North American high-yield credits trend toward lower ratings

North American companies, representing 68% of Moody's Investors Service's global high-yield universe, had 39% of issuers rated Ba or B1. By contrast, Asia and Latin America had 49% and 77% of their respective universes with ratings at the upper end of the speculative-grade category.

The technology, media, and telecommunications sector represented 19.5% of the U.S. high-yield universe with ratings of B3 negative or lower. Financial services had the next largest portion at 19%.

In the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, the financial services sector accounted for 20.4% of that high-yield subsegment, followed by 14.8% for TMT.