The U.S. distress ratio widened to 8.5% as of Oct. 15, 2019, from 7.6% on Sept. 16, with the oil & gas sector seeing the sharpest rise since last year, according to an S&P Global Ratings report on Monday.

Eight sectors' distress ratios widened in this period. The oil & gas sector leads with 54 distressed credits and a distress ratio of 35%, more than double the ratio at this point last year (8.7%) and four times that of the overall U.S. level of distress.

In addition to oil & gas, the telecommunications, retail and restaurants, and health care sectors have distress ratios above the overall U.S. distress ratio. These sectors together cover almost 68% of all U.S. distressed credits.

Both the oil & gas five-year credit spread and the CCC spread have widened in recent months.

The U.S. CCC composite spread rose to 1,067 bps as of Oct. 15, 2019, from 909 bps on May 31.

The oil & gas speculative-grade spread has jumped to 876 bps as of Oct. 15, from 449 bps a year prior, according to S&P Global.

In terms of the default rate, the U.S. energy and natural resources sector default rate has increased to 9.3% as of October 2019, its highest since 9.6% in April 2018.

Meanwhile, the U.S. 12-month trailing speculative-grade corporate default rate has widened to 2.8% as of September 2019, a 15-month high. This rate is expected to increase to 3.4% by June 2020.

The distress ratio is defined as the proportion of speculative-grade issues with option-adjusted composite spreads of more than 1,000 bps relative to U.S. Treasuries.