Multi-Sector Bonds

The Federal Reserve (Fed) cut interest rates by 25 basis points (bp) on Wednesday, exactly as markets had anticipated, marking its first rate reduction since December 2024.

As active managers we are naturally looking for bonds that we believe are mispriced, therefore offering attractive risk-adjusted carry or, sometimes, a capital gain if market pricing falls into line with our view. Equally important is to avoid sectors facing structural or protracted cyclical downturns where we don’t think valuations reflect the fundamentals.

A trio of rating upgrades in European financials late last week has highlighted the strength of fundamentals in the sector. With the proportion of the subordinated financials that is rated investment grade continuing to grow, the wider pool of investors targeting these bonds could help to dampen volatility in the asset class.

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) issued their monthly summary of the UK government’s income and expenses as well as the impact these have on the budget deficit and fiscal debt levels.

With a week currently feeling like a long time in geopolitics, the European sovereign crisis at the beginning of the last decade feels even more like a distant memory. The road to recovery for Europe’s periphery economies has been long and windy, but post-Covid it has been surprisingly smooth.

One of the key reasons we see credit continuing to outperform government bonds over the medium term is corporate fundamentals.

With analysts steadily publishing their projections for 2025 (ours are here), the macro variables that tend to get the spotlight are naturally growth and inflation.

With a macro backdrop of falling rates and solid global growth, TwentyFour Asset Management's Eoin Walsh says fixed income investors can expect healthy total returns in 2025.

While the majority of headlines have concerned whether the Fed will do 25bp or 50bp to kick off its cutting cycle, we think this is only one part of the discussion – and not necessarily the most important one.

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.

For any fixed income investors that follow the England football team, the plan for H2 2024 may feel somewhat familiar – no substitutions in the second half.

For the fixed income fanatics amongst us, June was always going to be one for the books with all three of the major central banks meeting, elections, and continued data.