here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any remaining errors are the authors ’ alone. We examine the determinants of the realized bid-ask spread in the U.S. corporate, municipal and government bond markets for the years 1995 to 1997, based on newly available transactions data. Overall, we find that liquidity is an important determinant of the realized bid-ask spread all three markets. Specifically, in all markets, the realized bid-ask spread decreases in the trading volume. Additionally, risk factors are important in the corporate and municipal markets. In these markets, the bid-ask spread increases in the remaining-time-to-maturity of a bond. The corporate bond spread also increases in credit risk and the age of a bond. The municipal bond spread increases in the after-tax bond yield. Controlling for other factors, the municipal bond spread is higher than the government bond spread by about 9 cents per $100 par value, but the corporate bond spread is not. Consistent with improved pricing transparency, the bid-ask spread in the corporate and municipal bond markets is lower in 1997 by about 7 to 11 cents per $100 par value, relative to the earlier years. Finally, the ten largest corporate bond dealers earn 15 cents per $100 par value higher than the remaining dealers, after controlling for differences in the characteristics of bonds traded by each group. We find no such differences for the government and municipal bond dealers.

We develop a structural bond valuation model to simultaneously capture liquidity and credit risk. Our model implies that renegotiation in financial distress is influenced by the illiquidity of the market for distressed debt. As default becomes more likely, the components of bond yield spreads attributable to illiquidity increase. When we consider finite maturity debt, we find decreasing and convex term structures of liquidity spreads. Using bond price data spanning 15 years, we find evidence of a positive correlation between the illiquidity and default componentsofyieldspreadsaswellassupportfordownward-slopingtermstructuresof liquidity spreads. Credit risk and liquidity risk have long been perceived as two of the main justifications for the existence of yield spreads above benchmark Treasury notes or bonds (see Fisher (1959)). Since Merton (1974), a rapidly growing body of literature has focused on credit risk. 1 However, while concern about market liquidity issues has become increasingly marked since the autumn of 1998, 2 liquidity remains a relatively unexplored topic, in particular, liquidity for defaultable securities. 3 This paper develops a structural bond pricing model with liquidity and credit risk. The purpose is to enhance our understanding of both the interaction between these two sources of risk and their relative contributions to the yield spreads on corporate bonds. Throughout the paper, we define liquidity as the ability to sell a security promptly and at a price close to its value in frictionless markets, that is, we think of an illiquid market as one in which a sizeable discount may have to be incurred to achieve immediacy. We model credit risk in a framework that allows for debt renegotiation as in Fan and Sundaresan (2000). Following François and Morellec (2004), we also introduce

This paper examines the informational efficiency of the institutional and retail sectors of the corporate bond market. While retail trades react quickly to earnings news (within one hour), institutional trades react within the shortest time horizons considered (5 minutes). Further, average daily retail and institutional price levels differ far in excess of transaction costs, suggesting a segmented market. These patterns vary across good and bad news days, consistent with information-based trading. We reconcile previous mixed stock/bond lead-lag conclusions by showing how erroneous inferences may stem from incorrectly ignoring trade size and overnight trades. Inference reversals are obtained when these are accounted for, showing stocks do not necessarily lead bonds. We provide strong evidence that the corporate bond market serves an important venue for information-based trading, especially when the stock market is closed. Surprisingly, investment-grade bonds display quick reactions to firm specific information at short horizons, driven by BBB bonds which anticipate future downgrades.

We use a unique data-set to study liquidity effects in the US corporate bond market, covering more than 30,000 bonds. Our analysis explores time-series and cross-sectional aspects of corporate bond yield spreads, with the main focus being on the quantification of the impact of liquidity factors, while controlling for credit risk. Our time period starts in October 2004 when detailed transaction data from the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) became available. In particular, we examine three different regimes during our sample period, the GM/Ford crisis in 2005 when a segment of the corporate bond market was affected, the sub-prime crisis since mid-2007, which was much more pervasive across the corporate bond market, and the period in between, when market conditions were more normal. We employ a wide range of liquidity measures and find in our time-series analysis that liquidity effects explain approximately one third of market-wide corporate yield spread changes, in general, and are even more pronounced during periods of crisis. In particular, the price dispersion measure proposed by Jankowitsch, Nashikkar and Subrahmanyam (2008) explains about half of the aggregate bond yield spread changes during the sub-prime crisis. Our dataset

Comparing possible proxies of corporate bond liquidity

This paper represents the views and analysis of the authors and should not be thought to represent those of the Bank of England, Monetary Policy Committee members or the Banco de España. Any errors and omissions are the responsibility of the authors. The authors would like to thank Bill Allen, Eva Catarineu, Charles Goodhart, Andrew Haldane, Simon Hayes, Kevin James, David Rule, Hyun Shin, Michela Vecchi, Geoffrey Wood and seminar participants at the Bank of England and Banco de España for useful comments. Karen Goff and Andrew Paterson provided very able research assistance. CreditTrade and J.P. Morgan Securities kindly allowed us to use their credit default swap data. Numerous people at Banc of America Securities, Bloomberg, BNP Paribas, CreditTrade, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan answered our questions and corrected our misunderstandings. They know who they are and that we are very grateful. BANCO DE ESPAÑA SERVICIO DE ESTUDIOSThe Working Paper Series seeks to disseminate original research in economics and finance. All papers have been anonymously refereed. By publishing these papers, the Banco de España aims to contribute to economic analysis and, in particular, to knowledge of the Spanish economy and its international environment. The opinions and analyses in the Working Paper Series are the responsibility of the authors and, therefore, do not necessarily coincide with those of the Banco de España or the Eurosystem. The Banco de España disseminates its main reports and most of its publications via the INTERNET at the following website:

An empirical analysis of the dynamic relationship between investment grade bonds and credit default swaps