Europe

It’s been nearly five months since the Italian general elections, with the result and the process of forming a coalition government eventually leading to the steepest selloff in BTPs we’ve seen for a long time, and the spread to bunds touching levels not seen since 2013.

Even in the midst of a busy earning season, discussions on central bank policy never seem to go away.

Looking at the state of the Turkish economy since President Erdogan decided to meddle in the affairs of its central bank; with the Lira down about 20% vs the US dollar, inflation running at 15%, and the yield on the 10yr government bond running at almost 17%, you might be tempted to think that most leaders would stay well away from the subject.

So far the US earnings season has been positive, with the major US banks being the outperformers to date – both Goldman Sachs and Bank of America strongly beat profit estimates and JP Morgan posted record Q2 profits.

In the past two years the diversity of supply in the ABS market has been restricted by the availability of cheaper funding alternatives, both in the Eurozone through the TLTRO and in the UK, where the BoE Term Funding Scheme has suppressed issuance from the traditional banks and building societies.

Today sees the launch of the first dedicated Additional Tier 1 Exchange Traded Fund. As first mover, Invesco Powershares gets to claim the simplest ticker, AT1 LN.

Following on from our recent comment on the level of Italian BTPs and how this has a potential to impact the transmission mechanism, it is interesting to note the subtle but important changes that have been applied elsewhere across the global economy.

After the most hectic week of the year to date, relative calm has at least temporarily been restored to markets.

Clearly the decision by Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, to refuse the appointment of Paolo Savona as the coalition’s Finance Minister, on the grounds of him being overtly eurosceptic, has backfired badly.

We are currently of the view that the market panic generated by the plan published by the new Italian government is a bit excessive.

Following on from Gary’s recent blog Credit Still Being Cycled, this week the ECB released their quarterly Euro Area Bank Lending Survey for the first quarter of 2018, and it paints a slightly different picture to the Bank of England’s report in one area in particular.

When valuations in fixed income are this stretched, we must be on the lookout for overbought assets to avoid, and unloved assets offering a rare opportunity to pick up yield.