27 Aug 2024 TwentyFour Blog Powell’s Masterplan allows for earlier intervention In his headlining speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Jerome Powell’s message to the market was clear. Read more
14 Aug 2024 TwentyFour Blog US inflation makes case for (small) September rate cut Recent US Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data brought good news for investors and central banks. Read more
6 Aug 2024 TwentyFour Blog A couple of non-recessionary surveys With US economic data driving very large moves in the last few days, we think it is worth highlighting two data releases that were published yesterday. The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Services and the Senior Loan Officer Survey spoke of an economy that is stronger than some of the recent price action might suggest. Read more
5 Aug 2024 TwentyFour Blog Labour market dents soft landing sentiment If you were on vacation last week, your holiday blues wouldn’t have been helped when you looked at your screens this morning, given how quickly sentiment has changed, mainly on the back of one data point. Read more
30 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog BoE: Lender of (not so) last resort Last week, the Bank of England (BoE) published a speech by its Executive Director for Markets, Victoria Saporta, in which she laid out the central bank’s evolving role as a lender to the UK banking system. More specifically, the speech highlighted how the BoE expects to see UK banks having a greater reliance on its funding facilities going forward. Read more
25 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog Strong UK savings bode well for bonds Excess savings have been at the centre of heated debates among economists and market participants ever since the pandemic. Read more
19 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog Politics won’t trump data for the Fed The last few weeks have seen former President Donald Trump establish a lead over current President Joe Biden across polls in the run-up to November’s US election. Even though it is early days and a lot can change before November (including the Democrat candidate), it is worth considering what a second Trump term might mean for the world economy and for fixed income markets. Read more
16 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog Wages continue to rein in pace of ECB rate cuts Last month saw the European Central Bank (ECB) get their cutting cycle underway with a 25bp cut in the deposit rate to 3.75%. However, any expectations for a rapid series of reductions after the first move were tempered by President Christine Lagarde, who at the subsequent press conference was clear that the ECB could move in phases in which they left interest rates unchanged. Read more
10 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog This strange economic cycle is finally starting to look familiar There is little disagreement among investors and economists that the last few years have been highly unusual in many respects. An inflationary shock in developed markets, one of the fastest rate hiking cycles on record, the worst year in decades for government bonds (2022), and mild recessions with no movement in unemployment are just a few of the dynamics that have strayed from recent norms. Read more
8 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog French result supports European spreads but budget concerns remain After weeks of volatility following President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections in France, markets were breathing a sigh of cautious relief on Monday after the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) underperformed the polls. Read more
5 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog Labour market cooling justifies Fed’s dovish lean One of the drivers of the dovish pivot from the Federal Reserve (Fed) in December was the acknowledgement that the risks to the policy outlook had become more two-sided. In other words, while higher rates were still needed to tame inflation, the Fed saw a risk that staying restrictive for too long and risk damaging a labour market that has so far shown remarkable resilience. Read more
4 Jul 2024 TwentyFour Blog CLO outlook: value remains but watch for greed on pricing Having been the best performing asset class across fixed income in 2023, collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) have spent the first half of this year on similar form with record levels of issuance meeting equally strong demand from a broadening range of investors. Read more