An Ill Wind Blows For Corporate Debt

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 7, 5:46AM EST

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Forget mortgage problems. The Wall Street Journal says that corporate debt is running into more trouble.

The paper says that "Fitch Ratings says downgrades of corporate bonds rose in the third quarter to $92.1 billion, their highest level in two years." And, junk bond yields are going up, making it harder for companies with less than stellar prospects to raise money.

Perhaps the most gruesome sign of all is that some estimates put the value of "vulture investor" funds above $300 billion. A lot of money to take on controlling all of those troubled companies.

It is yet another sign that a recession may be on the horizon and that things in the rear-view mirror may be closer than they appear.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.