Investment-grade downgrades rose to 11 in October, surpassing nine in all of the third quarter. The speculative-grade outlook is improving. Negative bias for issuers 'B-' and below has fallen in nine of the last 10 months and is down nearly six percentage points compared with this time last year. Weakest links continued to fall in October, although 71% were due to defaults or rating withdrawals. U.S. defaults reached 11--their highest monthly count since May 2023.