7 Aug 2020 TwentyFour Blog Starved of Income With BP slashing its dividend this week, we have now seen 52 of the FTSE 100 companies suspend or cut their dividends this year. Read more
6 Aug 2020 TwentyFour Blog Optimism from the FPC As expected the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept UK base rates at 0.1% and maintained their current level STG IG corporate bond on the BoE balance sheet at £745bn, with no immediate expectations of a need for further stimulus. Read more
30 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Are Banks Becoming Less Cyclical? This week we are right in the middle of the European banks’ Q2 reporting period. Today for example we had results from a diverse group of Europe-listed banks, with Credit Suisse, BBVA, Lloyds and Standard Chartered all reporting. All have very different business models and footprints across varying geographies. Read more
24 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Coventry Enters RMBS Premier League Coventry Building Society today priced a well-received £350m 2.5 year UK RMBS deal, and by using a Master Trust style structure (historically the preserve of only the largest UK banks) the issuer has beaten its own path to joining the big leagues of RMBS. Read more
20 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog UK Credit Can Benefit From ‘Japanification’ As more government bond curves around the world join the select group trading at negative yields, we are seeing a spike in ‘Japanification’ headlines in the press. Read more
17 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Diverging Defaults and Cyclical Selections Earlier this week, Moody’s published its default study for June, which showed that as expected, default rates globally have started to pick up as a result of COVID-19. The trailing 12-month global high yield default rate reached 5.4% at the end of June, up from 4.8% in May, as the gap to the long term average of 4.1% continues to grow. Read more
15 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Q2 Earnings Could Boost Outlook for Credit As we enter Q2 earnings season, we will be most interested to learn how Corporate America has fared over the past three months. Read more
13 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Companies Unlikely to Underperform in Q2 Earnings Ultimately, while Q2 will be a bad quarter for many companies even if they outperform expectations, in our view it is not the real driver of spreads at this stage. Read more
7 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Green AT1 Raises More Questions Than Answers Today BBVA announced it would be issuing the first ever green Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bond, a perpetual non-call 5.5-year with initial price thoughts at 6.5%, and immediately sparked a spirited debate among the TwentyFour team over how green bank capital can be. Read more
6 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Anticipation Building for Q2 Reporting Season Like many market participants we are looking ahead to a much anticipated Q2 reporting season, which is even more pertinent this year given the unprecedented environment we have all found ourselves in. We are particularly interested in reviewing the major banks given they are at the centre of the transmission mechanism and hence a barometer for the wider economy. Read more
3 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog It’s Still Harvest Season For The Brexit Premium One topic that is beginning to gather headlines again is the terms of any bilateral agreement between the UK and European Union once Brexit is finally completed at the end of this year, with the latest round of negotiations breaking up a day early this week as both sides said they were still far apart on a number of issues. Read more
2 Jul 2020 TwentyFour Blog Huge Crash, Huge Rally. Now What? After the most incredible first quarter of 2020, we have seen an almost equally incredible second quarter. It is clear to us that the market overreacted in March, but it has also overreacted in its interpretation of the recovery. Read more