The TwentyFour Blog

Last week marked another record-breaking year for the securitisation industry as over 5,500 market participants gathered in Barcelona for the annual Global ABS conference, surpassing last year’s attendance and reflecting the growing momentum across both public asset-backed securities (ABS) and private asset-backed finance (ABF) markets.

Despite Israel and Iran exchanging fire for a fifth day, markets seem to be completely disregarding the possibility of this conflict mutating into something serious for the global economy.

The latest Labour Market Overview published by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday morning has raised eyebrows, with some metrics seemingly having deteriorated quite rapidly versus last month.

The European high yield (HY) default rate spiked higher in May with the largest monthly default volume on record (€6bn).

As markets digest and speculate about the implications of the Trump administration’s 1,000+ page One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), new details are beginning to emerge.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will be alone this week in delivering its latest monetary policy decision, with the next Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan meetings not until the week commencing June 16.

Over the last couple weeks, we have seen an ongoing increase in government bond yields across the major global economies, with a particular focus on Japan as yields on longer dated Japanese government bonds (JGBs) have moved sharply higher.

Monday was a somewhat eventful day for markets with several headlines in the US and Europe. Risk assets did not necessarily reflect the eventfulness of the day, finishing virtually unchanged, while rates had a volatile day that ultimately produced a sizeable rally.

Thus far in 2025, the prevailing and overriding topic of conversation amongst economists and market participants has been tariffs and what they might mean for the global macro outlook.

European banks are coming to the end of the Q1 2025 reporting season, and on the surface there are multiple headwinds to contend with.

With much fanfare, President Trump and Prime Minister Starmer announced a “historic” trade deal between the US and UK on Thursday. The main points for the UK are a reduction in auto tariffs from 27.5% to 10% for the first 100,000 cars that enter the US, and the removal of steel and aluminium tariffs.

April was one of the most volatile months across financial markets in recent memory, triggered by President Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement on April 2.