Monetary Policy

European banks’ tighter lending standards are chipping away at corporate loan volumes and adding to the uncertainty surrounding the ECB’s inflation projections due later this month, says Felipe Villarroel.

February was a nasty throwback to the sort of market conditions that battered fixed income in 2022, but the pull-back has given anyone worried they’d missed the January rally an even better opportunity, says Charlene Malik.

With banks tightening lending criteria in the US, Felipe Villarroel explains why macro trends like this will have more influence on the Fed’s thinking than the recent strong jobs data when it comes to the path for monetary policy.

With 2023’s rally halted by the Fed’s hawkish messaging, Felipe Villarroel questions whether markets read the recent jobs data correctly and looks at what it means for terminal rate expectations.

While corporate fundamentals are expected to deteriorate as rate hikes hit the economy, many metrics are pointing to record strength in the European high yield space, says George Curtis.

Having done its job of delivering lower volatility and better performance than mainstream bond markets in 2022, the income and defensive characteristics of European ABS look equally compelling in 2023, says Doug Charleston.

While yields have soared in recent months and created a broad buying opportunity in fixed income, Aza Teeuwen says investors should look at floating rate bonds to benefit from higher coupons today.

With commercial real estate seen to be in the eye of the storm as interest rates rise, Aza Teeuwen looks at the potential impact on CMBS and CRE loans and highlights where valuations could be most at risk.

With many market participants fearing the impact of quantitative tightening (QT), Johnathan Owen looks at one central bank’s early experience of actively selling bonds to investors.

In the first of a two-part series on the UK housing market, Shilpa Pathak looks at the experience of previous recessions and argues fundamentals today look far stronger than they did either in 2007 or the early 1990s

With a US inflation print finally coming in below expectations, can investors start to picture decent returns again? Or will this latest relief rally prove another false dawn?

While central banks remain committed to battling inflation with big rate hikes, George Curtis detects a clear change in tone which has seen market expectations of terminal rates tumble in recent days.