TwentyFour

At the moment CLO spreads are tightening, as they are right across credit. However, we haven’t had any CLO primary deals come to market so far in 2021, so we are operating in a bit of an informational vacuum, at which point these cross-asset class comparisons can be useful.

As we have said many times over the past few months, this cycle is likely to be remembered (among other reasons) as being exceptional for its unprecedented momentum.

The biggest mover so far this year in fixed income markets has been US Treasuries. The curve has bear steepened, with the short end remaining unchanged while longer maturities have sold off by anything between 10bp at the five-year point of the curve and just over 20bp in the 30-year.

Elena Rinaldi looks back at the performance of European CLOs in 2020 and explains how post-vaccine sentiment should help boost recovery in 2021, providing a positive outlook for CLOs.

Partner and portfolio manager Gary Kirk discusses why he thinks AT1s continue to look attractive in the search for yield. 

Partner and Portfolio Manager Felipe Villarroel reflects on markets in 2020 before giving his inflation outlook for 2021

In his latest video, George Curtis discusses our views on high yield defaults over the last few months and what he thinks we can expect in 2021

While we enter 2021 with plenty of negative headline news on the virus, along with the associated inevitable downgrade or delay to the economic recovery, in our view the technical position remains just as firm as it has been in the last nine months.

Yesterday the ECB released their guidance to banks regarding shareholder distributions. They have reiterated that banks should exercise extreme moderation on variable remuneration (bonus payments) and have set limits for dividend payments to equity holders and prudence on any share buy-back schemes.

As we are nearing the end of 2020 and assessing pockets of potential value going into 2021, we have to question the strong rally we have just experienced and assess the attractiveness of the hybrid spread multiple and whether or not we can expect further compression.

ESG investing was tipped to be the biggest theme of 2020 for financial markets, but was swiftly superseded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has dominated investors’ thoughts since Q1. We thought it was important to revisit this topic and explore if and how the pandemic has changed the world of ESG.

We have now retraced some 90% of the March widening in European high yield (on a spread basis and relative to the January tights), a recovery trend we expect to continue as economies open up and demand bounces back.