Borrowers across all asset classes will need to adjust to restrictive financing conditions and softer economic growth. Borrowers have reduced their near-term maturities, though the share of speculative-grade debt coming due rises significantly in 2025, making 2024 a pivotal year. We expect the U.S. trailing-12-month speculative-grade corporate default rate will reach 5.0% by September 2024. In 2023, there were 96 U.S. and Canadian defaults, which lifted the default rate (4.4%) above its long-term average (4.1%). Negative bias for speculative-grade issuers has increased from 19% in Dec. 2022 to 24% in Dec. 2023.