Moody's: Asian Liquidity Stress Index rises to 24.0% in March

Moody's Investors Service says that its Asian Liquidity Stress Index rose to 24.0% in March from 21.8% in February.

The index rose as the net number of rated high-yield companies with Moody's weakest speculative-grade liquidity (SGL-4) scores increased to 30 from 27 and the number of rated high-yield companies increased to 125 from 124.

"The index -which increases when speculative-grade liquidity appears to decrease -- remains well below the record high of 37.0% reached during the 4Q 2008, amid the global financial crisis," says Brian Grieser, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Analyst.

"It is a bit above the index's long-term rolling average of 20.4% and its trailing 12-month average of 22.5%," adds Grieser.

The liquidity sub-index for Chinese speculative-grade companies increased to 26.6% from 25.0% as the number of Chinese companies with SGL-4 scores increased to 17 from 16 and the total number of high-yield Chinese companies remained at 64.

China's high-yield property sub-index rose to 20.5% from 17.9%, while the Chinese high-yield industrial sub-index remained at 36.0% as the number of industrial issuers remained at 25.

At the same time, the Indonesian sub-index rose to 9.1% from 8.7% as the number of Indonesian companies with an SGL-4 score remained at two and the total number of high-yield Indonesian companies decreased by one to 22.

Finally, our downgrade/upgrade ratio rose to 4.7x in Q1 2015, which is above the 3.5x recorded in Q4 2014.

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