Every number in the briefing is computed by a deterministic engine from public filings — the same inputs always produce the same output. No AI writes the figures, and nothing is guessed.
This page is the engine with the lid off: each signal's exact formula, the thresholds that turn it green, amber or red, the public source it reads, and a worked example. Click any term you don't know through to the glossary.
The risk radar reduces each theme to one of four states. They describe what the data shows this run — nothing more.
Green means no warning sign was found in the inputs Px can see — not that a fund is safe, and not advice. Unknown is a real, deliberate state: when a filing doesn't disclose what a signal needs, Px shows Unknown rather than inventing a number. A parser that finds the disclosure but can't recognise its format also returns Unknown rather than a wrong figure.
Are public credit markets demanding more compensation for risk? Private marks tend to lag this public signal, so it is an early read.
These are policy thresholds Px uses for triage — not regulatory or market-standard cut-offs. They may be revised as the backtest and price history expand.
HY OAS prints 2.74%, falling −0.05 over ~30 days. Below 3.75% and not rising → Green. The note still reminds you green ≠ safe.
Source: FRED — ICE BofA US High-Yield OAS (BAMLH0A0HYM2). Euro and EM HY OAS are tracked alongside for regional context.
Are the funds' own quarter-end marks drifting down? A breadth read across every watched BDC, not a single fund's move.
Why depth as well as breadth: NAV is lagged and model-marked, so a single sharp outlier (shown on its own card) should not flip the whole portfolio red — Red is reserved for erosion that is broad and deep.
NAV/share fell at 11 of 12 watched BDCs → breadth 92%, but the median decline is only −2.5% → Amber, not Red. One fund at −9.9% shows on its card; it does not, alone, turn the portfolio red. A model-marked, quarter-end number, not a live price.
Source: SEC XBRL — NetAssetValuePerShare from each fund's latest periodic filing. Quarterly and lagged by design.
Is the dividend being earned, or paid out of capital? Measured from net investment income (NII), the recurring earnings of a lender.
Two coverages, on purpose. Base annualizes only the latest quarterly declaration, so a one-off special dividend cannot distort it. Total payout sums the trailing twelve months of distributions, catching supplementals and specials. Above 100% means recurring income covers the payout; below means the fund is dipping into capital or gains. The radar flag below runs off base coverage across the funds with comparable XBRL:
A fund earns $0.48 NII/share and declares a $0.44 dividend → coverage 109% → "thin cushion" (amber band). If three of five funds sit in the 90–110% band, the portfolio radar reads Amber.
Source: SEC XBRL — InvestmentCompanyInvestmentIncomeLossPerShare and CommonStockDividendsPerShareDeclared. PIK income reliance (PIK income ÷ total investment income) is parsed from XBRL — InterestIncomeOperatingPaidInKind and related tags — where issuers tag it; PIK portfolio exposure stays Unknown.
How much cushion sits above the legal borrowing limit? BDCs must keep assets at a multiple of their senior debt.
The 1940-Act floor for most BDCs is 1.5×; higher coverage = more cushion. The D/E is derived from coverage and labelled statutory, ex. SBIC on purpose: because the Act lets BDCs exclude SBIC-subsidised and certain other debt from this ratio, it reads healthier than true structural leverage. Full structural D/E — including SBIC and credit facilities — stays Unknown until the facility book is parsed (a Watch Floor upgrade target).
The portfolio radar takes the weakest fund, so the aggregate is never greener than its worst constituent.
Asset coverage 1.72× → Statutory D/E (ex. SBIC) = 1 ÷ (1.72 − 1) = 1.39×. Above the 1.5× floor but below the 1.8× comfort line, so the fund — and any book whose weakest fund sits here — reads Amber on leverage.
Source: SEC XBRL — InvestmentCompanySeniorSecurityIndebtednessAssetCoverageRatio.
How much of the portfolio has stopped paying interest? A hard, backward-looking signal that a credit has gone bad — parsed from 10-Q text for funds whose disclosure format Px has validated.
When a filing reports the non-accrual book in dollars at both cost and fair value, Px computes the true write-down. When it reports only percentages of the portfolio at cost and at fair value (different denominators), Px reports a clearly-labelled divergence proxy, not a markdown. A reading where any leg exceeds 30% of the portfolio is treated as a format misread and returned as Unknown rather than published. This guard exists because a parser that accidentally reads the wrong table can produce impossible-looking percentages — Px would rather return Unknown than publish a dramatic but wrong number.
A fund carries 4.2% of portfolio fair value on non-accrual. The filing gives the dollar book at cost $310M and fair value $210M → markdown = (1 − 210 ÷ 310) × 100 ≈ 32% already taken on those names. If only percentages were disclosed, Px would show the divergence proxy instead and say so.
Source: SEC 10-Q / 10-K text, validated per-issuer parsers. Coverage is shown honestly on the briefing's scorecard (e.g. 7/12 watched BDCs this run).
Is there a substantive rule change in the private-credit perimeter, or just procedural noise?
Source: SEC releases and rule dockets, impact-weighted so procedural noise doesn't drive the flag.
Px reads the primary public record directly — no scraped secondary reporting, no paywalled text. Each source carries its own cadence and lag, which the briefing states on every figure.
| Source | Feeds | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| SEC XBRL company facts / concepts | NAV/share, NII/share, dividends, asset coverage | Quarterly (filing-driven) |
| SEC 10-Q / 10-K text | Non-accruals (validated issuers) | Quarterly |
| SEC N-PORT | Net assets, holdings count, CLO-tranche concentration | Monthly, lagged |
| FRED | SOFR, US / Euro / EM High-Yield OAS | Daily |
| ECB Data Portal | €STR, AAA-government curve | Daily |
| Bank of England IADB | SONIA, Bank Rate | Daily |
Provenance and the editorial rules — what Px will never do — are set out in How Px is made.
Px alerts do not fire because a ticker moved. They fire when a watched instrument has a new filing or source update and one or more credit signals changes materially. The alert names what changed and why it earned its colour — you read a reason, not a price tick.