Displaying items by tag: BBB

If the treasury market isn’t upside down it’s certainly moving there. Yields are rising which means prices are falling. The worst part is with inflation picking up there is a lot of room to move in longer-term treasury bonds. So where should investors turn to? Fallen angel bonds and their associated funds. Fallen angels are investment-grade bonds that have been recently downgraded to junk status. The biggest benefactor is that these relatively riskier bonds have a way higher return but there is less interest rate pass-through. That means as the Fed begins to strangle the government bond market the lower-grade corporate bonds won’t feel much of the pain. Many of these corporations have relatively strong balance sheets and the risk is overblown, so profits can recover quickly.

FINSUM: The fallen angel fixed income ETF market has an incredible yield advantage, and there is so much fiscal and monetary support that the risk is probably smaller than the yields are saying.

(New York)

The stock market has been absolutely killed lately, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at bonds. Several high yield indexes have barely budged, despite the big worries over inflation and rates. Why? Aside from some high yield bond mechanics which make them less rate-sensitive, the answer is that investors are very excited about the sector. The market is anticipating a big wave of credit upgrades in the next year, and all investors in the space are trying to buy up the winners (who will jump in value when upgraded).

FINSUM: Earnings are doing well and there is a lot of investor demand for new high yield debt. Junk bonds look like they have a great runway for the rest of the year.

(New York)

For many months there has been a great deal of fear about the threat of BBB bonds falling into the “junk” category. The whole fear is based on the idea that as the economy slows, this huge group of companies would get downgraded and there would be forced divestiture, sending bond prices strongly lower. However, the opposite has happened. Over the last few months, BBB bonds done nothing but strengthen. In fact, the spread between BBBs and Treasuries just hit a 52-week low, showing investors renewed faith in what is the largest segment of corporate bonds.

FINSUM: Unsurprisingly, the price growth has led to a bunch of new issuance. It is important to remember that though prices have risen, the risk of a recession and downgrades is still very much there.

(Los Angeles)

For many years Pimco was the undisputed leader in bonds. While that reputation may now be arguable given Bill Gross’ departure, Pimco is still undoubtedly highly respected. Therefore, their warning this week is worrying. The firm says it is shunning corporate bonds because of the big risk of a quick fall in prices. The firm’s CIO, Dan Ivascyn, says “The credit sector has been well behaved but if people begin to really fear recession, we can see underperformance quickly … this is the sector most prone to overshooting on the downside”. Pimco is also worried about Treasuries as they see no further room for a rally and instead are favoring agency MBS.

FINSUM: Total debt has grown hugely and a lot of it is of borderline credit quality, so a real downturn in economic expectations could lead to a lot of selling and downgrades. We tend to agree with Pimco here.

(New York)

Remember when everyone was really worried about corporate bonds several months ago? A lot of that anxiety faded as yields tumbled. That led companies to once again issue mountains of debt this year. Now, we are circling back towards worries over a recession, and with that progression there is reason to worry about corporate bonds, especially the BBB variety. The big anxiety, as ever is that a whole section of the BBB bonds universe (the lowest rung of investment grade) will get downgraded to junk status in a recession, causing a massive selloff.

FINSUM: So these fears are not new, but the likelihood of a recession appears to be growing. Here is what really worries us—the BBB market is enormous, amounting to $3 tn in the US versus just $1.2 tn for the whole high yield bond market.