A colleague asked me how I would score Boris Johnson. In one sense that’s a pretty open goal: no coherent political philosophy, chaotic management, a trust deficit, record high taxes, inflation at a 40-year high and mountains of debt. However, history may be kinder, especially if Boris writes it.
It was the week of interest rate moves. But with a twist: the US Federal Reserve (Fed) went hard with a 75bps hike, while the Bank of England (BoE) increased rates from 1% to 1.25%.
James Carville, an advisor to President Clinton, was once quoted as saying: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or a 0.400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate anybody.”
The BBC really does not get finance and business reporting. Listening to the business slot on Radio 4 last Wednesday morning, it was apparent that they had missed the big news of the previous day.
It was an interesting week for responsible investment. Stuart Kirk put the cat among the pigeons by suggesting that there were more important issues for investors to consider than climate change.
What does ‘business’ mean in various societies and how do attitudes towards business reflect the culture of those societies?
There is a line in the spoof history book ‘1066 and All That’ that refers to the sides in the English Civil War of the 17th century: Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive). As a child I wanted to be a Cavalier but as an adult I find myself being a Roundhead.
Time for a windfall tax on unearned gains? Yes, according to a lot of the media, with reports highlighting the bumper profits of BP and Shell. The fact that BP made a loss due to the write down of its Russian asset was not widely reported.
Markets took fright of the worsening growth outlook last week. Despite more hawkish noises from the US Federal Reserve, we saw a rally in bonds on Friday, taking 10-year US yields away from the 3% level that looked likely earlier in the week.
What does ESG integration mean for fixed income investors? Let’s park the thorny question of government bonds and look at credit.
Time to reflect on the quarter. Government bonds have been badly impacted by the rise in interest rate expectations, a product of inflation and more hawkish communications from the US Federal Reserve (Fed).
It seems to me that there are really three forms of government: governments which trust their people, governments which don’t trust their people and governments that steal from their people.
Matthew Franklin, Fund Manager at Royal London Asset Management, discusses the growing interest in carbon within investment portfolios and how he sees the market evolving over time.
I promised to be a bit more upbeat this week – but it is difficult. The movements in markets in the last few days reflect the volatility/uncertainty that a crisis creates. But we have to remember that in the first instance this is a human tragedy.
The Whig interpretation of history implicitly underpins a lot of Western thought. It sees political and societal development through the lens of liberal democracy with secular trends of technological advancement, greater political representation, freer speech, and all-round progress. I believe that this has been a good thing and reflects the maturing of societies – albeit at different paces.
The recovery and inflation trades were the dominant themes of 2021 – a tough environment for global government bonds which provided negative absolute returns for the year, as yields trended upwards from low levels. However, with inflation expectations growing and nominal yields on the rise, real yields reached all-time lows. This saw global index-linked government bond funds perform very strongly and significantly outperform traditional government bonds last year.
We’ve been very positive on global high yield since central banks stepped in so promptly to support markets on an unprecedented scale following the initial impact of Covid-19 in March 2020. It was hard to be anything else, particularly once the Federal Reserve (Fed) committed to buying corporate bonds as well as government debt, and that position has served our clients well over most of the period since then.
Last year, sterling investment grade credit spreads hit their lowest levels since 2007. With a quantitative easing (QE) programme in place that included the purchase of corporate bonds, and with fiscal programmes including the furlough scheme and bounce-back loans, corporates garnered extremely strong support from policy makers, quelling the likelihood of default.
Two years have passed since Covid-19 emerged on the world scene. The appearance of the more transmissible Omicron variant reminds us that the pandemic is, sadly, not over. High vaccination rates make a return to a deep and prolonged lockdown unlikely, though, and global activity measures have made the round trip back to their pre-pandemic levels. What’s different are policy settings and inflation dynamics. Our base case is that loose policy keeps global growth strong in 2022, while inflation drops from its highs as supply chain disruption eases
While retaining a very positive longer-term view on sustainable investing, we expected 2021 to be a challenging year – as presaged by the performance of our sustainable funds during November 2020 as the ‘Covid-19 reopening’ trade played out. However, as of early December, the funds have had a strong 2021, although this masks periods of strong out and underperformance, rather than a consistent trend.