Risk Assessment
The credit risk associated with a default-able debt instrument can be decomposed into two components: default risk and recovery risk. The former captures the uncertainty related to a possible default while the latter reflects the uncertainty related to recovery in the case of default.
Default risk can be analyzed from various perspectives. One of these perspectives is provided by the rating approach, in which default risk is quantified by means of a credit rating. These credit ratings are assigned by rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s, and Fitch, and the ratings assigned by these agencies are widely used as default risk indicators by market participants.
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