Tag Archives: leveraged loans
Measuring Direct Lending: Building Transparency in Private Credit Markets
Direct Lending Has Become a Core Segment of Private Credit Private credit has expanded in recent years, with the market reaching an estimated USD 2.28 trillion at year-end 2025 and projected to grow to approximately USD 4.5 trillion by 2030.1 Within this expansion, direct lending has emerged as the dominant strategy, reshaping how companies access…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Exploring an Index-Based Path to Leveraged Loans
What’s the role of indices in the fast-growing leveraged loans market? S&P DJI’s Frans Scheepers and State Street Investment Management’s Marcel Benjamin explore how indexing works for leveraged loans and take a closer look at the S&P USD Select Leveraged Loan Index.
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Fixed Income
- Other Tags
The S&P USD Select Leveraged Loan Index: A Comprehensive Approach to the Leveraged Loan Market
The S&P USD Select Leveraged Loan Index is a new entrant in the leveraged loan landscape, developed to fill a critical gap in existing liquid leveraged loan index offerings that typically focus on the largest loans by market capitalization. This innovative index encompasses all USD-denominated fully funded term loans with a minimum facility size of…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Understanding and Tracking Leveraged Loans
How are benchmarks like the S&P UBS Leveraged Loan Index and S&P UBS Western European Leveraged Loan Index helping bring transparency to one of the largest fixed income markets? Take a fundamental look at leveraged loans with Marco Pouw, S&P DJI’s Director of Fixed Income Indices.
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Looking at Trends in the S&P UBS Leveraged Loan Index
Leveraged loans are playing an increasingly prominent role within the high yield landscape, with data from S&P Dow Jones Indices showing that the U.S. leveraged loan market has grown from nearly USD 400 million to USD 1.5 trillion over the last decade.1 The expansion of the broader loan ecosystem has naturally increased the importance and…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Full Circle: The Resilience of Leveraged Finance
After Q1 2025 began with positive momentum, Q2 has seen some of the largest bouts of volatility in the recent past. The April 2 tariff announcements sent markets on a series of extraordinary swings. On April 8, the S&P 500® was down 15% YTD and VIX® spiked to 52.33.1 However, positive trade developments that followed…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Navigating Private Credit Liquidity Challenges with Indices
What’s driving insurance companies’ increased allocation to private credit? S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Lynn Bachstetter joins S&P DJI’s Frans Scheepers and State Street Global Advisors’ Bill Ahmuty to explore how indices like the iBoxx Liquid Leveraged Loan Index are helping insurers identify and navigate liquidity challenges in private credit markets.
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Leveraged Loan Market – Growing but Lower Protection?
In a prior blog,[1] we highlighted the return profile and yield of the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index. We showed that carry is the dominant driver of returns. In this follow-up post, we review additional characteristics of the senior loan market and its evolution in recent years. The leveraged loan deal size has increased…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Leveraged Loans in a Rising Rate Environment – Carry Factor Dominates
Since the end of 2015, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised the policy rate eight times to currently 2.0%-2.25%. The minutes of the recent September FOMC meeting reiterated the committee’s positive growth outlook and confidence on 2% inflation. Market players continued to catch up on pricing future Fed hikes. Currently the market is implying approximately…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Fixed Income
- Other Tags
Leveraged Loans Over High-Yield Bonds
As of July 5, 2018, the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index returned 2% YTD, compared with the S&P U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Index’s return of -0.29%. In 2018, U.S. high-yield performance has experienced two rather sizeable negative returns—back-to-back declines in February (-1.05%) and March (-0.45%)—followed by a turnaround in April (see Exhibit 1)….
- Categories Fixed Income
- Other Tags