Outlook for Global Credit Markets - Is It a Bubble?

L to R: Professor David R Gallagher, CIFR, Dr Egon Kalotay, Macquarie University and Professor Edward  Altman, NYU Stern School of Business

The Centre for Financial Risk, together with the Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR), held an incredibly successful lunchtime seminar on 19 November, presented by visiting academic Professor Edward Altman from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Prof Altman delivered an important address on a key issue relevant to stability in financial markets. The seminar, Outlook for Global Credit Markets – Is it a Bubble? provided analysis and a detailed overview of evidence that bubble conditions could be forming with important implications for global stability.  He suggested the credit cycle is showing signs of moving towards the end of a benign phase because of a lack of excessive defaults recently.

He considered whether we are now in the midst of an inflating credit bubble, the likelihood and timing of the bubble bursting and whether are now perhaps in an extended period of opportunistic debt refinancing, with close attention needing to be paid to US monetary policy to monitor conditions.

Prof Altman is an international expert on corporate bankruptcy, high yield bonds, distressed debt and credit risk analysis and his views are regularly sought by key participants in financial market stability, including regulators and market practitioners. More than 150 registrations were received for his seminar at Macquarie Applied Finance Centre within days of the event being announced.

His return visit to Macquarie University involved continuing work with Dr Egon Kalotay on their CIFR-funded project on Real Estate Cycles and Bank Systemic Risk. Other CFR members involved with the project include Prof Stefan Trueck and Prof Geoffrey Loudon.

For more information and photographs please visit CIFR’s webpages:

http://www.cifr.edu.au/site/Latest_news/Outlook_for_Global_Credit_Markets.aspx

You can view the photos from the event here:

https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/prosperous-economies/centres/centre-for-financial-risk2/centre-for-financial-risk-old/nested_content/announcements4/more_news3/outlook-for-global-credit-markets