As the US Fed rate cut gets imminent, the liquid Asia credit market also is set to benefit from a number of strong tailwinds. In addition to favourable macroeconomic fundamentals, the heterogenous region also offers benefits of broad geographic diversification benefits and positive reinforcement from continued market liberalization and more investor friendly reforms. Within this space, Asian investment grade (IG) bonds also enter a favourable “Goldilocks” scenario in particular, represent a sweet spot that international allocators sometimes overlook, offering meaningfully higher yields, better credit ratings, and shorter duration than their peer IG cohorts from the US and Europe.

It is inevitable that the traditional 60/40 asset allocation split between bond and equity no longer work well as the fixed income portion is not generating sufficient stable income.

Index provider FTSE Russell will add Chinese Government Bonds (CGBs) to the FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI) over three years from the end of October – a move that is expected to draw billions of Dollars of new portfolio inflows. Already, there has been a sharp increase in foreign inflows into RMB bonds over the past 12 months, accelerating soon after the start of the pandemic. In this 2-part series, our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim highlights the drivers for new demand for CGBs and the reasons to own them.

Little speculative manias are bubbling up to the surface in the US markets. But while financial instability is growing in the United States as a result of aggressive monetary expansion, a collapse in the equities market does not appear imminent given tame inflation and ultra-low rates and yields.

So, it is official: Exit Donald Trump, enter President Joe Biden. And when the cheering and crying is done, we are likely to see that the election meant more emotionally to Americans than it does economically for the nation, or financially for the markets. The big economic and market trends are unlikely to be changed by the election.

Yield curve steepening – which has been accelerating in recent weeks as the market contemplates a whopper of a stimulus package under a possible Biden White House – is likely to continue regardless of the winner on November 3.

An overdue technical rebound in the US Dollar – which started a week ago – may give investors an opportunity to diversify their currency holdings away from the Greenback. What is emerging could well turn out to be a counter-trend rally in a bigger, multi-year Dollar decline.

Highest recorded yield spread between the China 10Y Government Bond and the 10Y UST. The yield spread between the China 10-year government bond over the 10-year US Treasury recently hit its widest ever recorded level.

Fed bond buying won’t prevent the coming wave of debt defaults. It may have been missed in the midst of the stock market’s bullishness, but debt defaults have already been surging. How does the Fed’s USD 750 billion bond buying programme measure up to the job? And what shall we watch out for?

Although the US Dollar Index DXY is likely to pick up a bit more in coming weeks if equities weaken, the longer-term outlook for the Greenback beyond the acute phase of COVID-19 is bleak.

COVID-19 spread accelerating in the US, even as the number of new infections in China eases Impact will be significant on the largely consumer-driven US economy Markets are either in or on the brink of bear territory, and this is an angry bear Recession likely already in progress in Japan; possible recession in Europe; near zero GDP growth likely in the US by 2Q20 Corporate credit protection costs have started rising – more trouble ahead Seek safety in cash and US Treasury-related instruments

Previously, we introduced the addition of an MSCI Vietnam strategy to offer exposure to an up and coming market that benefits from trade war uncertainty. This week, we change direction and introduce our solution to risk-free USD yield – the Bloomberg Barclays US Treasury Floating Rate Bond strategy.