FHY News and Press, First Trust Strategic High Income Fund II of Beneficial Interest

How to achieve a respectable income without taking on too much risk. What's the right risk/yield trade-off for reasonable income? Will '80s-style inflation return? For further details see: The Great Fixed Income Challenge: Balancing Yield And Risk In A Low-Rate World

Why yields have been falling, and whether bond markets are trying to signal to any important trends to investors, particularly in light of the fact that we've seen equities reach new highs. This is a market environment, or a trading environment, that feels like people want to add dura...

The unprecedented demand for U.S. Treasuries at last week’s auction - even as the 10-year yield approached its 50-day moving average - speaks volumes. Yields did slip notably last Friday back below 1.3% (the day after the auction), closing below their 200-day moving average. Th...

2 things that always happen at or prior to the start of a boom-to-bust transition for the US economy. One is a clear-cut widening of credit spreads. The other is pronounced weakness in the Industrial Metals Index (GYX) relative to the gold price. There are many different credit-spread...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

US high yield bond spreads are near historical lows amid a strong macro backdrop. The Fed’s future actions could put upward pressure on the US HY OAS, but we believe that to be a ways off. Investor allocations to HY bond funds are subdued. Excessive optimism isn’t ap...

The major asset classes delivered across-the-board gains for a second month in a row in May. Everything apart from cash was up last month, led by a sizzling rally in foreign inflation-linked government bonds. The FTSE Russell World Inflation Index ex-US surged 4.0% last month, the...