Government Bonds

The gradual backup in yields since the onset of the pandemic has given Treasuries a little more potency to protect bond portfolios, though we don’t see the rise being anywhere near big enough for them to behave like they used to.

Unlike the past six months, where nearly all new deals performed well in the secondary market, from here on in that is far from guaranteed. Expect winners and losers.

Overall, in our view there may be some temporary volatility ahead which investors can try to sidestep or even take advantage of, but it’s probably not worth trying to be too cute as our medium term outlook is still constructive.

Given most countries are going through the same issues and their fiscal expansions are justified, the relative value has not changed that much.

Given the steep, uninterrupted rally we have witnessed since the end of March, we think it is a good time to reassess how much value is left in fixed income markets, if any.

It has been a positive sign for us that despite lockdowns being enforced in most of the major economies around the world, in the last two weeks several issuers have managed to successfully raise new debt via the primary market.

Some of the panic selling has also abated as investors are gradually building their cash piles to desirable levels. However, we are still a long way away from normal bond markets.

The authorities are now rapidly promising huge aid packages, but how do these aid packages find their way to the people that need aid? This is what is missing

Perfect timing is practically impossible in situations like these, but one way to tackle this risk is to gradually reduce ‘good’ duration by moving to the shorter part of the UST curve, which would be less sensitive to a move higher in yields.

September new issuance has opened with a bang as we expected. Volumes are high and the issuer types are diverse, with a slant towards more frequent borrowers who tend to have their ducks permanently lined up in order to jump on favourable conditions. We expect this trend to continue throughout September as bankers push borrowers to take advantage of what could be one of the best opportunities they might see this cycle.

The average yield of the bond market today is 1.46%, while its average duration is 7.05 years, going by the widely used proxy of the Barclays Multiverse Index.

Today marked the arrival of a long expected event, namely the inversion of the US yield curve between two and 10 years. This is an important event as historically it has been a very reliable indicator of impending recession. History tells us that once the 2s-10s curve inverts, on average a recession is a year to 18 months away.