FICC Focus

As conflict escalates across the Middle East, the dominant frameworks for reading Iran, its system, its strategy, and its staying power are widely misunderstood.
BI's Chief Global Derivatives Strategist Tanvir Sandhu is joined by Professor Anoush Ehteshami, International Relations in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, to examine the geopolitical backdrop and its transmission into financial markets. The podcast is moderated by Karima Fenaoui, BI's Research Content Officer.

The Iran war challenges Bloomberg Intelligence’s early 2026 dollar bear view via two key channels. First, the large-scale risk-off move over the past few sessions has revived the dollar’s safe-haven appeal, reinforcing that in a broad-based flight-to-safety backdrop the greenback comes out stronger. Second, if the recent oil-price surge persists, it could lift global inflation and force markets to rethink expected 2H Fed rate cuts, weakening the yield-driven case for a softer dollar.

In this episode of FX Moment, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and BI’s Chief Asia FX and Rates Strategist Stephen Chiu discuss how higher oil prices can also support the dollar vs. the euro or yen through the net oil exporter vs. net oil importer dynamic. They also revisit BI’s strong Asia FX convictions from early 2026, including a still-supportive yuan outlook.

“You can still find some attractive value within the front end of the securitized curve,” says Income Research + Management’s Co-Chief Investment Officer Jim Gubitosi, when discussing the relative value within US spread assets. Gubitosi joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about the scaling of assets and strategies at IR+M, an active approach to security selection, the current credit climate for corporates and structured debt, and how market technicals may be contributing to recent resilience.

The cadence of announcements about housing affordability and deregulation may accelerate into the midterm elections in November, Bloomberg Intelligence chief MBS strategist Erica Adelberg says. On this Macro Matters episode of the FICC Focus podcast series, Adelberg joins host Ira Jersey, BI’s chief US rates strategist, to discuss key takeaways from the Structured Finance Association’s conference held Feb. 22-25 in Las Vegas. They explore GSE reforms, regulatory changes, shifts in credit scoring used while processing mortgage applications and the use of AI in the mortgage process. They also cover the talk around the health of the economy and why few expect a recession in the foreseeable future. 

The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

Global credit markets are tight, and strategic insights are essential for performance. In this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast, Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence’s global head of credit strategy, hosts BI’s global credit strategy team to highlight worldwide research, data and views. Tim Tan and Jason Lee (Asia), Basel Al-Waqayan (Middle East), Reto Bachmann (structured credit), Heema Patel (Europe) and Sam Geier (US) share takeaways on their recent research, relative value and major themes shaping their regions. Access their research on the Bloomberg Terminal at BI STRTA, BI STRTE, BI STRTN and BI EMFIG.

Emerging market fixed income is off to another strong start in 2026, with scope for further upside as long as the dollar cooperates and cross-asset volatility remains low. Christian Lawrence, chief cross-asset strategist at Cooperative Rabobank, joins Damian Sassower, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief EM fixed income strategist, to discuss investor positioning, currency hedging and event risk. They discuss drivers of institutional demand, including yield differentials, terms of trade, artificial intelligence and geopolitical developments.

News from the labor market and on the inflation front has been consistent with a fairly low-volatility environment, says Will Marshall, Goldman Sachs head of US Rates Strategy. On this Macro Matters episode of the FICC Focus podcast series, Marshall joins host Ira Jersey, BI’s chief US rates strategist, to discuss rate volatility’s move lower, expectations for the Federal Reserve’s monetary and balance sheet policy, the Treasury yield curve and the relationship of swap spreads and Treasury yields. They also examine Goldman’s outlook for Treasury supply.

The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

"Helping... investors to really understand what they could get in these markets is helpful because I think it is where our economy is moving, and we all want to be able to benefit from that growth," says Wellington's Director of Private Credit Emily Bannister, when discussing the shift to privately owned companies. Bannister joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about public-private convergence, leveraging Wellington's deep public market history, transitional real estate and growth equity. The two also touch on private credit in oil infrastructure, and positioning the business for growth.

Credit and high yield had a good 2025 despite tariffs and rate volatility, as spreads held their ground. Will 1Q sustain this resilience, and why? Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence global head of credit strategy, discusses the results of the BI 1Q26 Investor Survey and the market outlook with Ashwin Palta, global high yield PM at BNY Investments Newton. They discuss tight spreads, Fed actions and impending US tech sector supply into Europe, along with distress and default rates. This podcast also covers survey results on investor positioning, sentiment, key return drivers, supply forecasts and relative value across asset classes (high grade vs. junk), geography (Europe vs. US), ratings and sectors.

The G-10 FX narrative has mainly been dollar- and structurally driven year-to-date, while euro headlines have been sidelined. This could change into 2H as European fiscal stimulus starts to lift the region’s economic narrative and validates the ECB-driven relative yield advantage into 2H. In this episode of FX Moment, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and Constantin Bolz, Head of G-10 FX for UBS’s Chief Investment Office, focus on the euro side of the bullish euro-dollar view and how a cautiously optimistic euro macro narrative can be consistent with a euro-dollar break of $1.20. They also present their strongest G-10 FX convictions for the year — on pro-cyclical currencies including the Aussie dollar and the Norwegian krone — and touch on expected Swiss franc and yen fortunes for 2026.