Talk:Distressed securities

message: Can anyone provide a reference to the statement that distressed credit instruments provide higher yields than their riskyness warrants? Zain Ebrahim 11:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yields 

message: I cleaned up a few things here and there; mostly cosmetics. I do, however, see at least 2 things that need to be cited and/or rewarded. Perhaps, most troubling is the following sentence:
Historically, distressed securities have traded at deep discounts to a rational assessment of their risk-adjusted value <...> This has led to above average returns (adjusted for risk) from investors in this asset class.
One can certainly make an argument that much of stressed/distressed/defaulted debt trades at a discount to its "intrinsic value" and many active players in the market have produced notorious risk-adjusted returns. However, when one looks at some broad market proxies (Altman-Salomon index is one; I think Merrill Lynch have an index of their own too), the picture is not particularly rosy. Altman's numbers (I linked to the report in the article) imply an abysmally low Sharpe ratio. And what are these "average returns" anyway that the author claims distressed securities beat?
Secondly, is there any data available on the capital raised in this space in recent years? I certainly catch a lot of hearsay, but I have yet to see some hard numbers. Index capitalization doesn't cut it - since we just entered what appears to be a vicious credit cycle, spreads haven't yet widened tremendously and corporate credit hasn't started defaulting in massive amounts like in 2002. The actual "market" now is actually smaller than it was in, say, '98... Agorboun 03:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some citations are needed 

message: Why is this article called Distressed Securities which is limited subset of Distressed Debt? Distressed debt which consists of junk bonds, as well as distressed securities and any other distressed asset, is not limited to "securities"... This article really needs to be enlarged to encompass a genuine financial topic rather than this esoteric article... Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Should be Retitled

message: I propose that vulture fund be merged and redirected into distressed securities. Merging the vulture fund page with distressed securities will not make the new page too long nor will any material be lost in transition. Rather the being too long, the proposed merge will properly expand the distressed securities page to include other types of distressed debt mentioned by Stevenmitchell in the above comment, and discussed on the vulture fund talk page. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 00:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: isn't this article about a type of debt and the other one about a type of investment fund? Considering that, I cannot see the purpose of the merge. In fact, wouldn't it be better to merge this article about the specialized concept of distressed securities into the more widely recognizable term (and more likely to be looked up by readers) of vulture fund? --Langus (t) 17:42, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

text: I've expanded my thoughts at Talk:Vulture_fund#Proposal_to_move/merge_page. --Langus (t) 18:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: A pejorative should not be used as the title of an article as per WP:POVNAME, which states that we should avoid titles as "colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious." Another alternative is to move the vulture fund page to distressed equity fund as Melody Lavendar suggested. The terms are quite synonymous and "distressed equity fund" would be a much more neutral and encyclopedic title. I still also support a redirect from vulture fund to distressed securities. Meatsgains (talk) 16:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be the way to go IMO. --Langus (t) 01:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I can agree with that as well, I think moving it to a page with a non-pjorative title would be more appropriate, and I see where you are coming from in your argument, Langus. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 14:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal

message: I propose that distressed securities fund be merged into distressed securities. Most of the content in the distressed securities fund article overlaps with the content in the distressed securities page. A merge between the two pages will create one, concise, detailed article rather than having two separate articles sharing similar content. Because most of the content overlaps, a merge will not make the distressed securities article too long or cause any issues. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 14:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: *Comment - I simply don't understand this argument.  In particular I don't understand the claim that "distressed securities" are "a type of industry", when in reality they are a type of security, in which distressed securities funds deal.  To pursue your apparent analogy, they are much more like petroleum than they are like the petroleum industry. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: *Comment Distressed securities are a "type of industry" as stated here which cites the emergence of the secondary debt market as "the creation of an industry of professional suers of foreign states.” Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 23:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

text: This is becoming surreal.  The actual quote "Modern sovereign debt litigation was born from the rise of the secondary debt market and the attendant opportunities for arbitrage, which, in turn, gave life to an industry of professional suers of foreign states" makes crystal clear that the industry is formed by the distressed securities funds, not the distressed securities themselves.  Once again I simply don't understand your argument which makes no sense at all. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 03:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Wragge Would you support adding a “Distressed securities fund" subsection to the distressed securities page? This could be an acceptable merge.Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 23:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that a "DSF" subsection on a "DS" page would control duplications/forks, and that it might make sense if the merged article can define "DS" very tightly, though this is a bigger topic... For example, see the Category error? remark below. What will the merged article define as a "Distressed security"? If it continues to define "DS" as any security with a high credit spread then it's a very big topic that would benefit from having multiple articles. But if the page is specifically about the business & nature of securities from issuers that have already filed or are in legal condition of default then perhaps a single page would be best. Wragge (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger proposal