As the likelihood of a new Italian coalition government continues to solidify, institutional investors are watching the country’s extremely volatile bond markets. The hard-left Five Star Movement and centre-left Democratic Party have joined forces to avoid snap elections, which would have strongly reinforced the power of Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party, says Stephane Dutu, director […]
Canadian public companies are increasing the discount rates they use for their defined benefit pension plans, according to a new survey by Morneau Shepell Ltd. The survey of 90 Canadian public companies found the median discount rate — the interest rate the pension plan uses to determine the current value of its anticipated future benefits […]
During the past decade’s bull market, gold has been largely off the radar for institutional investors. But as key bond yields turn negative, among other recessionary signals, chatter about the commodity is heating up. “All precious metals have no correlation to the rest of the marketplace so that tends to be why gold and precious […]
While emerging markets have been underperforming their developed counterparts over the past decade, this may be about to change. “Basically, everything went wrong in emerging markets in the last 10 years,” said Laurence Bensafi, deputy head of emerging markets equity at RBC Global Asset Management Inc., in a webinar hosted by the Association of Canadian Pension Management […]
On Aug. 13, after Argentina’s primary elections took a different direction than markets expected, the country’s stocks suffered one of the most dramatic crashes in global history. “It was a super unusual reaction,” says Jim Barrineau, head of emerging market debt at Schroders Investment Management Ltd. He notes the market crash was especially bizarre because […]
Imagine lending money to someone and having to pay for the privilege of doing so. Or being asked to invest and informed of how much money you’ll lose. Sounds absurd, but increasingly that’s the global bond market these days. A rising share of government and corporate bonds are trading at negative interest yields — a […]
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan increased its net assets by $10.3 billion in the first half of the year, reaching a total of $201.4 billion as of June 30, 2019, and achieving a return of 6.3 per cent. “We’re pleased to report that our results at mid-year are strong,” said Ron Mock, president and chief […]
Foyston, Gordon & Payne Inc. is appointing Brooke Biscoe as a credit analyst on its fixed income team. Biscoe’s career began in 2013 at Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, where he spent three years as a ratings analyst assisting the primary analyst in the preparation, monitoring and amendment of ratings for Canadian companies in a variety of industries. […]
When analyzing the likelihood of a trade war means keeping one eye on Twitter, the global backdrop for risk becomes more troubling. “You definitely start by taking that global temperature — looking at growth, inflation, interest rates, commodity prices, currencies, event risk,” says Rob Hall, institutional portfolio manager on the emerging markets debt team at […]
For the first time in its existence, the German 30-year government bond yield slipped into the negatives and it isn’t inconceivable that U.S. Treasuries could follow suit, said Joachim Fels, global economic advisor at PIMCO Corp., in a recent blog post. While negative yields have lately been cropping up in developed markets outside the U.S., […]