Moody’s Investors Service reports that the global speculative-grade default rate remained at a very low level in April.

In April, the 12-month issuer-weighted global speculative-grade default rate edged up to 1.5%, from 1.4% in March, but remained lower than the 1.6% level it reached a year ago.

Moody’s default rate forecasting model predicts that the global default rate will increase to 2.4% by the end of 2007 and then climb further to 3.4% by the end of April 2008.

“Default rates remain low due to a continuation of the benign economic conditions and ample liquidity, which have allowed distressed and lowly-rated credits avoid default,” says Moody’s director of corporate default research Kenneth Emery.

In April, there was just one Moody’s-rated bond defaulter. So far in 2007, four Moody’s-rated debt bond issuers have defaulted on US$2 billion in bonds. Three of these issuers are based in the U.S., with the fourth in Italy.

On a dollar-volume basis, the speculative-grade global bond default rate remained unchanged at 1.0% from March to April. This rate is down slightly from its 1.1% level at the start of the year. A year ago, the dollar-weighted global bond default rate was much higher at 4.2%.

There were no Moody’s-rated syndicated loan defaults in April. From March to April, the rolling 12-month issuer-weighted loan default rate remained unchanged at 0.4%.