FICC

Fed policymakers will soon shift their focus toward the strong employment and inflation data and stress that further rate hikes this year are likely. This will stem the rally in risk assets and cap the upside in long-dated yields.

We still recommend a cautious stance on portfolio risk, for both credit and duration exposure, given that monetary policy expectations priced into Developed Market yield curves are already extremely dovish.

The Treasury market is now discounting too slow a pace of Fed tightening, while junk spreads are discounting too rapid an increase in the default rate. This week we examine the risk/reward proposition of temporarily leaning against some prevailing long-run macro trends.

Inflation expectations in the Developed Markets have been adjusting down to the lower trend of actual inflation, although the bulk of this adjustment now appears complete.

The deeply negative momentum in oil prices is fading, setting up the possibility of a counter-trend rebound in global inflation expectations and perhaps even the beaten-up U.S. High-Yield bond market.

Value in the U.S. Treasury market is rapidly deteriorating, and the 10-year Treasury yield is now consistent with our fair value projections. Investors should shift from an above-benchmark to a benchmark duration stance.

Reduce portfolio duration to neutral, while also cutting exposure to European bonds (both in the core and Periphery) and Canadian government bonds.

Special Report

Despite its substantial decline, the 10-year Treasury yield still appears reasonably valued relative to our base case scenario of a flat or slightly weaker U.S. dollar. In this Special Report we outline our Treasury valuation framework, in which the dollar plays a key role.

With global bond yields converging toward the lower levels of the NIRP countries, it still makes sense to favor markets with higher nominal and real yields and steeper curves, like U.S. Treasuries (especially U.S. TIPS) and U.K. Gilts.

Maintain an above-benchmark portfolio duration since, favoring markets with the highest real yields that stand out in a world where 65% of Developed Market government bonds trade with a negative yield.