The rise reflects a net increase of three to 30 in the number of companies with Moody's lowest (weakest) speculative-grade liquidity score (SGL-4) and an increase of two to 123 in the number of companies with a speculative-grade rating.
"The index -- which increases when speculative-grade liquidity appears to decrease -- remains well below the record high of 37.0% reached during the fourth quarter of 2008 amid the global financial crisis," says Annalisa Di Chiara, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Analyst.
The liquidity sub-index for Chinese speculative-grade companies surged to 26.9% in May after holding at 23.1% in March and April.
And the number of high-yield Chinese companies climbed to 67 from 65 in April. Meanwhile, the number with an SGL-4 score rose to 18 from 15.
China's high-yield property sub-index also increased, to 22.0% from 20.5% in March and April, with nine of 41 companies in the sub-sector having SGL-4 scores.
The Indonesian sub-index was unchanged from April's reading of 7.7% as the number of speculative-grade companies remained at 26 and the number of those with an SGL-4 score was unchanged at two.
The Australian index, which doesn't factor into the Asian Liquidity Stress Index, continued the downward trend seen since the start of the year.
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It dipped to 15.8% in May from 16.7% in April as the number of companies with an SGL-4 score remained at three and the net number of speculative-grade Australian companies rose by one to 19.
Moody's had assigned speculative-grade ratings to 123 issuers in Asia (excluding Japan and Australia) covering $67.5 billion of rated debt by end-May, versus 121 issuers and $65.5 billion of rated debt in April.
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