In our last enhancement of the Credit Quality Map, we offered a separate map representing credit quality trends across geographies and industries. Which prompted the question: Could we not create a single, composite map? Yes, we can! And here its is.
Our original post with the Credit Quality Map prompted a simple question: Could we also provide some information about the trend underlying each cell? With arguably the most comprehensive database of business defaults at our disposal, the answer is “yes”.
Each month, in Taking the Pulse, we report State and Industry sector variations in default rate. The high-resolution database underlying WAIN Street’s Business Default Index affords us a unique opportunity to understand geographic and industry sector credit quality variations in greater detail.
As we reported for Q4 2013, US businesses closed 2013 with the lowest default rate in four years. We mined what is arguably the most comprehensive database of firm-level defaults—the database underlying WAIN Street’s Business Default Index—to get a better sense of business credit quality trends from before the start of the Great Recession.
