All insights

What level of risk are investors willing to take? As central bank rates hike and a soft landing narrative makes its way into analysts’ forecasts, Eoin Walsh takes a look at what affects this has on investment risk and reinvestment risk.

Jack Daley takes a look into the economic events that have influenced the investment grade markets in Q2. He then goes on to explain why he believes investment grade fixed income offers the most attractive risk-adjusted returns currently available.

What sort of landing will the global economy experience? With the recent release of the US CPI report, inflation has been on a downward trend and the resilient activity data has continued to surprise many. This report has acted as a trigger of sorts for increasing calls for a soft landing.

The Bank of England has released two reports, namely the Bank of England’s UK Banking Sector Stress Test and the Credit Conditions Survey. Felipe Villarroel discusses the findings in these reports.

Following the release of the Monthly Labour Market Overview, Felipe Villarroel highlights key takeaways on the tightness of the UK’s labour market. He assesses the changes to the demand and supply of the labour force - focusing on the ‘Inactivty Rate’, “Long-Term Sick” and “Retired” categories, and migration trends - and what this means for wage inflation.

As we enter earnings season, Felipe Villarroel believes a new topic of interest on many market participant's mind is US regional banks. From a macro point of view, one topic markets are likely to focus on includes to what degree, if at all, have deposits returned in any size to the sector?

As mid-year investment bank reviews hit our screens, we are seeing a shared expectation of spread decompression between IG and HY bonds, signalling rising defaults. Pierre Beniguel argues that tightening HY spreads and resilient performance suggest surprising sector support due to lower issuance and available cash.

Thames Water has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past week. In our latest blog, Johnathan Owen explores their operational struggles, how the potential nationalisation raises concerns for investors and the wider implications for green bonds.

Partner and Portfolio Manager Chris Bowie hosted a Spotlight on ESG: A Changing Climate in Fixed Income webinar, which explored how the ESG landscape has changed within fixed income.

Felipe Villarroel discusses the observations of the median long run rate and what this means for the neutral rate.

Last week Aza Teeuwen and our ABS team visited the Global ABS conference in Barcelona. One key discussion point in CLOs was around the lack of leveraged loan supply and the resultant sharp slowdown in the primary market

In a week with several important releases and monetary policy decisions, what have we learnt?