Fixed Income

There has been a saying in markets for the last few years that fixed-income investments, favoured for their guaranteed returns and correlation benefits, have actually become “fixed-loss.” The driving factor was the threat (and now, realisation) that bond yields and cash rates were set to turn higher, reversing a four-decade tailwind. Naturally, these types of…

Global investment consultant and support network to the pension fund industry, bfinance, this week released its latest Market Intelligence and Market Trends report, covering the final quarter of 2021. While the world has changed dramatically since the calendar turned over, there are some powerful insights for financial advisers and other asset allocators. According to its…

Global fixed income manager PIMCO is launching its first ASX-listed Australian investment trust – The PIMCO Global Income Opportunities Trust (ASX:PMX). The fund aims to deliver regular income and attractive risk-adjusted returns by using PIMCO’s best income-generating ideas on a global sector basis. Here are some of the highlights from the fund: ASX Code –…

Traditional fixed income allocations, whether in the form of corporate or government bonds have been on the nose in 2022 and most of 2021 for that matter. The threat of inflation and associated rate hikes led many to rename the sector as ‘fixed loss’ rather than fixed income. Andrew Canobi, co-Portfolio Manager of the flexible…

Investors seeking alternatives to high-priced equity and low-yielding fixed income investments are increasingly turning to Australia’s private debt market for attractive risk-adjusted returns and capital protection. Australia’s private debt market is entering the mainstream – both as a funding option for Australian businesses and as an asset class for income-conscious investors. Renewed interest in this…

The surprises over the last 12 months should give some indication of the significant uncertainty facing investors in 2022, with forecasts for global GDP growth and inflation having a high chance of coming in well above or below consensus. Market expectations for 2022 have moved significantly in recent months, on the whole pointing to a…

Perennial Partners’ sustainable small cap equities fund, the Perennial Better Future Trust, was up 2.4% net of fees in December, beating the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Accumulation Index’s return of 1.4%. The trust has been in operation for almost four years, since inception in February 2018, and has grown to exceed $100 million in assets. The…

Morningstar has released its “top-performing global equity fund managers in 2021” report. This year, the funds that performed the best contained a well-disciplined approach to investing, together with an experienced team capable of producing high-performance numbers. The research report found that the top three global fund managers also had outstanding longer-term performance numbers. What this…

Australian investors ploughed as much as three times more money into equity-focused managed funds in 2021 than they did in 2020. Being the preferred source of investment vehicle for the majority of financial advisory groups and investment platforms, it provides a unique indicator into the sentiment within the advisory market. According to global funds researcher…

Leading thematic manager, Capital Group, is confident that the market downturn of 2020 was short-lived and entirely related to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to vice-chairman and president, Rob Lovelace.   Expanding on this point, he says that the “the powerful upswing in equity prices since then is simply a continuation of the bull market we’ve…

As we enter a post-Covid world, interest rates remain at all-time lows with seemingly no immediate respite. To compound matters, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has given “a very low probability” to the current surge in inflation triggering an early increase in official rates. Inflation has risen somewhat, but in underlying terms the rate…

A quiet announcement from one of Australia’s leading industry/union super funds at the beginning of December piqued my interest. The announcement came amid a busy week for investment announcements, with nearly every investor offering up an outlook statement. But this one was much more straightforward and delivered without any fanfare. It was the decision by…