Читать книгу The Sterling Bonds and Fixed Income Handbook - Mark Glowrey - Страница 50

As a rule of thumb, the bonds with the least risk of default are the high quality sovereign issuers such as the UK and the larger and wealthier European countries such as France and Germany.

The industry has traditionally considered such assets to be risk free from a default point of view. This type of thinking is perhaps outdated, however the risk of default ^[2] for bonds issued by these countries can be assumed to be low, and lower than the risk from a bank deposit. Ranking alongside these are the Supranationals, these being agencies such as the World Bank and the European Investment Bank which are guaranteed by their sovereign members.

Second to this are the second-line countries, and those experiencing some economic difficulty. Here I would give Italy and Japan as two examples. While these countries do not have the economic strength of some of their peers, it is fair to say that they have a lower risk of default. This type of debt should not be confused with emerging market bonds, which historically have carried a much higher degree of risk. Recent events have propelled some of the more marginal sovereign credits into the spotlight, with bonds issued by Greece and Ireland trading wildly in the markets as investors consider the likely outcome of these countries’ dire financial situation. It is likely that there will be some instances of at least partial default, and the creditworthiness of second-tier sovereign debt re-evaluated accordingly.