OREANDA-NEWS. January 26, 2016. European chemical companies' five-year Credit Default Swaps (CDS) widened over 18% on average last week, underperforming the 11% widening observed for the overall region, according to Fitch Solutions in its latest case study.

Solvay SA, Lanxess AG and Clariant AG led the widening with CDS spreads 52%, 48% and 45% wider over the past week, respectively.

"Increased market scrutiny for chemical companies is likely being driven by concerns pertaining to weakened market demand and global oversupply amid lower prices of chemical products," said Diana Allmendinger, Director, Fitch Solutions.

Fitch Solutions case studies build on data from its CDS Pricing Service and proprietary quantitative models, including CDS Implied Ratings. These credit risk indicators are designed to provide real-time, market-based views of creditworthiness. As such, they can and often do reflect more short term market views on factors such as currencies, seasonal market effects and short-term technical influences. This is in contrast to Fitch Ratings' Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs), which are based on forward-looking fundamental credit analysis over an extended period of time.