Macroeconomics

It has been a very interesting start to the year in the rates sector of the market.

Given the swiftness of the Fed’s pivot we think risks are tilted towards the central bank doing more and not less. We wouldn’t even rule out a 50bp rate hike at some point.

Jerome Powell’s recent testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, in which he said the Fed would discuss a faster taper of its asset purchases at December’s FOMC meeting, has led to intense speculation that we could see a move this week.

Against a backdrop of 4.20% year-on-year UK consumer price inflation (CPI), if you got your timing right, linkers (inflation-linked UK government bonds) will certainly have outperformed conventional Gilts by some margin.

TwentyFour Asset Management CEO, Mark Holman, looks at five big questions hanging over fixed income as investors look ahead to 2022.

With 2022 expected to be a more challenging year for markets, in his annual outlook TwentyFour Asset Management CEO Mark Holman explains how he believes investors can avoid some big macro headwinds and still target “sensible fixed income-like returns” next year.

The latest plot twist of the pandemic may have spooked markets in recent days, but the underlying sentiment is still one of worrying exuberance and investors are overlooking businesses in the consumer staples, health care and discretionary sectors that are still in the process of normalizing.

What we are currently experiencing is a disconnect between monetary policy, the economy and the markets, a disconnect that in our view will struggle to survive much longer.

This week the team at TwentyFour have been busy compiling our 2022 fixed income outlook, which will be published next week. There is no doubt we are confronted with a challenging set of circumstances, which will provide investors – not just in fixed income – with headwinds in the year ahead, and in particular we think during the first half.

Before the pandemic struck in February 2020, there were 159 million employed Americans; by the end of April that year, 26 million jobs disappeared. Since then, politicians and central bankers have focused on recovering all jobs lost to the pandemic fallout and returning to pre-COVID levels.

So that’s the banks, rates, swaps and currency traders that all apparently got the wrong end of the stick. Explaining how you might arrive at a future monetary policy decision is a challenging and fine balancing act, but as Governor of the Bank of England that is of course one your jobs.

Speculation on the timing of the Bank of England’s first post-pandemic rate hike has been rife. But whether the BoE hikes rates later this week, next month or even waits until after year-end, it is worth thinking about what it will mean for the general public, a step away from the financial markets.