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Fixed Income Insights
Positioning for Higher Yields
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With higher government bond yields looking increasingly likely, Head of U.S. Fixed Income Greg Wilensky explains why investors should consider how much interest rate risk they have in their portfolios, and make sure it is appropriate for their needs.
Investing Ideas
Investing in Diversity: Analyzing the Investment Risks and Opportunities
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Olivia Gull, Analyst on the Governance and Responsible Investment Team, discusses the importance of diversity and inclusion from an investment perspective, and key indicators that investors can look out for when analyzing a company’s diverse culture.
Retirement
Plan Talk: How to Use Client Motivations to Encourage Better Social Security Decisions
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Many American workers fear that the Social Security trust could be depleted in the not-so-distant future, which may lead some individuals to collect their benefits early – a decision that can significantly reduce their earned benefit. In this episode of Plan Talk, Retirement Director Ben Rizzuto explains research-based techniques that can be used to help ensure people more fully consider their options and make better decisions regarding when to claim this important earned benefit.
Investing Ideas
Technology Fuels Long-Term Growth Prospects for Manufacturing
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Assistant Portfolio Manager David Chung discusses the ongoing recovery in the manufacturing sector and how technological innovation is helping drive longer-term growth in certain industries.
Fixed Income Insights
The Shape of Credit
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In this Q&A, Portfolio Managers Jason England, Nick Maroutsos and Dan Siluk discuss the factors shaping credit markets, from central bank support to potential resilience from financials.
Key Takeaways
- Corporate earnings and cash flows are under strain, but while defaults are likely to increase, they should continue to be largely contained to sub-investment-grade issuers.
- Massive and proactive central bank support measures have injected confidence into markets, but this does not preclude sporadic bouts of future volatility and warrants a selective approach.
- We believe more resilient opportunities are likely to be found in higher-quality, shorter-dated investment-grade issues and continue to favor financial sector bonds and corporates with defensive attributes.
Fixed Income Insights
Building Bond Portfolios on a Strong Housing Market
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Conventional wisdom would suggest that rising unemployment would have discouraged consumers from making large contractual obligations like buying a new home, but the pandemic has affected the way many Americans think about housing. Portfolio Managers John Kerschner and Nick Childs discuss why this is happening and what it could mean for bond investors.
Investing Ideas
Securitized Market Overview
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Securitizations are financial instruments created via the bundling of contractual debts, such as mortgages, or other assets that generate receivables, such as franchise fees. These bundles are then sold to investors, who collect the income from the underlying obligations.
Investing Ideas
Whitepaper: The Case for CLOs
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Key Takeaways
- CLOs offer portfolios of floating-rate bank loans securitized across the rating spectrum. The availability of floating-rate bonds is limited in the U.S., and the choices for high quality floating-rate securities is even more limited, yet around 80% of CLOs carry a credit rating from A to AAA.
- Relative to the investment-grade corporate credit market, CLOs have offered a consistent yield premium across the rating spectrum, in some cases as much as two times the yield offered over U.S. Treasuries.
- In an environment where interest rates are low and the risk of higher Treasury yields has risen, allocations to AAA rated CLOs may help investors diversify a traditional fixed income portfolio, offering lower volatility, higher credit-quality and less sensitivity to any rise in interest rates.