A lot can change in a month. While many of us grapple with the new daily regime of lockdowns, remote working, home schooling and scouring the shops for that last fabled toilet roll, it’s worth taking a moment to review what has happened to credit markets over the past few weeks.
Even in social isolation, one would be hard pressed to miss news headlines reporting the sell off in equities and…
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Emerging markets have recently seen other impacts than the tragic ones of COVID-19 outbreaks on their societies and economies, with spreads widening considerably. Three factors have been at play. First, was a rapid sell-off in global stock markets that followed the realisation that the global economy is heading for a recession. Second, investors shifted to intense risk aversion and the demand …
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Whenever there is the threat or the reality of recession, it usually follows a typical pattern. It is engendered by tight financial conditions, a real or market bubble bursting, a dramatic rise in the price of oil, or a combination of the above. This time it is different: a stay at home recession.
The 2020 economic slowdown isn’t due to any of the usual suspects, namely the US Treasury …
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Last week I interviewed Philip Coggan, the Economist journalist who writes the Bartleby column. His new book, “More: The 10,000 Year Rise of the World Economy” is out now, and it’s essential reading for anyone at all interested in the development of the global economy from the caveman through to the tech giants of today. One review of the book I read suggested it was a 21st century update to A…
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By Claudia Calich, Gregory Smith and Eldar Vakhitov
Market expectations of global oil prices have shifted several times already in 2020. The year started with short-lived scenarios of potentially higher prices, as tensions between the USA and Iran dominated the headlines. However, as COVID-19 tragically spread, the virus put a clear dent into expectations about global growth. Curfews and ef…
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It’s been a rough two weeks in bond markets, to say the very least. Risk-off sentiment is reigning supreme. In Europe, looking at my screens this morning, iTraxx Xover—a bellwether of European high yield credit risk—jumped to its widest level since mid-2013, while the yield on 10yr German Bunds dropped to an all-time low below -0.8%.
In previous times of market turmoil, the European Cen…
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This week has seen risk-off sentiment back with a vengeance as the Coronavirus outbreak dominates news headlines globally. Thus, investors are flocking to historically safe assets like low beta currencies, government bonds or investment grade corporate bonds with low default risks. However, can Japanese assets like the yen, nominal government bonds (JGBs) and inflation-linked government bonds …
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Emerging market (EM) banks appear to be a defensive asset class – who’d have thought it? It certainly goes against everything we learned in the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Surely banks are pro-cyclical beasts whose performance surges in times of economic plenty and struggles in more recessionary periods? In the world of Emerging Markets credit, however, things seem different. At least for se…
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We started 2019 with credit at levels we perceived to be pretty cheap. The run since then has been remarkable, with spreads today close to all-time lows. What should one be doing with credit risk at this point?
There are reasons to remain bullish on credit, and fully invested. First, we remain in a goldilocks economic environment for bonds, with low growth and low inflation. These economic …
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With European media outlets focusing on the coronavirus and storm Ciara this week, only little attention was given to the Irish general election held on Saturday. Undeservedly so, I’d argue, considering that the election results mark a seismic shift in Irish politics. The surge of Sinn Féin, winning 24.5% of the first-preference vote, de facto ended the two-party dominance of Fine Gael (20.9%)…
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