For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Jim Leaviss, Eric Lonergan and Tristan Hanson, three fund managers from M&G’s retail fixed interest and multi-asset teams, debated some of the most pressing macroeconomic questions of the day over a pint during a recent visit to Ireland. In the third of a series of four podcasts, listen to M&G’s Jim Leaviss, Eric Lonergan and Tristan Hanson discuss what’s happening in asset markets.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Jim Leaviss, Eric Lonergan and Tristan Hanson, three fund managers from M&G’s retail fixed interest and multi-asset teams, debated some of the most pressing macroeconomic questions of the day over a pint during a recent visit to Ireland. In the second of a series of four podcasts, listen to M&G’s Jim Leaviss, Eric Lonergan and Tristan Hanson discuss the fragmentation of political systems and concerns over the return of global inflation.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Jim Leaviss, Eric Lonergan and Tristan Hanson, three fund managers from M&G’s retail fixed interest and multi-asset teams, debated some of the most pressing macroeconomic questions of the day over a pint during a recent visit to Ireland.

In this first of a series of four short podcasts, listen to the three as they discuss why they believe there is currently so much political and economic confusion and what the implications are for markets.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Richard Sherry, fund manager in M&G’s institutional fixed income team responsible for impact investing, joined me for this week’s edition of BVTV to talk through an area of the market that has been rapidly gaining attention. Richard unpicks the terminology to explain the differences between the various approaches and offers his view of how the market will likely develop – and what this will mean for bond investors.

Also this week: what can we take from the recent high yield sell-off, and what to watch for in the UK’s budget announcement on Wednesday.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Lebanon. The political risk spotlight has swung largely away from North Korea in recent days – despite President Trump’s visit to the region – and towards the Middle East. Fears of a wider regional confrontation have grown after an anti-corruption drive by Saudi Arabia’s young heir apparent, the firing of a missile from Yemen at Riyadh that the Saudis have blamed on Iran and the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister, saying he was in fear of his life.

Meanwhile, the price of oil is nudging upwards, while bond and CDS markets have been pricing in additional risk quite aggressively.

How does this combination of events impact the outlook for the emerging markets and what should investors be looking out for? Watch this week’s edition, where I share our thinking!

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

There was no shortage of topics up for consideration for today’s BVTV: Jerome Powell’s nomination as next Fed chair, further clarity around President Trump’s much touted US tax reform plans, and the UK’s first interest rate rise for 10 years.

With Powell’s nomination very much perceived as preserving the US monetary policy status quo, it’s the latter two developments that I have focused on this morning. Which companies will prove the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s tax reforms, and what impact will the Bank of England hike actually have on the UK’s real economy? Watch this week’s episode for our latest thinking.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

This week on BVTV I am joined by Helen Thomas from blondemoney.co.uk. Helen thinks that the market is underestimating the scenarios around Brexit, and believes that a reversal of Brexit should be on investors’ radars. With many expecting a continuation of the current goldilocks environment (low inflation, solid growth) into 2018, and the Bank of England in-play this week, could an unforeseen development in the Brexit negotiations be a catalyst for the next UK recession?

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

Today I am joined in the studio by M&G credit analyst Othman El Iraki and we will be taking a closer look at an area of the fixed income market that has been generating a lot of interest in recent months - Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Othman will talk through some of the characteristics of this asset class and explain what’s been driving the recent surge in new bond issuance, especially in the UK. Also this week – we look ahead to Thursday’s eagerly awaited ECB monetary policy meeting where bond investors are hoping to get more details on the bank’s QE exit strategy. Tune in to find out more.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

With the UK’s vote for Brexit, Trump’s election, and the rise of Le Pen in France, it feels as if there is a backlash against the “Washington Consensus” and globalisation.  Stephen King, economic adviser at HSBC has made this the topic of his latest book, “Grave New World: the end of globalisation, the return of history”.

In this short video, the latest in our series of interviews with authors of interesting books on economic themes, we discuss the reversal of trends that we’d started to take for granted, and ask what fills the vacuum if western institutions fall away.

For investment professionals only. Not for onward distribution. Issued by M&G Securities Limited and M&G International Investments Ltd. Both are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Please see Bondvigilantes.com for further information.

 

It’s rare to find a piece of writing that EVERYONE in bond markets has read and is talking about, but in January, a blog by Paul Schmelzing on the Bank of England’s excellent Bank Underground site did just that.  Paul is a visiting scholar from Harvard University, working at the Bank of England to research foreign exchange policy in the era of Bretton Woods.  In the blog however he took a very long view of eight hundred years of bull and bear markets in government/risk free bonds.

Paul came in to see us earlier this week to discuss three of the significant bond bear markets we’ve seen in the last 60 years or so, and to consider what the next bond bear market might look like once the “Volcker bull market” eventually comes to an end.