Some interesting insights by Citi’s Matt King recapping last week’s Citigroup credit conference.
… [D]espite one panellist’s suggestion that “perhaps corporate bonds were never meant to be a liquid asset class in the first place”, and universal admissions that when you buy a bond these days you have to be prepared to hold it, there were other signs that at least some degree of secondary trading remains alive and well. The well attended sessions held by both our IG and HY analysts are not merely a sign that investors are paranoid about stepping on the next corporate landmine; it also suggests investors’ desire for alpha from traditional single-name trading is as keen as ever.
Interest in other ways to pick up yield was not quite as intense, to judge from attendance at the structured credit stream. Perhaps people are just frustrated that the ECB is hoovering up all the interesting ABS – or maybe on the synthetic side they perceive that, given the annual doubling in option volumes – all the opportunities have been exploited already…
… [I]t is hard to think that concerns about defaults in the US HY energy sector will go away any time soon – even if we think that some of the statistics we have heard being bandied about lately (“40% defaults in two years with oil at $65”) pay insufficient respect to companies’ ability to rein in capex and other expenses. On the political front, Tina Fordham raised the question as to whether markets are overestimating the ability of liquidity to override the secular shift in geopolitical risk, given the way nationalism is increasingly being used as a tool to counter growing resentment at rising inequality.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
