Douglas Charleston examines the health of labour markets across key developed economies and why ABS investors shouldn’t fear the gradual removal of COVID related job support schemes

In this unique virtual event from TwentyFour Asset Management, TwentyFour CEO Mark Holman guided us through the AT1 market as we discovered what role he thinks these bonds can play in a fixed income portfolio.

It is hard to draw any immediate conclusion from this transaction other than Repsol's notable persistence to obtain sustainable financing.

In both instances, the good intentions of the regulator and the authorities are clear… But at the same time both changes have the potential to cause an increasingly undesired side effect.

As you will be aware, in the spring of 2015 the partners of TwentyFour Asset Management sold a 60% stake in our business to Vontobel Asset Management to help bring our products to a global buyer base. 

Given the magnitude of the amounts involved we do think there is potential for some temporary volatility in the US Treasury market as the volumes change. We will be keeping a keen eye on both in the months ahead.

Yesterday the US Federal Reserve released the results of its annual bank stress test, subjecting the 23 largest US lenders to a punitive set of scenarios. Some observers might think the events since March 2020 had been sufficient to test the resilience of the banks, but the Fed went beyond this recent real-life challenge and tested bank balance sheets against a range of hypothetical crises.

TwentyFour Asset Management’s purpose-built Observatory platform scans the global universe of bonds looking for ESG stars

The definitions of what ESG really means are still blurry and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability. If anything, the growing popularity of these funds has highlighted the differences in the expectations of both individual investors and institutions when it comes to ESG.

Creating a truly sustainable bond fund is no mean feat. Unlike the listed equity universe, where ESG data is more readily available, it is often sorely lacking in the fixed income space. At the same time, the problem for fixed income managers is exacerbated by the complexity of a bond’s structure, consisting of multiple parts which must all be individually assessed.