Relative to Covid-19, a possible Middle East conflict with Iran at the beginning of the year was met with little fanfare by Treasury markets. The 10-year Treasury yield held steady in the 1.80-1.90% range as the prospect for war was overshadowed by the signing of the...
The aggregate U.S. corporate index had a historic year in 2019 achieving 14.3% in total return which was only bested by a 19.7% return in 2009. These two periods of outperformance followed negative returns in the previous year: -5.8% in 2008 and -2.1% in 2018. Buy...
This comes after a year of extremely negative returns of -4.45% compared to -2.81% for index eligible industrials with spread widening in longer duration bonds contributing to the majority of the underperformance.
While prospective data for manufacturing activity appear to have bottomed out in August and September according to readings from purchasing managers’ surveys, business activity will continue to be sensitive to headlines on trade.