Junk-bond trader Michael Milken was indicted in an insider-trading investigation but pleaded guilty to other charges.

WSJ: Gupta Found Guilty of Insider Trading

There must be a lot of investors--or credit speculators--who are cavalier about corporate defaults because junk bonds are trading at yields only modestly higher than the yields on safe U.S. Treasury bonds.

FORBES: A Dangerous Game

GSE-backed securities above the levels where even junk bonds were trading before the crisis.

ECONOMIST: Reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Mr Pitt succeeded then in shifting the focus of a far-reaching probe into insider trading away from his client and on to Michael Milken, the founding father of the junk-bond market.

ECONOMIST: Face value

GM's bonds are already trading at junk prices, even though the ratings agencies persist, oddly, in regarding them as investment-grade.

ECONOMIST: Detroit's finest are in dire straits

Six months ago, Marubeni, a Japanese trading company whose bonds are rated as junk by Moody's, a rating agency, paid investors 6-7 percentage points more than top-quality borrowers.

ECONOMIST: Slow financial starvation