fixed income
At the European Investment Conference, Jochen Felsenheimer of XAIA Investments explained that high yield was no place for long-only buy and hold investors. But is any investment safe from financial Armageddon?
Steven Major, CFA, global head of fixed-income research at HSBC, explained that a year ago his team was criticised for predicting long term government yields 1% lower than market consensus. He wished he had been wrong, but today, the term premium on long-end US bonds is negative.
Economic observers and money managers have faced a confusing environment since last summer, when then-Chairman Ben Bernanke shook the complacency of the market and signaled a tightening.
Markets are made at the margin, and in this case the tightening,… READ MORE ›
Retail investors are currently pouring money into “bank loan” funds at a record rate, and the longer term implications are cringe worthy.
The popularity and rationale for investor interest has some merits, but only on the surface. The reasoning… READ MORE ›
Value in the fixed-income markets, as in other asset classes, is driven in large part by fear and greed. The easy monetary policy communicated to the market through “QE infinity” in fall 2012 fueled a chase for yield that was already… READ MORE ›
The rapid selloff in the US Treasury market has come as a surprise to many, including such famous bond investors as Bill Gross, CFA, and Jeffrey Gundlach. As the chart below shows, 10-year yields on US Treasuries (10yr UST) are about… READ MORE ›
The rise in interest rates over the past few months has led some observers to pronounce an end to a long bull market in bonds. The yield on Treasury bonds maturing in 10 years jumped more than 100 basis… READ MORE ›
Many of us are familiar with the song that begins, “Money makes the world go round.” As a card-carrying CFA charterholder and a recovering numbers cruncher, I will warrant that is how all too many measure the cycles of an… READ MORE ›
As the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis approaches, financial products that start with a “C” and end with an “O” still trigger fear and trepidation in investors. This alphabet soup of products ― including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs),… READ MORE ›
It only took a small backup in U.S. Treasury (UST) rates ― 10-year UST rates moved from 1.58% in early December to ~2.00% today ― for pundits to speculate on whether rates will drastically increase. Observant readers will have… READ MORE ›