2004 A look back

Despite rising commodity prices and concerns over interest rate rises, 2004 saw corporate bond spreads reach unexpected tights. This was also the year that welcomed the launch of a new, unified CDS index: Dow Jones CDX. John Caserta reports

There were many reasons to be anxious about the credit markets in 2004. The year began with concerns that rising interest rates would recreate market conditions of 1994, when investors were caught wrong-footed by interest rates doubling within a year. The derivatives market also began the year in a state of uncertainty, with two competing indices wrangling over what at the time looked like an unlikely merger. But a merger did eventually happen—to universal acclaim—and as the year progressed, the