All insights

Our attention this morning was grabbed by a headline from Italy’s La Stampa, which reported that Finance Minister Giovanni Tria is preparing a 2019 budget that will result in a 1.5% deficit/GDP ratio for the indebted EU nation.

Last year, with credit spreads tightening close to historic levels, it seemed appropriate to us to take a more prudent stance and move to a more balanced portfolio.

Like many of you we have been following the latest developments in the Tesla story with interest and curiosity, though fortunately not as investors, I hasten to add.

Typically in August, credit liquidity becomes a bit like my lawn this summer: patchy. Over the past few weeks there have been a few stories of large fund groups seeing significant outflows from the asset class, and even of liquidations, which begs the question: what are they selling?

We have had a lot of discussion, both internally and externally, over the last few days around when might be the time to begin adding more risk to portfolios again.

Following on from the release of solid Q2 numbers, and no longer in a closed-period, Barclays were quickly out of the blocks and announced the issue of a new AT1 this morning; a $2bn transaction with initial price talk of 8%.