Five defaults last week brought this year's total to 138, which is 1.8x higher than over the same period last year. Amid wide-ranging uncertainty, S&P Global Ratings expects the speculative-grade default rate to increase to 5.00% and 3.75%, for the U.S. and Europe, respectively, by September 2024. This week will be rather calm on the data front, with Thanksgiving holidays in the U.S. and minimal data from China and Japan. A global suite of flash PMI data for November will probably be this week's main point of interest, alongside CPI data for Canada and Japan and PPI for Germany.