Debt Market Suffering "Quiet Meltdown" As Billions In Loans Are Suddenly Crashing

The exponential growth in the leveraged loan market, in the last several years, created an enormous excess accumulation of sub-investment grade loans that are a ticking time bomb when the next recession strikes.

Late last year, leveraged loan markets froze, for at least a month, as Treasury yields dropped, due to the increasing threat of a global recession. An abundance of fake trade news and central bank easing throughout 2019 saved Wall Street and reopened the leveraged loan market earlier in the year, but it seems that cracks are starting to develop again with recession threats building for 2020. 

Bloomberg reports that 50 companies that have at least $40 billion of loans have lost about ten percentage points of face value in the last three months. 

An exodus of investors has been seen in the leveraged loan market late-summer into early fall as liquidity dries up. It's mostly due to Treasury yields sinking, and end of cycle fears increasing, as a recession could emerge next year.

Some of the hardest-hit companies in the loan space in the last three months have been Amneal Pharmaceuticals, whose $2.7 billion loan due 2025 plunged about 80 cents on the dollar, and Seadrill Operating whose $2.6 billion loan maturing in 2021 only commands 53 cents on the dollar, said Bloomberg.

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