Finance leaders of the companies tracked by S&P have been increasingly turning to the courts for bankruptcy protection since 2022 when interest rates began to rise as the Federal Reserve sought to combat inflation. They’ve risen from 373 in 2022 to 634 in 2023, touching 688 last year.

So far this year, the distress has been concentrated in industrial and so-called consumer discretionary companies which accounted for a combined 107 bankruptcies, followed by healthcare firms (27) and corporations in the consumer staples sector (19). READ MORE