Fixed-income market changes require credit risk applications

BOSTON – Increasing volatility in the global bond markets has highlighted the need for more quantitative methods for measuring investment managers' credit risk exposures.

According to two recent reports issued by Boston consultancy TowerGroup – Credit Risk: How Risky Are Investment Manager Paradigms? and Asset Managers and Credit Risk: It's Time to Add Another Tool to the Toolbox – a combination of soaring default rates, bond spread volatility, and corporate bond downgrades in recent years –