Fixed Income

So far, lockdown restrictions have suppressed each wave of the virus; will the competent authorities have the conviction to see this latest wave through without erring on the side of caution once again?

Whether the Bank of England halts all purchases in August or merely begins to slow the pace of purchasing later in Q4 this year, by 2022, less technical support will exist for gilts.

Based on these metrics, the picture seems rosy, and credit performance looks set to continue through the second half of the year should the main drivers of the recovery remain intact.

As companies and individuals adopt sustainable practices, we believe the potential exists for inflationary consequences.

Doing the necessary work to understand the difference between companies merely exposed to COVID restrictions and those structurally damaged by them continues to be extremely important.

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

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.

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.

We have a high opinion of Kensington as a mortgage lender and when we score it for ESG as part of our investment analysis it performs very well even without this latest Green initiative, but we do feel it can stretch further.

All told, while we think relative value in WBS can be attractive, we believe the trend of refinancing in the bond market is only going to continue in the coming years, though it will be gradual.