During the month of May, rating actions among corporate speculative-grade issuers returned to their prior trend of downgrades outpacing upgrades, with a total of 33 downgrades and 24 upgrades. The media, entertainment, and leisure sector experienced the most downgrades followed by the telecommunications sector. The number of issuers downgraded into the 'CCC+' and lower rating category continued to outpace the number of issuers upgraded out of the category (see chart 2). The preliminary trailing 12-month speculative-grade corporate default rate remained elevated above its long-term average of 4.1% at 4.9% as of April 2024. We expect the U.S. trailing-12-month speculative-grade corporate default rate to fall slightly to 4.5% by March 2025 (see chart 7). In April, the positive bias among speculative-grade issuers decreased slightly to 8% from 9% the previous month.