JPMorgan launches the Credit Navigator
London, April 23, 2003 – JPMorgan announced today the launch of Credit Navigator, a ground-breaking, user-friendly analytical tool designed to identify relative value opportunities in the credit markets.
Credit Navigator was created in response to increasing integration of the credit markets, with market makers and investors alike aggregating the trading of all formats of credit risk into a single risk management system. Credit Navigator provides comprehensive data for over 50 European and U.S. names, enabling investors and active trading accounts to identify the considerable relative value opportunities in credit.
"Credit Navigator is an important step towards increasing transparency in the credit derivative and corporate bond markets, and a crucial tool for identifying relative value and basis trading opportunities," said Marcus Schüler, co-head of JPMorgan’s flow credit derivative marketing business in Europe.
Credit Navigator offers an asset universe and basis history chart for each name, comprising the credit default swap ("CDS") curve, true asset swap spreads for all liquid bonds and a three month basis history of these bonds summarised in a high / low bar. The complete six-month basis history of each bond is also displayed. This comprehensive data offering enables the user to judge both the absolute and relative value of a bond versus other bonds as well as versus CDS, and has already been widely used by JPMorgan’s credit research team.
"From a strategy perspective, the Credit Navigator has proven extremely useful in identifying value for individual credits," said Jakob Due, credit strategist at JPMorgan. "It answers questions such as: 'What is cheaper - cash or synthetic exposure? Should I invest in sterling, euro or dollar denominated bonds? Is the short end or long end of the curve more attractive?' A number of successful trade ideas have already been generated on the back of this tool." Additional features include debt / equity history, CDS curve and curve slope history, and an implied CDS forward matrix.
JPMorgan anticipates interest in Credit Navigator from a broad user base, ranging from hedge funds and proprietary trading desks who actively trade the bond / CDS basis, CDS forwards and debt / equity; to real money investors looking for relative value opportunities from a range of assets with varying maturities; and issuers seeking an overview of how their name trades in the market, in its different formats and currencies.
Restricted to users of JPMorgan’s Orbit web pages, Credit Navigator can be accessed through Morganmarkets, under Tools on the Credit Derivatives homepage, at www.morganmarkets.com.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $755 billion and operations in more than 50 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, asset management, private banking, private equity, custody and transaction services, and retail and middle market financial services. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase is headquartered in New York and serves more than 30 million consumer customers and the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients.