Asian Liquidity Stress Index declines to 21.8% in February: Moody's

Moody's Investors Service says that its Asian Liquidity Stress Index declined to 21.8% in February from 22.6% in January.

The index rose as the net number of rated high-yield companies with Moody's weakest speculative-grade liquidity (SGL-4) scores decreased to 27 from 28 and the number of rated high-yield companies remained at 124.

"The index -- which decreases when speculative-grade liquidity appears to improve -- 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 now positioned right between the index's long-term rolling average of 20.3% and its trailing 12-month average of 22.3%," adds Grieser, who was speaking on the release of Moody's latest report on the index, entitled "Asian Liquidity Stress Index."

The liquidity sub-index for Chinese speculative-grade companies decreased to 25.0% from 26.6% as the number of Chinese companies with SGL-4 scores decreased to 16 from 17.

China's high-yield property sub-index dropped to 17.9% from 20.5%, while the Chinese high-yield industrial sub-index remained at 36.0%.

At the same time, the Indonesian sub-index remained at 8.7% as the number of Indonesian companies with an SGL-4 score remained at two.

Finally, our downgrade/upgrade ratio stood at 5.0x in February which is above the 3.5x recorded in Q4 2014.

Subscribers can access this report via this link: http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBC_179523