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With the Pacific G10 Macro Rates Team

Global Macro Overview
Trade Wars and stabilising data continued to drive financial markets last week. As both sides of the trade dispute started sending positive signals towards the end of the week, financial markets embraced risk-on environment – equities rallied to new highs and 10y US Treasuries sold off close to 15bps. 

G10 Macro Rates Monthly View
With Shayne Dunlap, Co-Portfolio Manager

Normality returns, or has it?
October brought a welcome period of “normal” markets. Improved sentiment on the two big pressing issues, Brexit and US China trade talks, allowed some upward movement in curves and yields from their stretched lows. This created a more balanced environment where buyers and sellers appeared in more equal measure and market volatility reduced.  

CIO Monthly View with Will Bartleet, CIO and multi-asset portfolio manager at Pacific Asset Management

Brexit negotiations dominated the returns for Sterling investors in October as the Pound bounced on the hopes of a deal between the UK and Europe. In a month of high drama in UK politics, Parliament voted through Prime Minister Johnson’s deal but voted down the government’s attempt to push through the deal before 31st October. Whilst the end game remains highly uncertain, the reduced likelihood of a no deal Brexit led to a rally in Sterling against all major currencies.  

With the Pacific G10 Macro Rates Team

Global Macro Overview
A very busy macro week with elections in Argentina and one region in Germany. There were central bank meetings in USA, Canada and Japan, whilst data was released for PMIs, jobs, inflation and GDP.

In general the story of weak manufacturing has been borne out, with economies dominated by trade or manufacturing seeing weaker or contractionary PMIs (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Sweden) and those that are more insulated from these economic forces in expansionary territory (Norway, Netherlands, Canada, USA). With China appearing on both sides, depending on which PMI you chose to look at and the USA’s ISM showing a similar split in subcomponents – does this indicate a turning point in the global economy? 

With the Pacific G10 Macro Rates Team

Global Macro Overview
It has been a quiet week for markets, despite political volatility. Yields on the 10y US Bonds spent the week within an 8bps range. While the political situation in the UK remains unpredictable, positive headlines on US-China trade and carrot-and-stick speech from Vice President Pence on Thursday ignited equity markets with a dose of optimism, as the S&P 500 rallied 1.4% on a week. 

With the Pacific G10 Macro Rates Team

Global Macro Overview
Global markets have been waiting for some clarity on the positive headlines that were delivered last week, hence volatility remained relatively subdued especially across non-GBP interest rates (US, Canada and Japan were on holiday on Monday as well).  

With the Pacific G10 Macro Rates Team

Global Macro Overview
Geopolitics has been driving the financial markets for another week. However, unlike the previous 12 months, news has mostly been positive. The level of pessimism with regards to BrExit and US-China trade war became apparent when FX and Rates markets reacted aggressively to positive news on both. GBP had its best two-days in over a decade and US 10y bond yields sold off 25bps in three days. Interest rates are pricing around one cut from the Fed in 2019 and less than one cut from the BoE by the end of 2020. 

Latest G10 Macro Rates Blog – After the Endgame
With Shayne Dunlap, Co-Portfolio Manager

Some major central banks have started hinting they are approaching the monetary endgame, what next?

The recent remarks from Draghi and Kuroda are quite telling – both are recognizing the limitations of what further cuts to Monetary Policy & QE can effectively achieve in their 3rd or 4th iterations.  

CIO Monthly View with Will Bartleet, CIO and multi-asset portfolio manager at Pacific Asset Management

Central banks around the world continued to ease monetary policy in September, with 12 countries cutting interest rates during the month. At Mario Draghi’s penultimate meeting as President of ECB, the committee voted to cut the deposit rate by 10bps to -0.5% and resume quantitative easing by purchasing EUR 20 billion of bonds per month, every month until the ECB raises rates.  

G10 Macro Rates Monthly View
With Shayne Dunlap, Co-Portfolio Manager

Charge of the Heavy Brigade, the Central Bank's are coming (again!)
After the August market flush, September started with a reversal in the direction of yields, and profit taking prior to the mid-month Federal Reserve meeting. A weaker jobs number in the non-farm payroll (NFP) report was offset by the strong wage growth, personal spending and robust housing starts.