VLT News and Press, Invesco High Income Trust II From 06/21/21

The question is - given the low in March ’09 and the previous highs exceeded in late April ’13 - is the secular bull market 13 years old or just a little over 8 years old, and does it matter? Not only are the S&P 500 and Nasdaq bumping all-time highs, but Europe and ...

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...

This morning we learned that US retail spending fell 1.3% in May (more than the -.80 expected). Commodities have been sensing the shift, with the price of many key inputs like lumber (-42%), steel rebar (-18%) and copper (-9%) down sharply from recent peaks. Increases in oil, gas ...

On the surface, conditions in the US look pretty fantastic these days. Prices for lots of goods and services are soaring. Job openings are at record highs. Does the historically low level of real risk-free yields on TIPS suggest that US economic growth will be anemic at best for as fa...

Over the past year, a surge of investors drove high-yield bond prices back to pre-pandemic levels. The potential for a double-dip should increase insurance companies’ appetite for juicier high-yield offerings. While high yield improved its lot through the pandemic, some inv...

Risk-adjusted performance for the Global Market Index (GMI) continued to tick higher in May. GMI’s Sharpe ratio — a measure of risk-adjusted return – rose to 0.82 on a trailing 10-year basis through last month. That’s close to a pandemic high, but still...

The Global Market Index’s (GMI) expected risk premium held steady at 5.9% annualized in May, matching the previous month’s estimate. The framework for estimating equilibrium returns was initially outlined in a 1974 paper by Professor Bill Sharpe. Keep in mind, too, t...

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...

Diversification remains key. Flexible strategies can also take advantage of a more uncertain yield and spread environment. We continue to find reasonable opportunity in both public and private credit markets. We find value in non-agency mortgages and prefer cyclicals to growth sto...

Today's post rolls out the inaugural Risk Review column for the major asset classes, a monthly update that's the companion piece to the monthly performance report and risk-premia estimates. Risk analysis is a broad and deep subject and so this monthly update will be no one's idea of a...