DSU News and Press, Blackrock Debt Strategies Fund Inc. From 07/30/21

We think inflation is likely to fall back, but we are more sensitive to upside risk than at the start of the year. Evidence of longer-term investment in more and more sectors continues to build. Flexibility and a tactical approach across the full range of credit markets has been a...

Global growth is expected to accelerate over the course of 2021. Despite steadily rising equity prices, these strong earnings numbers have acted as a counterbalance to valuations. While the market signals we follow generally point to constructive economic and market conditions for...

Recently, downticks in Treasury yields are being met with selling pressure in value indexes and stocks. The stock market can’t make up its mind. Does it want high yields or low yields? This confusion is because inflation numbers are rising and interest rates are falling, which ...

Since last November’s vaccine news, financial markets have been "hanging ten" on a swell of cyclical, value and small-cap stocks, and rising Treasury yields. Crosswinds started to grow in the second quarter, however, as economic and inflation data ran hot: rising yields stalled...

We’ve moved past the early-cycle environment that predominated risk taking in 2020, post the pandemic lows, and we’re moving really into a mid-cycle environment, which tends to be constructive for risk. This mid-cycle environment is still going to be expansionary, albeit...

The US high yield market has seen a strong comeback since its panic-driven downturn at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as today’s economic recovery gathers steam, a new fear has seized investors: rising bond yields. Bonds are sensitive to interest-rate movements, and in...

Growth-oriented asset classes are likely to shine, but not equally. Above-trend growth is a supportive environment of risky assets like equities or credit. On valuation grounds, equities are looking a little cheaper. Geraldine Sundstrom and Erin Browne discuss PIMCO’s views...

Longer-term bond yields have fallen recently, seeming to indicate that investors believe that economic growth is not that strong and that inflation will not be a major factor. This attitude shows up in the flattening of the Treasury yield curve, which now projects that future short-te...

Within the non-investment grade credit markets, issuer default rates are an important driver of market and portfolio performance. We believe 2020 ended the credit cycle that began following the global financial crisis, with 2021 marking the start of a new cycle. The duration of th...

During much of last quarter, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model indicated an annual rate over 10% for the second quarter, but last Friday, they downgraded their estimate to the lowest number we’ve seen since the quarter began - an annual pace of just 7.8%, down from +8.6% on Jul...