Fitch Releases U.S. Corporate Bond Market Third Quarter Review.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- The par value of U.S. corporate bonds affected by upgrades totaled $32.6 billion in the third quarter, or 1.0% of market volume, while downgrades totaled $70.5 billion, or 2.2% of outstanding U.S. corporate bonds -- double the rate of upgrades, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. . Rating changes were generally small both on the upside Upside The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise. Notes: This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future. See also: Bull, Downside and the downside Downside The dollar amount by which the market or a stock has the potential to fall. Notes: You might hear someone say that the downside on stock XYZ is $10. What that means is that the stock could fall by this amount if things got bad. across the investment grade rating categories, with the exception of 'BBB' downgrades, which affected nearly 2% of the category's bonds. At the speculative grade level, upgrades in the third quarter totaled $17.7 billion while downgrades moved dramatically up to $52.9 billion, a quarterly level not seen since the recession. The negative speculative grade rating results were due mostly to downgrades of Ford Motor Company (Ford). On a quarter-over-quarter basis, issuance was down across both the industrial and financial sectors. 'Investment grade issuance was down quarter over quarter but continued to run ahead of 2005 activity. In contrast, speculative grade bond issuance was down quarter over quarter and year-over-year. The heated pace of leveraged loan issuance continued to dampen high yield bond deal volume' said Paul Paul, 1901–64, king of the Hellenes (1947–64), brother and successor of George II. He married (1938) Princess Frederika of Brunswick. During Paul's reign Greece followed a pro-Western policy, and the Cyprus question was temporarily resolved. Mancuso, Senior Director, Credit Market Research. Sectors experiencing year-over-year declines in issuance included, among others, building and materials, gaming, lodging Lodging or holiday accommodation is a type of accommodation. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging mainly for sleeping. Other purposes are safety, shelter from cold and rain, having a place to store luggage and being able to take a & restaurants, retail, paper and forest products, consumer products, and insurance. Industrial companies continued to strongly favor long term issuance with nearly 60% of new bond sales carrying maturities of 10 years or longer in the third quarter. The share of industrial new issuance with maturities of five years or less saw a small increase, growing from 3.3% to 5.8% of total issuance in the third quarter - the bulk of the shorter term bonds consisted of floating rate bonds. The median fixed coupon of new issues fell across all rating categories except the 'B' and 'CCC - C' pools, perhaps an indicator that the market's risk appetite is finally being tested with the significant number of aggressive deals coming to market, especially those supporting LBOs. When examining the market's rating mix across the pool of industrial bonds, the share of bonds rated speculative grade totaled 32% of market volume at the end of the third quarter, a level above its pre-recession level of 26%. 'The move down the rating scale among U.S. industrials, at first due mostly to the impact of fallen angels suffering from operating shortfalls, has continued unabated un·a·bat·ed adj. Sustaining an original intensity or maintaining full force with no decrease: an unabated windstorm; a battle fought with unabated violence. in 2006 as management's focus has continued to shift from balance sheet management to shareholder friendly transactions such as LBOs, M&A and share buybacks' said Mariarosa Verde, Managing Director of Credit Market Research. Due to strong credit availability, the lowest rated issuers appear to have been successful in pushing out bond maturities. While a positive in terms of near term bond refinancing risk In banking and finance, refinancing risk is the possibility that a borrower cannot refinance by borrowing to repay existing debt. Many types of commercial lending incorporate bullet payments at the point of final maturity; often, the intention or assumption is that the borrower , strong issuance volumes in the leveraged loan market suggest that many high yield borrowers have simply shifted their funding from the bond to the loan market and refinancing risk may be more of a concern on maturing loan balances rather than bonds. The new report is titled 'U.S. Corporate Bond Market: Third Quarter 2006 Review' and includes a detailed look at rating activity, issuance patterns and bond maturities through the first nine months of 2006 for both the investment grade and speculative grade portions of the market and by industry. The new report is available on the Fitch Ratings web site at www.fitchratings.com under the 'Credit Market Research' link. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. 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