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I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop writes:

Z-spreads tightened for 65% of bonds in the BEV universe in July, with z-spreads for high-yield bonds tightening by an average of 71 basis points. In contrast, z-spreads for investment grade bonds tightened by an average of 26 basis points.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.

Edit: a few weeks after I wrote th above, I wanted to add two observations.

1 Suppose you have a corporate bond issue, and some bonds denominated in hard currency (USD or EUR) with low risk-free interest rate, and some more bonds denominated in local currencies with higher interest rates, like BRL. It's perfectly fine to compare the Z-spreads of USD and EUR bonds, but Z-spread over the DI curve (Brazil's version of swap curve) is like apples and oranges. Comparing the bonds' cross-currency asset swap spreads when swapping everything into USD or EUR gives a clearer picture than Z-spreads.

2 When people trade bond options, most of the time the strike is the bond's the clean price. But you can do anything OTC, and when people do want the strike to be a spread, it is usually an asset swap spread.

I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop writes:

Z-spreads tightened for 65% of bonds in the BEV universe in July, with z-spreads for high-yield bonds tightening by an average of 71 basis points. In contrast, z-spreads for investment grade bonds tightened by an average of 26 basis points.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.

Edit: a few weeks after I wrote the above, I wanted to add two observations.

1 Suppose you have a corporate bond issuer, and some bonds are denominated in hard currency (USD or EUR) with low risk-free interest rate, and some more bonds are denominated in local currencies with higher interest rates, like BRL. It's perfectly fine to compare the Z-spreads of USD and EUR bonds, but Z-spread over the DI curve (Brazil's version of kind-of swap curve) is like comparing apples and oranges. However, comparing the bonds' cross-currency asset swap spreads when swapping everything into USD or EUR gives a clearer picture than Z-spreads.

2 When people trade bond options, most of the time the strike is the bond's the clean price. But you can do anything OTC, and when people do want the strike to be some spread, they often choose asset swap spread.

I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop writes:

Z-spreads tightened for 65% of bonds in the BEV universe in July, with z-spreads for high-yield bonds tightening by an average of 71 basis points. In contrast, z-spreads for investment grade bonds tightened by an average of 26 basis points.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.

I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop writes:

Z-spreads tightened for 65% of bonds in the BEV universe in July, with z-spreads for high-yield bonds tightening by an average of 71 basis points. In contrast, z-spreads for investment grade bonds tightened by an average of 26 basis points.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.

Edit: a few weeks after I wrote th above, I wanted to add two observations.

1 Suppose you have a corporate bond issue, and some bonds denominated in hard currency (USD or EUR) with low risk-free interest rate, and some more bonds denominated in local currencies with higher interest rates, like BRL. It's perfectly fine to compare the Z-spreads of USD and EUR bonds, but Z-spread over the DI curve (Brazil's version of swap curve) is like apples and oranges. Comparing the bonds' cross-currency asset swap spreads when swapping everything into USD or EUR gives a clearer picture than Z-spreads.

2 When people trade bond options, most of the time the strike is the bond's the clean price. But you can do anything OTC, and when people do want the strike to be a spread, it is usually an asset swap spread.

I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.

I feel that it depends on who's writing the research, and on their personal idiosyncratic preferences.

For example, picking a random credit research piece, we see

Asset-swap spreads in the secondary market widened modestly by 1.3bp

and another random piece from the same team:

Asset-swap spreads widened significantly at the beginning of March across different covered bond markets

But another shop writes:

We think that EEMEA credit spreads will likely remain range bound in the near term as overall directionality in credit spreads remains hard to come by. We therefore focus on relative value trades.

And another shop writes:

Z-spreads tightened for 65% of bonds in the BEV universe in July, with z-spreads for high-yield bonds tightening by an average of 71 basis points. In contrast, z-spreads for investment grade bonds tightened by an average of 26 basis points.

And another shop simply writes:

Spreads for short-dated prime auto loan and credit card ABS tightened another 90–100 basis points

Other similar credit research talks about credit spreads, spreads in general (without explicitly saying which spreads), Z-spreads, OAS, spreads to treasury bencmarks, it's all the same information. I don't see what ASW movement conveying any information that others don't.