Corporate Bonds
Highlights Chart 1Risks To The Bond Bear Market Two weeks ago we flagged that large net short positioning and elevated growth expectations left the Treasury market primed to benefit from any disturbance in the economic outlook. Since then the 10-year yield fell from a peak of 3.06% to 2.77%, before climbing back to 2.92%. With positioning still deeply net short and strong odds of a further decline in the economic surprise index (Chart 1), we continue to see an elevated risk that yields move lower on a 0-3 month horizon. But beyond that, less nimble investors should remain positioned for higher yields on a 6-12 month timeframe. The major risks in the global economy - Eurozone sovereign credit concerns and a strong dollar weighing on emerging market demand - are unlikely to put the Fed off its "gradual" pace of one rate hike per quarter unless they lead to a significant risk-off event in U.S. financial markets. Absent that sort of shock, the Fed will continue to lift rates "gradually" toward a neutral level near 3%, and eventually into restrictive territory. This rate hike path is consistent with a cyclical peak in the 10-year Treasury yield between 3.30% and 3.80%, well above current levels. Feature Investment Grade: Overweight Chart 2Investment Grade Market Overview Investment grade corporate bonds underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 45 basis points in May, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -122 bps. Value has improved considerably since the start of the year. The 12-month breakeven spread for a Baa-rated corporate bond is back up to its 29th percentile relative to history (Chart 2). Market-derived inflation expectations also ebbed during the past month, with the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates now at 2.09% and 2.12% respectively. This is below the target range of 2.3% to 2.5% that would trigger a downgrade to our corporate bond allocation. The combination of more attractive value and a somewhat more supportive monetary environment (as evidenced by the decline in TIPS breakeven rates) increases the odds of near-term corporate bond outperformance, and we would not be surprised to see spreads tighten during the next few months. However, the longer run outlook for corporates remains negative. First quarter data showed a 5.7% annualized decline in pre-tax corporate profits, dragging the year-over-year growth rate down to 5.8% (bottom panel). As employee compensation costs accelerate in the second half of the year, we expect that corporate profit growth will fall sustainably below the pace of corporate debt growth leading to rising leverage (panel 4). Strong oil prices have caused the energy sector to outperform the overall index considerably since the middle of last year. Now, many energy sub-sectors no longer appear cheap on our model. We take this opportunity to downgrade a few energy sub-sectors from overweight to neutral, and adjust some other sector recommendations as well (Table 3). Table 3ACorporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Table 3BCorporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* High-Yield: Overweight Chart 3High-Yield Market Overview High-Yield underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 65 basis points in May, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +36 bps. The average index option-adjusted spread widened 24 bps on the month, and currently sits at 356 bps. High-yield spreads are increasingly at odds with Moody's default rate projections. The latter call for the 12-month speculative grade default rate to fall to 1.5% by next April. The current 12-month trailing default rate is 3.7% (Chart 3). Using the Moody's default rate projection, and our own forecast for the recovery rate, we calculate the excess spread available in the Bloomberg Barclays High-Yield index to be 284 bps (after accounting for expected default losses). This is somewhat higher than the historical average of 248 bps. The current excess spread means that in an unchanged spread environment we would expect a High-Yield excess return (relative to duration-matched Treasuries) of +278 bps during the next 12 months. If the index spread were to tighten by 100 bps, we would expect an excess return of +675 bps. If the index spread were to widen by 100 bps we would expect an excess return of -120 bps (panel 3). If the excess spread were to simply revert to its historical average, then it would imply an excess High-Yield return of +427 bps. At the sector level, Moody's expects that most defaults during the next 12 months will come from the Media: Advertising, Printing & Publishing sector, followed closely by the Durable Consumer Goods and Retail sectors. Much of the projected improvement in the overall default rate results from a continued decline in Oil & Gas sector defaults compared to the past few years. MBS: Neutral Chart 4MBS Market Overview Mortgage-Backed Securities underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 5 basis points in May, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -27 bps. The conventional 30-year zero-volatility MBS spread widened 4 bps on the month, driven entirely by a 4 bps increase in the compensation for prepayment risk (option cost). The option-adjusted spread held flat at 32 bps. Value in the MBS sector is by no means exciting. The nominal spread on a conventional 30-year MBS is near its all-time low, the option-adjusted spread is close to one standard deviation below its pre-crisis mean (Chart 4) and MBS no longer look very attractive compared to investment grade corporate credit (panel 3). The most compelling reason to hold agency-backed MBS is that mortgage refinancings are likely to remain very low, owing both to rising interest rates and the large number of homeowners that have already refinanced. Depressed refi activity should keep MBS spreads near historically low levels (bottom panel), even as stresses emerge in other spread product sectors, notably corporate bonds. We recently presented a method for calculating expected total returns for all different bond sectors, only using assumptions for the number of Fed rate hikes during the next 12 months and the expected change in spreads.1 Our results showed an expected total return of 2.9% for conventional 30-year MBS in a scenario where the Fed lifts rates by 100 bps and where spreads remain flat. The same scenario corresponds to 3.4% total return for the investment grade corporate index. Government-Related: Underweight Chart 5Government-Related Market Overview The Government-Related index underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 33 basis points in May, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -40 bps. Sovereign debt underperformed the Treasury benchmark by 158 bps on the month, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -242 bps. Foreign Agencies underperformed by 37 bps on the month, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -56 bps. Local Authorities underperformed by 22 bps on the month, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +37 bps. Supranationals underperformed by 2 bps on the month, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +2 bps. Domestic Agency bonds outperformed by 7 bps, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to +7 bps. Global growth divergences and a stronger U.S. dollar weighed on Sovereign bond returns in May (Chart 5). While value in the sector improved somewhat as a result, it remains expensive relative to investment grade corporate credit (panel 2). With dollar strength likely to persist in the near-term, we remain underweight Sovereign bonds. Conversely, we reiterate our overweight recommendations on Foreign Agency and Local Authority bonds. Those sectors still offer compelling valuations and are less sensitive to a strong U.S. dollar than the lower-rated Sovereign sector. Supranationals and Domestic Agency bonds are low risk but do not offer sufficient spread to warrant much attention. Better low-risk spread product opportunities are available in the Agency CMBS and Consumer ABS sectors. Municipal Bonds: Underweight Chart 6Municipal Market Overview Municipal bonds outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 15 basis points in May, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to +110 bps (before adjusting for the tax advantage). The average Aaa-rated Municipal/Treasury yield ratio declined 2% on the month and, at 86%, it is very close to its post-crisis low (Chart 6). It remains somewhat elevated compared to the average level of 81% that was observed in the late stages of the previous cycle, between mid-2006 and mid-2007. Technically, yield ratios have been supported by robust fund flows and subdued issuance (panels 2 & 3), while fundamentally our Municipal Health Monitor suggests that ratings upgrades will continue to outpace downgrades for the time being (not shown). The message from our Health Monitor is confirmed by the trend in state & local government net borrowing (bottom panel). First quarter data, released last week, showed a sizeable drop in net borrowing as state & local governments managed to grow revenues by $46 billion while growing expenditures by only $25 billion. This is consistent with governments working hard to repair their budgets, raising taxes and slowing spending growth, as we showed in a recent report.2 Given tight municipal valuations, we continue to see better opportunities in the corporate bond space than in municipal bonds. But we will look to upgrade munis at the expense of corporates as we approach the end of the credit cycle. Hopefully, from a more attractive entry point. Treasury Curve: Favor 7-Year Bullet Over 1/20 Barbell Chart 7Treasury Yield Curve Overview The Treasury curve bull-flattened in May. The 2/10 Treasury slope flattened 3 bps to end the month at 43 bps. The 5/30 slope held steady at 32 bps. The short-end of the Treasury curve is still not adequately priced for the Fed's likely pace of one 25 basis point rate hike per quarter. Such a pace translates to a level of 100 bps on our 12-month discounter, which currently sits at only 73 bps (Chart 7). Similarly, the long-end of the Treasury curve is not adequately priced for the likely trend in inflation. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate is at only 2.09%, below the range of 2.3% to 2.5% that is consistent with well-anchored inflation expectations. We anticipate that higher TIPS breakevens at the long end of the curve will be roughly offset by loftier rate expectations at the short end of the curve, leaving the slope of the Treasury curve close to current levels during the next few months. In a recent report we introduced a framework for identifying the most attractively valued butterfly trades across the entire yield curve.3 The results, shown in Table 4, identify the 7-year bullet over the 1-year/20-year barbell as the most attractively valued butterfly trade that is geared toward curve steepening. According to our model, that trade is priced for 56 bps of 1/20 flattening during the next six months (panel 4). That seems excessive given the low level of long-maturity TIPS breakevens. Table 4Butterfly Strategy Valuation (As Of June 4, 2018) TIPS: Overweight Chart 8Inflation Compensation TIPS underperformed the duration-equivalent nominal Treasury index by 65 basis points in May, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +95 bps. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate fell 10 bps on the month and currently sits at 2.09%. The 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rate fell 13 bps and currently sits at 2.12%. As we explained in a recent report, we view the first stage of the bond bear market as being driven by the re-anchoring of inflation expectations.4 We will consider inflation expectations well anchored when both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are in a range between 2.3% and 2.5%, where they were the last time that inflation was well anchored around the Fed's target. Recent trends show that inflation is steadily making progress toward the Fed's 2% goal. The 12-month rate of change in the core PCE deflator is back up to 1.8%, from 1.5% in February. However, the core PCE deflator has only increased by 0.15% in each of the past two months. Consistent monthly prints above 0.165% are required to reach the Fed's 2% target (Chart 8). We expect tight labor markets and strong pipeline pressures (panel 3) to drive inflation higher in the months ahead. Although, as we discussed last week, the risk of a significant overshoot of the Fed's inflation target during the next 6-12 months is low.5 ABS: Neutral Chart 9ABS Market Overview Asset-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 3 basis points in May, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to -3 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for Aaa-rated ABS widened 1 bp on the month and now stands at 41 bps, 7 bps above its pre-crisis low. While consumer ABS offer reasonably attractive expected returns relative to other low-risk spread product (Agency CMBS, Domestic Agency bonds and Supranationals), credit risk is slowly starting to build in the sector. The New York Fed's Household Debt and Credit report showed that the 90+ day credit card delinquency rate rose above 8% in Q1 for the first time since 2015. Meanwhile, the overall consumer credit delinquency rate continues to increase alongside a rising debt service ratio (Chart 9). On the supply side, banks reported tightening credit card lending standards for the fourth consecutive quarter in Q1, while auto loan lending standards were tightened for the eighth consecutive quarter. Periods of tightening lending standards tend to coincide with rising delinquencies and wider spreads (bottom panel). In a recent report we forecasted 12-month total returns for each U.S. fixed income sector using inputs only for the path of spreads and the number of Fed rate hikes during the next year. In a scenario where spreads remain flat and the Fed lifts rates four times next year, we would expect Aaa-rated credit card ABS to return 2.3% and Aaa-rated auto loan ABS to return 2.4%.6 Non-Agency CMBS: Underweight Chart 10CMBS Market Overview Non-Agency Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 1 basis point in May, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to +71 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for non-agency Aaa-rated CMBS widened 2 bps on the month and currently sits at 70 bps, close to one standard deviation below its pre-crisis mean. Banks eased lending standard on nonfarm nonresidential loans in Q1 for the first time since 2015, and continued easing could signal lower delinquencies in the future (Chart 10). Easier lending standards could also support commercial real estate prices, which have decelerated recently and currently pose a risk for spreads (panel 3). Agency CMBS: Overweight Agency CMBS outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 1 basis point in May, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to +13 bps. The index option-adjusted spread widened 1 bp on the month and currently sits at 48 bps. In a recent report we forecasted 12-month total returns for each U.S. fixed income sector using inputs only for the path of spreads and the number of Fed rate hikes during the next year. In a scenario where spreads remain flat and the Fed lifts rates four times next year, we would expect non-agency Aaa-rated CMBS to return 2.8% and Agency CMBS to return 2.6%.7 Treasury Valuation Chart 11Treasury Fair Value Models The current reading from our 2-factor Treasury model (based on Global PMI and dollar sentiment) pegs fair value for the 10-year Treasury yield at 2.54%. The drop in the model's fair value compared to last month stems from a decline in the global PMI from 53.5 to 53.1, and a rise in dollar bullish sentiment from 60% to 67%. While global growth has undoubtedly lost momentum in recent months, we also suspect that our 2-factor model is finally breaking down. The 2-factor model does not contain a variable to capture the degree of resource utilization in the economy. As resource slack dissipates, inflationary pressures mount and the same pace of global growth should be associated with a higher Treasury yield. This means that as we approach the end of the cycle, the 2-factor model will start producing fair value readings that are consistently too low. We can attempt to correct for this by incorporating a measure of resource slack into our model, in this case the employment-to-population ratio. A model for the 10-year Treasury yield based on the employment-to-population ratio and the Global PMI produces a fair value of 3.29% (Chart 11). As we move further toward the end of the cycle, and away from the zero-lower bound on the fed funds rate, we expect the regression coefficients shown in the bottom three panels will revert to their pre-crisis levels and Treasury fair value will revert closer to the one shown in the second panel. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com Jeremie Peloso, Research Analyst jeremiep@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Pulling Back And Looking Ahead", dated May 22, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Profiting From A Higher LIBOR", dated March 20, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Special Report, "More Bullets, Barbells And Butterflies", dated May 15, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 4 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "A Signal From Gold?", dated May 1, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Breaking Points", dated May 29, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 6 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Pulling Back and Looking Ahead", dated May 22, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 7 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Pulling Back and Looking Ahead", dated May 22, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification Corporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation Total Return Comparison: 7-Year Bullet Versus 2-20 Barbell (6-Month Investment Horizon)
Highlights The risk/reward balance for risk assets remains unappealing this month, even though our base-case outlook sees them outperforming cash and bonds over the next 6-12 months. The number of items that could take equity markets to new highs appears to fall well short of the number of potential landmines that could take markets down. Tensions vis-à -vis North Korea have eased, but the U.S./China trade war is heating up. Trump's voter base and many in Congress want the President to push China harder. Eurozone "breakup risk" has reared its ugly head once again. The Italian President is trying to install a technocratic government, but the interim between now and a likely summer election will extend the campaign period during which the two contending parties have an incentive to continue with hyperbolic fiscal proposals. The next Italian election is not a referendum on exiting the EU or Euro Area. Nonetheless, the risks posed by the Italian political situation may not have peaked, especially since Italy's economic growth appears set to slow. We are underweight both Italian government bonds and equities within global portfolios. It is also disconcerting that we have passed the point of maximum global growth momentum. We expect growth to remain above-trend in the advanced economies, but the economic data will be less supportive of global risk assets than was the case last year. One reason for the economic "soft patch" is that the Chinese economy continues to decelerate. Our indicators suggest that growth will moderate further, with negative implications for the broader emerging market complex. Dearer oil may also be starting to bite, although prices have not increased enough to derail the expansion in the developed economies. This is especially the case in the U.S., where the shale industry is gearing up. Last year's "global synchronized growth" story is showing signs of wear. While the U.S. economy will enjoy a strong rebound in the second quarter, leading economic indicators in most of the other major countries have rolled over. Similar divergences are occurring in the inflation data. The international growth and inflation decoupling is probably not over, which means that long-dollar positions should continue to pay off in the coming months. U.S. inflation is almost back to target and the FOMC signaled that an overshoot will be tolerated. Policymakers will likely transition from "normalizing" policy to targeting slower economic growth once long-term inflation expectations return to the 2.3%-2.5% range. The advanced stage of the U.S. business cycle, heightened geopolitical risks and our bias for capital preservation keep us tactically cautious on risk assets again this month. Feature The major stock indexes are struggling, even though 12-month forward earnings estimates continue to march higher (Chart I-1). One problem is that a lot of good earnings news was discounted early in the year. The number of items that could take markets to new highs appear to fall well short of the number of potential landmines that could take markets down. Not the least of which is ongoing pain in emerging markets and the return of financial stress in Eurozone debt markets. Last month's Overview highlighted the unappealing risk/reward balance for risk assets, even though our base-case outlook sees them outperforming cash and bonds over the next 6-12 months. The advanced stage of the business cycle and our bias for capital preservation motivated us to heed the recent warnings from our growth indicators and 'exit' timing checklist. We also were concerned about a raft of geopolitical tensions. Fast forward one month and the backdrop has not improved. Our Equity Scorecard Indicator edged up, but is still at a level that historically was consistent with poor returns to stocks and corporate bonds (see Chart I-1 in last month's Overview). Our 'exit' checklist is also signaling that caution is warranted (Table I-1). Meanwhile, the "global synchronized expansion" theme that helped to drive risk asset prices higher last year is beginning to unravel and trade tensions are escalating. Chart I-1Struggling To Make Headway Table I-1Exit Checklist For Risk Assets U.S./Sino Trade War Is Back? The "on again/off again" trade war between the U.S. and China is on again as we go to press. Investors breathed a sigh of relief in mid-May when the Trump Administration signaled that China's minor concessions were sufficient to avoid the imposition of onerous new tariffs. However, the proposed deal did not go down well with many in the U.S., including some in the Republican Party. The President was criticized for giving up too much in order to retain China's help in dealing with North Korea. Trump might have initially cancelled the summit with Kim in order to send a message to China that he is still prepared to play hard ball on trade, despite the North Korean situation. We expect that U.S./North Korean negotiations will soon begin, and that Pyongyang will not be a major threat to global financial markets for at least the near term. It is a different story for U.S./China relations. Trump's voter base and many in Congress on both sides of the isle want the President to push China harder. This is likely to be a headwind for risk assets at least until the U.S. mid-term elections. The Return Of Eurozone Breakup Risk Turning to the Eurozone, "breakup risk" has reared its ugly head once again. Italian President Sergio Mattarella's decision to reject a proposed cabinet minister has led to the collapse of the populist coalition between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the euroskeptic League. President Mattarella's choice for interim-prime minister, Carlo Cottarelli, is unlikely to last long. It is highly unlikely that he will be able to receive parliamentary support for a technocratic mandate, given the fact that he cut government spending during a brief stint in government from 2013-14. As such, elections are likely this summer. Chart I-2Italy: No Euro Support Rebound Investors continue to fret for two reasons. First, the interim period will extend the campaign period during which both M5S and the League have an incentive to continue with hyperbolic fiscal proposals. Second, M5S has suggested that it will try to impeach Mattarella, a long and complicated process that would heighten political risk, though it will likely fail in our view. As our geopolitical strategists have emphasized throughout 2017, Italy will eventually be the source of a major global risk-off event because it is the one outstanding major European country capable of reigniting the Euro Area break-up crisis.1 While a majority of Italians support the euro, they are less supportive than any other major European country, including Greece (Chart I-2). Meanwhile a plurality of Italians is confident that the future would be brighter if Italy were an independent country outside of the EU. That said, the next election is not a referendum on exiting the EU or Euro Area. The current conflict arises from the coalition wanting to run large budget deficits in violation of Europe's Stability and Growth Pact fiscal rules. Given that the costs of attempting to exit the Euro Area are extremely severe for Italy's households and savers, and that even the Five Star Movement has moderated its previous skepticism about the euro for the time being, it is likely going to require a recession or another crisis to cause Italy seriously contemplate an exit. We are still several steps away from such a move. Nonetheless, the risks posed by the Italian political situation may not have peaked. Italy's leading economic indicator points to slowing growth, which will intensify the populist push for aggressive fiscal stimulus. We are underweight both Italian government bonds and equities within global portfolios. Global Growth Has Peaked Chart I-3Past The Point Of Max Growth Momentum It is also disconcerting that we have passed the point of maximum global growth momentum, as highlighted by the indicators shown in Chart I-3. We expect growth to remain above-trend in the advanced economies, but the economic data will be less supportive of global risk assets than was the case last year. What is behind this year's loss of momentum? First, growth in 2017 was flattered by a rebound from the oil-related manufacturing recession of 2015/16. That rebound is now topping out, while worries regarding a trade war are undoubtedly weighing on animal spirits and industrial activity. Second, the Eurozone economy was lifted last year by the previous recapitalization of parts of the banking system, which allowed some pent-up credit demand to be satiated. This growth impulse also appears to have peaked, which helps to explain the sharp drop in some of the Eurozone's key economic indicators. Still, we do not expect European growth to slip back below a trend pace on a sustained basis unless the Italian situation degenerates so much that contagion causes significantly tighter financial conditions for the entire Eurozone economy. The third factor contributing to the global growth moderation is China. The Chinese economy surged in 2017 in a lagged response to fiscal and monetary stimulus in 2016, as highlighted by the Li Keqiang Index (LKI) and import growth (Chart I-4). Both are now headed south as the policy backdrop turned less supportive. Downturns in China's credit and fiscal impulses herald a deceleration in capital spending and construction activity (Chart I-4, bottom panel). The LKI has a strong correlation with ex-tech earnings and import growth. In turn, the latter is important for the broader EM complex that trade heavily with China. Weaker Chinese import growth has also had a modest negative impact on the developed world (Chart I-5). We estimate that, for the major economies, the contribution to GDP growth of exports to China has fallen from 0.3 percentage points last year to 0.1 percentage points now.2 Japan and Australia have been hit the hardest, but the Eurozone has also been affected. Interestingly, U.S. exports to China have bucked the trend so far. Chart I-4China Growth Slowdown... Chart I-5...Is Weighing On Global Activity China is not the only story because the slowdown in global trade activity in the first quarter was broadly based (Chart I-5). Nonetheless, softer aggregate demand growth out of China helps to explain why manufacturing PMIs and industrial production growth in most of the major developed economies have cooled. Our model for the LKI is still moderating. We do not see a hard economic landing, but our analysis points to further weakening in Chinese imports and thus softness in global exports and manufacturing activity in the coming months. Oil's Impact On The Economy... Finally, oil prices are no doubt taking a bite out of consumer spending power as Brent fluctuates just below $80/bbl. Our energy experts expect the global crude market to continue tightening due to robust growth and ongoing geopolitical tensions. Chief among these are the continuing loss of Venezuelan crude production and the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran. At the same time, we expect OPEC 2.0 to keep its production cuts in place in the second half of the year. Increasing shale output will not be enough to prevent world oil prices from rising in this environment, and we expect oil prices to continue to trend higher through 2018 and into early 2019 (Chart I-6). Brent could touch $90/bbl next year. There are a few ways to gauge the size of the oil shock on the economy. Chart I-7 shows the U.S. and global 'oil bill' as a share of GDP. We believe that both the level and the rate of change are important. Price spikes, even from low levels, do not allow energy users the time to soften the blow by shifting to alternative energy sources. Chart I-6Oil: Stay Bullish Chart I-7The Oil Bill The level of the oil bill is not high by historical standards. The increase in the bill over the past year has been meaningful, both for the U.S. and at the global level, but is still a long way from the oil shocks of the 1970s. U.S. consumer spending on energy as a share of disposable income, at about 4%, is also near the lowest level observed over the past 4-5 decades (Chart I-8). The 2-year swing in this series shows that rapid increases in energy-related spending has preceded slowdowns in economic growth, even from low starting points. The swing is currently back above the zero line but, again, it is not at a level that historically was associated with a significant economic slowdown. Chart I-8Oil's Impact On U.S. Consumer Spending Moreover, the mushrooming shale oil and gas industry has altered the calculus of oil shocks for the U.S. The plunge in oil prices in 2014-16 was accompanied by a manufacturing and profit mini recession in the developed countries, providing a drag on overall GDP growth. Chart I-9 provides an estimate of the contribution to U.S. growth from the oil and gas industry. We have included capital spending and wages & salaries in the calculation, and scaled it up to include spillover effects on other industries. Chart I-9Oil's Impact On Consumer Spending And Shale The oil and gas contribution swung from +0.5 percentage points in 2012 to -0.4 percentage points in 2016. The contribution has since become only slightly positive again, but it is likely to rise further unless oil prices decline in the coming months. We have included the annual swing in consumer spending on energy as a percent of GDP in Chart I-9 (inverted) for comparison purposes. At the moment, the impact on growth from the shale industry is roughly offsetting the negative impact on consumer spending. The bottom line is that the rise in oil prices so far is enough to take the edge off of global growth, but it is not large enough to derail the expansion in the developed countries. This is especially the case in the U.S., where the shale industry is gearing up. ...And Asset Prices As for the impact on asset prices, it is important to ascertain whether rising oil prices represent more restrictive supply or expanding demand. A mild rise in oil prices might simply be a symptom of increased demand caused by accelerating global growth. Higher oil prices are thus reflective of robust demand, and thus should not be seen as a threat. In contrast, the 1970s experience shows that supply restrictions can send the economy into a tailspin. In order to separate the two drivers of prices, we regressed WTI oil prices on global oil demand, inventories and the U.S. dollar. By excluding supply-related factors such as production restrictions, the residual of the regression model gives an approximate gauge of supply shocks (panel 2, Chart I-10). This model clearly has limitations, but it also has one key benefit: it estimates not just actual disruptions in supply, but also the premium built into prices due to perceived or expected future supply disruptions. For example, the 1990 price spike appears as quite a substantial deviation from what could be explained by changes in demand alone. Similar negative supply shocks are evident in 2000 and 2008. Chart I-10Identifying Supply Shocks In The Oil Market We then examined the impact that supply shocks have on subsequent period returns for both Treasury and risk assets. We divided the Supply Shock Proxy into four quartiles corresponding to the four zones shown in Chart I-10: strong positive shock, mild positive shock, mild negative shock and strong negative shock; the last of these corresponds to the region above the upper dashed line, which we have shaded in the chart. The performance of risk assets does not vary significantly across the bottom three quartiles of the supply shock indicator (Chart I-11). However, performance drops off precipitously in the presence of a strong negative supply shock. This is consistent with the "choke point" argument: investors are initially unconcerned with a modest appreciation in oil prices. It is only when prices are driven sharply above the level consistent with the current demand backdrop that risk assets begin to discount a more pessimistic future. The total returns to the Treasury index behave in the opposite manner (Chart I-12). Treasury returns are below average when the oil shock indicator is below one (i.e. positive supply shock) and above average when oil prices rise into negative supply shock territory. In other words, an excess of oil supply is Treasury bearish, as it would tend to fuel more robust economic growth. Conversely, a supply shock that drives oil prices higher tends to be Treasury bullish. This may seem counterintuitive because higher oil prices can be inflationary and thus should be bond bearish in theory. However, large negative oil supply shocks have usually preceded recessions, which caused Treasurys to rally. Chart I-11Effect On Risk Assets Chart I-12Effect On Treasurys The model clearly shows that the drop in oil prices in 2014/15 was a positive supply shock, consistent with the oil consumption data that show demand growth was fairly stable through that period. The model indicator has moved up toward the neutral line in recent months, suggesting that the supply side of the market is tightening up, but it is still in "mild positive supply shock" territory. The latest data point available is April, which means that it does not capture the surge in oil prices over the past month. Some of the recent jump in prices is clearly related to the cancelled Iran deal and other supply-related factors, although demand continues to be supportive of prices. The implication of this model is that it will probably require a significant further surge in prices, without a corresponding ramp up in oil demand, for the model to signal that supply constraints are becoming a significant threat for risk assets. A rise in Brent above US$85 would signal trouble according to this model. As for government bonds, rising oil prices are bearish in the near term, irrespective of whether it reflects demand or supply factors. This is because of the positive correlation between oil prices and long-term inflation expectations. The oil bull phase will turn bond-bullish once it becomes clear that energy prices have hit an economic choke point. Desynchronization Last year's "global synchronized growth" story is showing signs of wear. First quarter U.S. GDP growth was underwhelming, but the long string of first-quarter disappointment points to seasonal adjustment problems. Higher frequency data are consistent with a robust rebound in the second quarter. Forward looking indicators, such as the OECD and Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators, continue to climb. This is in contrast with some of the other major economies, such as the Eurozone, U.K., Australia and Japan (Chart I-13). First quarter real GDP growth was particularly soft in Japan and the Eurozone, and one cannot blame seasonal adjustment in these cases. Chart I-13Growth & Inflation Divergences The divergence in economic performance likely reflects Washington's fiscal stimulus that is shielding the U.S. from the global economic soft patch. Moreover, the U.S. is less exposed to the oil shock and the China slowdown than are the other major economies. Similar divergences are occurring in the inflation data. While U.S. inflation continues to drift higher, it has lost momentum in the euro area, Japan and the U.K. (Chart I-13). Renewed stresses in the Italian and Spanish bond markets have sparked a flight-to-quality in recent trading days, depressing yields in safe havens such as U.S. Treasurys and German bunds. Nonetheless, prior to that, the divergence in growth and inflation was reflected in widening bond yield spreads as U.S. Treasurys led the global yields higher. Long-term inflation expectations have risen everywhere, but real yields have increased the most in the U.S. (prior to the flight-to-quality bond rally at the end of May). This is consistent with the growth divergence story and with our country bond allocation: overweight the U.K., Australia and Japan, and underweight U.S. Treasurys within hedged global portfolios. The dollar lagged earlier this year, but is finally catching up to the widening in interest rate spreads. The international growth and inflation decoupling is probably not over, which means that long-dollar positions should continue to pay off in the coming months. Expect More Pain In EM Dollar strength and rising U.S. bond yields are a classic late-cycle combination that often spells trouble for emerging market assets. We do not see the recent selloff across EM asset classes as a buying opportunity since markets have only entered the first stage of the classic final chapter; EM assets underperform as U.S. bond yields and the dollar rise, but commodity prices are resilient. In the second phase, U.S. bond yields top out, but the U.S. dollar continues to firm and commodity prices begin their descent. If the current slowdown in Chinese growth continues, as we expect, it will begin to weigh on non-oil commodity prices. Thus, emerging economies may have to deal with a deadly combination of rising U.S. interest rates, a stronger greenback, falling commodity prices and slowing exports to China (Chart I-14). Which countries are most exposed to lower foreign funding? BCA's Emerging Market Strategy services has ranked EM countries based on foreign funding requirements (Chart I-15). The latter is calculated as the current account balance plus foreign debt that is due in the coming months. Chart I-14EM Currencies Exposed To China Slowdown Chart I-15Vulnerability Ranking: Dependence On Foreign Funding Turkey, Malaysia, Peru and Chile have the heaviest foreign funding requirements in the next six months. These mostly stem from foreign debt obligations by their banks and companies. Even though most companies and banks with foreign debt will not default, their credit spreads will likely widen as it becomes more difficult to service the foreign debt.3 It is too early to build positions even in Turkish assets. Our EM strategists believe that it will require an additional 15% depreciation in the lira versus an equal-weighted basket of the dollar and euro, in combination with 200-250 basis points hike in the policy rate, and a 20% drop in share prices in local currency terms, to create a buying opportunity in Turkish financial instruments. FOMC Expects Inflation Overshoot Escalating turmoil in EM financial markets could potentially lead the Federal Reserve to put the rate hike campaign on hold. However, that would require some signs of either domestic financial stress or slowing growth. The FOMC is monitoring stress in emerging markets and in the Eurozone, but is sticking with its "gradual" tightening pace for now (i.e. 25 basis points per quarter). May's FOMC minutes signaled a rate hike in June. However, the minutes did not suggest that the Fed is getting more hawkish, despite the Staff's forecast that growth will remain above trend and that the labor market will continue to tighten at a time when core inflation is already pretty much back to target. Some inflation indicators, such as the New York Fed's Inflation Gauge, suggest that core inflation will overshoot. The minutes signaled that policymakers are generally comfortable with a modest overshoot of the 2% inflation target because many see it as necessary in order to shift long-term inflation expectations higher, into a range that is consistent with meeting the 2% inflation target on a "sustained" basis (we estimate this range to be 2.3-2.5% for the 10-year inflation breakeven rate). The fact that the FOMC took a fairly dovish tone and did not try to guide rate expectations higher contributed to some retracement of the Treasury selloff in recent weeks. Nonetheless, an inflation overshoot and rising inflation expectations will ultimately be bond-bearish, especially when the FOMC is forced to clamp down on growth as long-term inflation expectations reach the target range. As discussed in BCA's Outlook 2018, one of our key themes for the year is that risk assets are on a collision course with monetary policy because the FOMC will eventually have to transition from simply removing accommodation to targeting slower growth. Timing that transition will be difficult, and depends importantly on how much of an inflation overshoot the FOMC is prepared to tolerate. Is 2½% reasonable? Or could inflation go to 3%? The makeup of the FOMC has changed, but we expect Janet L. Yellen4 to shed light on this question when she speaks at the BCA Annual Investment Conference in September. Investment Conclusions The risks facing investors have shifted, but we do not feel any less cautious than we did last month. Geopolitical tensions vis-à -vis North Korea have perhaps eased. But trade tensions are escalating and investors are suddenly faced with another chapter in the Eurozone financial crisis. The major fear in the first and second chapters was that bond investors would attack Italy, given the sheer size of that economy and the size of Italian government debt. That dreadful day has arrived. The profit backdrop in the major economies remains constructive for equity markets. However, even there, the bloom is coming off the rose. Global growth is no longer synchronized and the advanced economies have hit a soft patch with the possible exception of the U.S. While far from disastrous, our short-term profit models appear to be peaking across the major countries (Chart I-16). Chart I-16Profit Growth: Solid, But Peaking The typical U.S. late cycle dynamics are also threatening emerging markets, at a time when investors are generally overweight and many EM countries have accumulated a pile of debt. U.S. inflation is set to overshoot the target, the FOMC is tightening and the dollar is rising. Throw in slowing Chinese demand and the EM space looks highly vulnerable. If the global economic slowdown is pronounced and drags the U.S. down with it, then bonds will rally and risk assets will take a hit. If, instead, the soft patch is short-lived and growth re-accelerates, then the U.S. Treasury bear market will resume. Stock indexes and corporate bond excess returns would enjoy one last upleg in this scenario, but downside risks would escalate once the Fed begins to target slower economic growth. Either way, EM assets would be hit. Our base case remains that stocks will beat government bonds and cash on a 6-12 month horizon. However, the risk/reward balance is unattractive given the geopolitical backdrop. Thus, we remain tactically cautious on risk assets for the near term. We still expect that the 10-year Treasury yield will peak at close to 3½% before this economic expansion is over. Nonetheless, this would require a calming of geopolitical tensions and an upturn in the growth indicators in the developed world. The risk/reward tradeoff for corporate bonds is no better than for equities and we urge caution in the near term. On a 6-12 month cyclical horizon, we still expect corporate bonds to outperform government bonds, at least in the U.S. European corporates are subject to the ebb and flow of the Italian bond crisis, and face the added risk that the ECB will likely end its QE program later this year. Looking further ahead, this month's Special Report, beginning on page 19, analyzes the Eurozone corporate sector's vulnerability to the end of the cycle that includes rising interest rates and, ultimately, a recession. We find that domestic issuers into the Eurozone market are far less exposed than are foreign issuers. Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst May 31, 2018 Next Report: June 28, 2018 1 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Europe's Divine Comedy: Italian Inferno," dated September 2016, available on gps.bcaresearch.com 2 This underestimates the impact on the major countries because it does not account for third country effects (i.e. trade with other countries that trade with China). 3 For more information, please see BCA Emerging Market Strategy Weekly Report, "The Dollar Rally And China's Imports," dated May 24, 2018, available on ems.bcaresearch.com 4 Janet L. Yellen, Chair, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System (2014-2018). II. Leverage And Sensitivity To Rising Rates: The Eurozone Corporate Sector As interest rates rise, investors are looking for the leveraged pressure points in the global economy to identify the sectors most likely to show strain. We previously identified the U.S. corporate bond market as a definite candidate. This month we look at European corporates. European corporations are still well behind the U.S. in the leveraging cycle. Relative trends in corporate financial health have generally favored European credit quality relative to U.S. issuers. Below the surface, balance sheet repair in the Eurozone has been concentrated in domestic issuers; financial trends among foreign issuers have resembled those in the U.S. market. Foreign issuers are much more vulnerable to higher interest rates and an economic downturn. Interest- and debt-coverage ratios are likely to fall to levels that will spark a raft of downgrades for foreign firms issuing into the Eurozone market, in the event that interest rates rise and a recession follows. Investors should concentrate their European corporate bond portfolios in domestic securities. That said, trends in financial health are unlikely to be the key driver of corporate bond relative returns this year. More important will be the end of the ECB's asset purchase program. We recommend an underweight position in Eurozone IG and HY relative to Eurozone government bonds, and relative to U.S. corporates. Risk assets remain on a collision course with monetary policy, which is the main reason why the "return of vol" is a key theme in the BCA 2018 Outlook. In the U.S., rising inflation is expected to limit the FOMC's ability to cushion soft patches in the economic data or negative shocks from abroad. We expect that ECB tapering will add to market stress, especially now that Eurozone breakup risks are again a concern. We also believe that geopolitics will remain a major source of uncertainty and volatility. All this comes at a time when corporate bond spreads offer only a thin buffer against bad news. On a positive note, we remain upbeat on the earnings outlook in the major countries. The U.S. recession that we foresaw in 2019 has been delayed into 2020 by fiscal stimulus. The longer runway for earnings to grow keeps us nervously overweight corporate bonds, at least in the U.S. That said, corporates are no more than a carry trade now that the lows in spreads are in place for the cycle. We are keeping a close eye on a number of indicators that will help us to time the next downgrade to our global corporate bond allocation. Profitability is just one, albeit important, aspect of the financial backdrop. What about the broader trend in financial health? Does the trend justify wider spreads even if the economy and profits hold up over the next year? We reviewed U.S. corporate financial health in the March 2018 monthly Bank Credit Analyst, using our bottom-up sample of companies. We also stress-tested these companies for higher interest rates and a medium-sized recession. We concluded that the U.S. corporate sector's heavy accumulation of debt in this expansion will result in rampant downgrade activity during the next economic downturn. As interest rates rise, investors are looking for the leveraged pressure points in the global economy to identify the sectors most likely to show strain. The U.S. corporate bond market is a definite candidate. This month we extend the analysis to the European corporate sector. The European Corporate Health Monitor The bottom-up version of the Corporate Health Monitor (CHM) is a complement to our top-down CHM, which uses macro data from the ECB to construct an index of six financial ratios for the non-financial corporate sector. While useful as an indicator of the overall trend in corporate financial health, it does not shed light on underlying trends across credit quality, countries and sectors. It also fails to distinguish between domestic versus foreign issuers in the Eurozone market. A number of features of the European market limit the bottom-up analysis to some extent relative to what we are able to do for the U.S.: the Eurozone market is significantly smaller and company data typically do not have as much history; foreign issuers comprise almost 50% of the market, a much higher percentage than in the U.S.; and the Financial sector features more prominently in the Eurozone index, but we exclude it because our CHM methodology does not lend itself well to this sector. We analyzed only domestic issuers in our study of U.S. corporate health. However, we decided to include foreign issuers in our Eurozone analysis in order to maximize the sample size. Moreover, it is appropriate for some bond investors to consider the whole picture, given that important benchmarks such as Barclay's corporate indexes include both foreign and domestic issuers. The relative composition of domestic versus foreign, investment-grade versus high-yield, and industrial sectors in our sample are comparable with the weights used in the Barclay's index. The CHM is calculated using the median value for each of six financial ratios (Table II-1). We then standardize1 the median values for the six ratios and aggregate them into a composite index using a simple average. The result is an index that fluctuates between +/- 2 standard deviations. A rising index indicates deteriorating health, while a downtrend signals improving health. We defined it this way in order to facilitate comparison with trends in corporate spreads. Table II-1Definitions Of Ratios That Go Into The CHMs One has to be careful in interpreting our Eurozone Monitor. The bottom-up version only dates back to 2005. Thus, while both the level and change in the U.S. CHM provide important information regarding balance sheet health, for the Eurozone Monitor we focus more on the change. Whether it is a little above or below the zero line is less important than the trend. Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Chart II-1 compares the top-down and bottom-up Eurozone CHMs for the entire non-financial corporate sector.2 The levels are different, although the broad trends are similar. Key differences that help to explain the divergence include the following: the top-down CHM defines leverage to be total debt as a percent of the market value of equity, while our bottom-up CHM defines it to be total debt as a percent of the book value of the company. The second panel of Chart II-1 highlights that the two measures of leverage have diverged significantly since 2012; the top-down CHM defines profit margins as total cash flow as a percent of sales. For data-availability reasons, our bottom-up version uses operating income/total sales; and most importantly, the top-down CHM uses ECB data, which includes only companies that are domiciled in the Eurozone. Thus, it excludes foreign issuers that make up a large part of our company sample and the Barclay's index. When we recalculate the bottom-up CHM using only domestic investment-grade issuers, the result is much closer to the top-down version (Chart II-2). Both CHMs have been in 'improving health' territory since the end of the Great Financial Crisis. The erosion in the profitability components during this period was offset by declining leverage, rising liquidity and improving interest coverage for domestic issuers. Chart II-1Top-Down Vs. Bottom-Up Chart II-2Top-Down Vs. Domestic Bottom-Up It has been a different story for foreign IG issuers (Chart II-3). These firms have historically enjoyed a higher return on capital, operating margins, interest coverage, debt coverage and liquidity. Nonetheless, heavy debt accumulation has undermined their interest- and debt-coverage ratios in absolute terms and relative to their domestic peers until very recently. In other words, while domestic issuers have made an effort to clean up their balance sheets since the Great Recession, financial trends among foreign issuers look more like the trends observed in the U.S. No doubt, this is in part due to U.S. companies issuing Euro-denominated debt, but there are many other foreign issuers in our sample as well. Some analysts prefer total debt/total assets to the leverage measure we use in constructing our CHMs. However, the picture is much the same; leverage among IG domestic and foreign firms has diverged dramatically since 2010 (Chart II-4). Chart II-3Bottom-Up: Domestic Vs. Foreign IG Chart II-4Diverging Leverage Trends Over the past year or so there has been some reversal in the post-Lehman trends; domestic health has stabilized, while that of foreign issuers has improved. Leverage among foreign companies has leveled off, while margins and the liquidity ratio have bounced. The results for high-yield (HY) issuers must be taken with a grain of salt because of the small sample size. Chart II-5 highlights that the HY CHM is improving for both domestic and foreign issuers. Impressively, leverage is declining for both the domestic and foreign components. The return on capital, interest coverage, and debt coverage have also improved, although only for foreign issuers. Chart II-5Bottom-Up: Domestic Vs. Foreign HY Corporate Sensitivity The bottom line is that, while there have been some relative shifts below the surface, the European corporate sector's finances are generally in good shape in absolute terms and relative to the U.S. This is particularly the case for domestic issuers that have yet to catch the equity buyback bug. However, less accommodative monetary policy and rising borrowing rates have focused investor attention on corporate sector vulnerability. Downgrade risk will mushroom if corporate borrowing rates continue rising and, especially, if the economy contracts. If there is a recession in Europe in the next few years it will likely be as a result of a downturn in the U.S. We expect a traditional end to the U.S. business cycle; the Fed overdoes the rate hike cycle, sending the economy into a tailspin. The U.S. downturn would spill over to the rest of the world and could drag the Eurozone into a mild contraction. We estimated the change in the interest coverage ratio for the companies in our bottom-up European sample for a 100 basis-point rise in interest rates across the corporate curve, taking into consideration the maturity distribution of the debt (i.e. the coupons reset only for the bonds, notes and loans that mature in the next three years). We make the simplifying assumptions that all debt and loans maturing in the next three years are rolled over, but that companies do not take on net new obligations. We also assume that EBIT is unchanged in order to isolate the impact of higher interest rates. The 'x' in Chart II-6 denotes the result of the interest rate shock only. The 'o' combines the interest rate shock with a recession scenario, in which EBIT contracts by 15%. The interest coverage ratio declines sharply when rates rise by 100 basis points, but the ratio moves to a new post-2000 low only for foreign issuers. The ratio for domestic issuers falls back to the range that existed between 2009 and 2013. The median interest coverage ratio drops further when we combine this with a 15% earnings contraction in the recession scenario. Again, the outcome is far worse for foreign than it is for domestic issuers. Chart II-7 presents a shock to the median debt coverage ratio. Since debt coverage (cash flow divided by total debt) does not include interest payments, we show only the recession scenario result that reflects the decline in profits. Once again, foreign issuers appear to be far more exposed to an economic downturn than their domestic brethren. Chart II-6Interest Coverage Shocks Chart II-7Debt Coverage Shock Indeed, the results for foreign issuers are qualitatively similar to the shocks we previous published for our bottom-up sample of IG corporates in the U.S. (Chart II-8 and Chart II-9). In both cases, higher interest rates and contracting earnings will take the interest coverage and debt coverage ratios into uncharted territory. Chart II-8U.S. Interest Coverage Shocks Chart II-9U.S. Debt Coverage Shock Conclusions European corporations are still well behind the U.S. in the leveraging cycle. Relative trends in corporate financial health have generally favored European credit quality relative to U.S. issuers, where balance sheet activity has focused on lifting shareholder value since the last recession. Below the surface, balance sheet repair in the Eurozone has been concentrated in domestic issuers; financial trends among foreign issuers have resembled those in the U.S. market. There has been a small convergence of financial health between Eurozone domestic and foreign issuers over the past year or so, but the latter are still much more vulnerable to higher interest rates and an economic downturn. Interest- and debt-coverage ratios are likely to fall to levels that will spark a raft of downgrades for foreign firms issuing into the Eurozone market, in the event that interest rates rise and a recession follows. Investors should concentrate their European corporate bond portfolios in domestic securities. That said, trends in financial health are unlikely to be the key driver of corporate bond returns relative to European government bonds or to U.S. corporates this year. More important will be the end of the ECB's asset purchase program later in 2018. We expect spreads to widen as this important liquidity tailwind fades. For the moment, our Global Fixed Income Strategy service recommends an underweight position in Eurozone IG and HY relative to Eurozone government bonds, and relative to U.S. corporates. Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst 1 Standardizing involves taking the deviation of the series from the 18 quarter moving average and dividing by the standard deviation of the series. 2 Note that a rising CHM indicates deteriorating health to facilitate comparison with quality spreads. III. Indicators And Reference Charts The divergence between the U.S. corporate earnings data and our equity-related indicators continued in May. We remain cautious, despite the supportive profit backdrop. The U.S. net earnings revisions ratio fell a bit in May, but it remains well in positive territory. Forward earnings continued their ascent, and the net earnings surprise index rose further to within striking distance of the highest levels in the history of the series. Normally, an earnings backdrop this strong would justify an overweight equity allocation within a balanced portfolio. Unfortunately, a lot of good earnings news is discounted based on our Composite Valuation Indicator and extremely elevated 5-year bottom-up earnings growth expectations (see the Bank Credit Analyst Overview, May 2018). Moreover, our equity indicators are sending a cautious signal. Our U.S. Willingness-to-Pay indicator continued to decline in May. The WTP indicators track flows, and thus provide information on what investors are actually doing, as opposed to sentiment indexes that track how investors are feeling. U.S. flows have clearly turned negative for equities, although flows into European and Japanese markets are holding up for now. Our Revealed Preference Indicator (RPI) for stocks remained on its 'sell' signal in May, for the second month in a row. The RPI combines the idea of market momentum with valuation and policy measures. It provides a powerful bullish signal if positive market momentum lines up with constructive signals from the policy and valuation measures. Conversely, if constructive market momentum is not supported by valuation and policy, investors should lean against the market trend. These indicators are not aligned at the moment, further supporting the view that caution is warranted. Moreover, our composite equity Technical Indicator is on the verge of breaking down and our Monetary Indicator moved further into negative territory in May. Meanwhile, market froth has not been completely extinguished according to our Speculation Indicator (which is a negative sign for stocks from a contrary perspective). As for bonds, the powerful rally at the end of May has undermined valuation, but the 10-year Treasury is not yet in expensive territory. Our technical indicator suggests that previously oversold conditions are easing, but bonds are a long way from overbought. This means that yields have room to fall further in the event of more bad news on Italy or on the broader geopolitical scene. The dollar has not yet reached overbought territory according to our technical indicator. EQUITIES: Chart III-1U.S. Equity Indicators Chart III-2Willingness To Pay For Risk Chart III-3U.S. Equity Sentiment Indicators Chart III-4Revealed Preference Indicator Chart III-5U.S. Stock Market Valuation Chart III-6U.S. Earnings Chart III-7Global Stock Market And Earnings: ##br##Relative Performance Chart III-8Global Stock Market And Earnings: ##br##Relative Performance FIXED INCOME: Chart III-9U.S. Treasurys And Valuations Chart III-10U.S. Treasury Indicators Chart III-11Selected U.S. Bond Yields Chart III-1210-Year Treasury Yield ComponentsChart III-13U.S. Corporate Bonds And Health Monitor Chart III-14Global Bonds: Developed Markets Chart III-15Global Bonds: Emerging Markets CURRENCIES: Chart III-16U.S. Dollar And PPP Chart III-17U.S. Dollar And Indicator Chart III-18U.S. Dollar Fundamentals Chart III-19Japanese Yen Technicals Chart III-20Euro Technicals Chart III-21Euro/Yen Technicals Chart III-22Euro/Pound Technicals COMMODITIES: Chart III-23Broad Commodity Indicators Chart III-24Commodity Prices Chart III-25Commodity Prices Chart III-26Commodity Sentiment Chart III-27Speculative Positioning ECONOMY: Chart III-28U.S. And Global Macro Backdrop Chart III-29U.S. Macro Snapshot Chart III-30U.S. Growth Outlook Chart III-31U.S. Cyclical Spending Chart III-32U.S. Labor Market Chart III-33U.S. Consumption Chart III-34U.S. Housing Chart III-35U.S. Debt And Deleveraging Chart III-36U.S. Financial Conditions Chart III-37Global Economic Snapshot: Europe Chart III-38Global Economic Snapshot: China Mark McClellan Senior Vice President The Bank Credit Analyst
Highlights 0 To 3 Months: Extended net short positioning and the recent moderation in economic data suggest that Treasury yields are ripe for a near-term pullback. Investors who are able should consider tactically buying bonds on a 0-3 month horizon, but with a tight stop loss. 6 to 12 Months: We recommend that investors maintain below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 6-12 month horizon, consistent with our Two Stage Bond Bear Market framework. While the credit cycle is in its late stages, it is still too soon to reduce exposure to corporate bonds. We will pare exposure to corporate bonds once our TIPS breakeven inflation targets are met. Total Return Forecasts: Our simple framework for estimating total bond returns reveals that risk/reward arguments clearly favor below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 12-month horizon. Feature Chart 1Two Milestones The U.S. bond market reached one noteworthy milestone last week and is quickly closing in on another. The first milestone is that the 10-year Treasury yield decisively broke through the 3% level that had defined its most recent peak (Chart 1). The second milestone is that the market is now close to fully pricing-in the likely near-term path for Fed rate hikes. We noted in a recent report that the Fed's "gradual" rate hike path is quite clearly defined as one 25 basis point rate hike per quarter.1 This equates to 100 bps on our 12-month Fed Funds Discounter, which currently sits at 91 bps, just below this key level (Chart 1, bottom panel). We continue to see upside in Treasury yields on a cyclical horizon. Though tactically, the likelihood of a near-term pullback in yields has increased greatly during the past few days. In this week's report we outline the case for a near-term (0-3 month) pullback in Treasury yields, but also look ahead by introducing a simple framework investors can use to make total return forecasts for all different U.S. bond sectors. The Case For A Near-Term Pullback In addition to the fact that the market is closer to fully discounting the likely near-term path of rate hikes than it has been for some time, there are two other reasons to expect a near-term, temporary pullback in yields. The first is that the below-benchmark duration trade has become the consensus position in the market (Chart 2). Net speculative short positions in 10-year Treasury futures have rarely been greater, and since the financial crisis large net short positions have correlated quite strongly with a decline in the 10-year yield during the subsequent three months. Similarly, positions reported in the JP Morgan Duration Survey are firmly in "net short" territory for both the "all clients" and "active clients" surveys. The Marketvane survey of bond sentiment has also turned bearish for only the fourth time since 2010. Each of the other three times has coincided with a near-term drop in yields. Chart 2Bond Market Looks Oversold But positioning alone would not be enough to convince us that yields might decline in the near-term. Investors also need a catalyst. An excuse to take profits on large net short positions that have been working well. That catalyst is typically a period of worse-than-expected economic data. To judge the trend in economic data relative to expectations we turn to the Economic Surprise Index. Chart 3Economic Surprise Index In a report from last year we demonstrated that if the Economic Surprise Index ends a month below (above) the zero line, it is very likely that Treasury yields fell (rose) during that month.2 Also, we know that the surprise index is mean reverting by its very nature. A long period of positive (negative) data surprises will certainly be followed an upward (downward) revision to investors' economic expectations. Eventually expectations become so elevated (depressed) that they become impossible to surpass (disappoint). The index will then start to mean revert. In that same report from last year we also introduced a simple auto-regressive model of the surprise index, designed to capture its average speed of mean reversion. Based on that model, which is purely a function of the index's own lags, we would expect the surprise index to dip slightly into negative territory in one month's time (Chart 3). Though given the large amount of uncertainty in the model, a fairer assessment would be that it is no longer a given that the surprise index will remain above the zero line in the near-term. Bottom Line: Extended net short positioning and the recent moderation in economic data suggest that Treasury yields are ripe for a near-term pullback. Investors who are able should consider tactically buying bonds on a 0-3 month horizon, but with a tight stop loss. Less nimble investors are better off riding out any potential near-term volatility and maintaining below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 6-12 month horizon. The Cyclical Picture Is Unchanged On a 6-12 month investment horizon, we are sticking with the playbook of our Two-Stage Bond Bear Market.3 The first stage is characterized by the re-anchoring of inflation expectations, and here, long-maturity TIPS breakeven inflation rates are still slightly below our target range of 2.3% to 2.5% (Chart 4). We also think bond investors should maintain an overweight allocation to spread product, though the time to trim exposure is approaching. Because the Fed's support for credit markets will weaken as inflation pressures mount, we will start reducing exposure to spread product once both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are within our target 2.3% to 2.5% band. The intuition that the credit cycle is long in the tooth is further supported by the fact that the 2/10 Treasury curve is close to 50 bps (Chart 4, bottom panel). In a recent report we showed that while corporate bond excess returns relative to Treasuries usually remain positive until the yield curve inverts, they decline dramatically once the slope dips below 50 bps.4 Valuation also remains tight in the corporate bond market. While investment grade corporate bond spreads have widened in recent months, the junk spread is still close to its post-crisis low, as is the differential between the junk and investment grade spread (Chart 5). Chart 4Inflation Compensation Chart 5Flirting With The Lows The recent widening of investment grade corporate spreads appears to simply reflect a reversion to more reasonable valuation levels, after they had been extremely expensive at the start of the year. Chart 6 shows the 12-month breakeven spread for each investment grade credit tier. We look at the breakeven spread - defined as the spread widening required to lose money versus Treasuries on a 12-month horizon - in order to adjust for the changing duration of the index over time. Chart 6 also shows the breakeven spread as a percentile rank relative to history. In other words, it shows the percentage of time that the breakeven spread has been lower in the past. Notice that earlier in the year investment grade corporate spreads had been approaching all-time expensive levels. They are now closer to the 25th percentile, much more in line with similar spreads for the High-Yield credit tiers (Chart 7). Chart 6Investment Grade Breakeven Spreads Chart 7High-Yield Breakeven Spreads There is no longer a risk-adjusted opportunity in high-yield corporate bonds relative to investment grade. Bottom Line: We recommend that investors maintain below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 6-12 month horizon, consistent with our Two Stage Bond Bear Market framework. While the credit cycle is in its late stages, it is still too soon to reduce exposure to corporate bonds. We will pare exposure to corporate bonds once our TIPS breakeven inflation targets are met. A Simple Framework For Forecasting Total Returns In a recent report we observed that, using a 12-month investment horizon, the difference between market expectations for the change in the federal funds rate and the actual change in the federal funds rate closely tracks the price return from the Bloomberg Barclays Treasury index.5 With that in mind, this week we extend that analysis to develop a simple framework for forecasting bond total returns. The framework relies on the fact that the "12-month rate hike surprise" described above is correlated with the 12-month change in Treasury yields. The Appendix to this report shows the historical correlation between the 12-month rate hike surprise and the 12-month change in several different par-coupon Treasury yields. Unsurprisingly, the correlation is very strong for short maturity yields, and gradually weakens as we move further out the curve. This is important because it means that the total return forecasts we generate from this exercise will be more accurate for bond sectors with low duration than for those with high duration. Table 1 shows the total return forecasts we generated for the Bloomberg Barclays Treasury Master Index and for several of its maturity buckets. The results are presented in such a way that readers can impose their own forecasts for the number of Fed rate hikes that will occur during the next 12 months, and then map that forecast to a reasonable expectation for Treasury total returns. Table 1Treasury Index Total Return Forecasts For example, in a scenario where the Fed lifts rates four times (100 bps) during the next year, given current market pricing the rate hike surprise will be modestly negative.6 Using the historical correlations shown in the Appendix, we map that rate hike surprise to changes in the par-coupon Treasury curve and then use the duration and convexity attributes of each individual index to determine how that shift in the Treasury curve will impact index returns. In the scenario described above we would expect the Treasury Master Index to return +2.13% during the next year. While this is a slightly positive number, it is close enough to zero that it does not provide much insulation from changes in long-dated yields that are unrelated to the near-term path for rate hikes. Further, in the four rate hike scenario, investors moving from the Treasury Master Index to the 1-3 year index need only sacrifice 12 bps of expected return to reduce their duration risk by a factor of three. Such a risk/reward trade-off clearly favors a below-benchmark duration stance on a 12-month investment horizon. Table 2 repeats the same exercise but for the major spread sectors of the U.S. bond market. To estimate spread sector total returns we need to forecast both the shift in the Treasury curve and whether spreads will widen, tighten or remain constant. Specifically, we assume that spreads either widen or tighten by the standard deviation of annual spread changes for each index, calculated using a post-crisis interval. Table 2Spread Product Total Return Forecasts The results show that, in a four rate hike scenario, we should expect 12-month investment grade corporate bond total returns of approximately 3.4%, assuming also that spreads stay flat. In a scenario where the average index spread widens by 42 bps, we should expect total returns of only 1%. Bottom Line: Our simple framework for estimating total bond returns reveals that risk/reward arguments clearly favor below-benchmark portfolio duration on a 12-month horizon. Spread product returns should continue to beat Treasuries for the time being, but the window for outperformance is starting to close. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com Appendix Chart 8Change In 1-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br## Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 9Change In 2-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br## Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 10Change In 3-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br##Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 11Change In 5-Year Yield Vs.12-Month ##br##Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 12Change In 7-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br##Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 13Change In 10-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br##Fed Funds Rate Surprise Chart 14Change In 30-Year Yield Vs. 12-Month ##br## Fed Funds Rate Surprise 1 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Portfolio Allocation Summary, "Coming To Grips With Gradualism", dated May 8, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "How Much Higher For Yields?", dated October 31, 2017, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "A Signal From Gold?", dated May 1, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 4 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Back To Basics", dated April 17, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 6 The 12-month rate hike surprise is defined as the 12-month Fed Funds Discounter less the actual change in the fed funds rate during the following 12 months. Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification
Highlights Chart 1Interest Rate Expectations Last week the Federal Reserve made some necessary tweaks to the language in its statement. Namely, with the year-over-year core PCE deflator now up to 1.88%, the Fed was forced to upgrade its assessment of inflation and note that it has "moved close" to the 2 percent target. To assuage concern that such a change might lead to a quicker pace of rate hikes, the statement also emphasized that the inflation target is "symmetric" and noted that its policy of "gradual increases in the federal funds rate" will continue. While the recent increase in inflation is not sufficient to nudge the Fed away from "gradualism", the more important observation is that yields are still not high enough to discount the Fed's gradual approach (Chart 1). The Fed has tightened policy once per quarter since December 2016, tapering asset purchases in place of a rate hike in September 2017. It should be obvious that, absent an economic shock, one rate hike per quarter is the Fed's definition of "gradual". And yet, the market is still priced for barely more than two hikes for the balance of 2018, and not even two rate hikes for all of 2019! Maintain a below-benchmark duration stance until the market comes to grips with the Fed's gradualism. Feature Investment Grade: Overweight Chart 2Investment Grade Market Overview Investment grade corporate bonds outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 4 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to -77 bps. The Corporate index option-adjusted spread tightened somewhat in the first half of April, but widened anew during the past couple of weeks and recently made a new high for the year. Despite this sell-off, valuation remains expensive for investment grade corporates. The 12-month breakeven spread for an A-rated bond has only been tighter 27% of the time since 1989 (Chart 2). The same measure for a Baa-rated bond has only been tighter 28% of the time. We are preparing to cyclically scale back our corporate bond exposure, and will start the process once TIPS breakeven inflation rates reach our target range, signaling that monetary conditions are sufficiently restrictive. Our target range is 2.3% to 2.5% for both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates. Those rates currently sit at 2.16% and 2.23%, respectively. In a recent report we noted that corporate bond excess returns fall sharply once the 2/10 Treasury yield curve flattens to below 50 bps, though they typically remain positive until the curve actually inverts.1 The 2/10 Treasury slope currently sits at 45 bps. That same report also notes that while the outlook for corporate revenue growth is strong, rising employee compensation costs will likely soon put a dent in profit margins and cause gross leverage to resume its uptrend (panel 4). This will apply further widening pressure to spreads later in the year. Table 3ACorporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Table 3BCorporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* High-Yield: Overweight Chart 3High-Yield Market Overview High-Yield outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 121 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to 102 bps. The average index option-adjusted spread tightened 16 bps on the month, and currently sits at 343 bps. The 12-month trailing speculative grade default rate moved higher for the second consecutive month, hitting 3.92% in March. Moody's baseline forecast still calls for it to fall to 1.7% by March of next year. Based on Moody's default rate projection and our estimate of the recovery rate, we forecast High-Yield default losses of 0.85% for the next 12 months. This translates to a 12-month excess return of 257 bps for the High-Yield index versus Treasuries, assuming an unchanged junk spread (Chart 3). One hundred basis points of spread widening would lead to an excess return of -140 bps during this time horizon, and 100 bps of spread tightening would lead to an excess return of +654 bps. However, such a large spread tightening is almost certainly over-optimistic. As inflation continues to rise and the Fed applies the brakes, a floor will likely remain under the VIX index of implied equity volatility and this will prevent junk spreads from recovering their cyclical lows (top panel). This would be consistent with behavior typically seen late in the cycle, once the 2/10 Treasury slope flattens to below 50 bps.2 MBS: Neutral Chart 4MBS Market Overview Mortgage-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 18 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to -22 bps. The conventional 30-year zero-volatility MBS spread tightened 4 bps on the month, split between a 1 bp tightening of the option-adjusted spread (OAS) and a 3 bps decline in the compensation for prepayment risk (option cost). While mortgages are no longer excessively cheap compared to corporate credit (Chart 4), we still see limited potential for spread widening during the next 6-12 months. Rising interest rates should serve to limit mortgage refinancing, and muted refis are closely linked to tight MBS spreads (bottom panel). We also view extension risk as relatively limited for conventional 30-year MBS. Using a model of excess MBS returns that we introduced in February, we estimate that despite the 25 bps increase in duration-matched Treasury yields that occurred in April, extension risk trimmed only 2 bps off monthly excess returns.3 Our excess return Bond Map also shows that conventional 30-year MBS require far fewer days of average spread tightening to earn 100 bps of excess return than most other Aaa-rated structured products (Non-Agency Aaa-rated CMBS being the exception), although they are also more likely to deliver losses. But given the benign refinancing back-drop, we remain reasonably positive on the sector.4 Government-Related: Underweight Chart 5Government-Related Market Overview The Government-Related index underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 9 basis points in April, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -7 bps. Sovereign debt underperformed the Treasury benchmark by 37 bps on the month, while Foreign Agencies underperformed by 15 bps and Domestic Agencies underperformed by 14 bps. Local Authorities delivered 14 bps of outperformance and Supranationals bested duration-equivalent Treasuries by 5 bps. Dollar strength hurt the performance of Sovereign debt last month, and relative valuation continues to show that Sovereigns are expensive relative to similarly-rated U.S. corporate bonds (Chart 5). We remain underweight USD-denominated Sovereign debt. Conversely, Foreign Agencies and Local Authorities continue to offer very attractive spreads, especially considering the duration and spread volatility characteristics of those sectors. Our excess return Bond Map shows that both sectors offer a superior risk/reward trade-off than the Barclays Aggregate and almost all of its components.5 The large presence of state-owned energy companies in the Foreign Agency sector means it should also benefit from higher oil prices in the coming months. Municipal Bonds: Underweight Chart 6Municipal Market Overview Municipal bonds outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 65 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to 94 bps (before adjusting for the tax advantage). The average Aaa-rated Municipal/Treasury yield ratio declined 2% in April as fund inflows returned to the sector (Chart 6). Persistently low visible supply is also contributing to the strong technical environment for yield ratios. The tax-adjusted yield for a 10-year municipal bond is now about 46 bps below the yield offered by an equivalent-duration corporate bond. As we have shown in prior research, investors typically get an opportunity to shift out of corporates and into munis at a positive spread differential before the end of the cycle.6 We will await this more attractive entry point before aggressively shifting our allocation in favor of munis. In a recent report we noted that state and local governments are still working to repair their budgets.7 More states enacted tax increases than decreases in fiscal year 2018 and the projected nominal budget increase across all states is a paltry 2.3%. Fortunately, our Municipal Health Monitor indicates that the hard work is paying off, and suggests that ratings upgrades should continue to outpace downgrades for the time being (bottom panel). Treasury Curve: Favor 5-Year Bullet Over 2/10 Barbell Chart 7Treasury Yield Curve Overview The Treasury curve rose considerably in April, steepening a touch out to the 5-year maturity point and flattening thereafter. The 2/10 Treasury slope flattened 1 basis point in April, and currently sits at 45 bps. The 5/30 slope flattened 9 bps on the month and currently sits at 34 bps. The trade-off between the pace of Fed rate hikes on the one hand, and the re-anchoring of long-dated TIPS breakeven inflation rates on the other will dictate the slope of the yield curve during the next six months. With the 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate at 2.16%, it remains slightly below the range of 2.3% to 2.5% that is consistent with well-anchored inflation expectations. It will be difficult for the yield curve to flatten aggressively until that target is met. After that, curve flattening becomes much more likely. We continue to recommend a position in the 5-year bullet versus the duration-matched 2/10 barbell, primarily due to extremely attractive starting valuation. Our model suggests that the 2/5/10 butterfly spread is priced for 17 bps of 2/10 curve flattening during the next six months (Chart 7). With long-maturity TIPS breakevens still below target, we think that is too high a bar. TIPS: Overweight Chart 8TIPS Market Overview TIPS outperformed the duration-equivalent nominal Treasury index by 93 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to 161 bps. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate rose 12 bps on the month and currently sits at 2.16%. The 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rate increased 6 bps and currently sits at 2.23%. As we explained in a recent report, we view the first stage of the bond bear market as being driven by the re-anchoring of inflation expectations.8 We will consider inflation expectations well anchored when both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are in a range between 2.3% and 2.5%, where they were the last time that inflation was well anchored around the Fed's target. If the recent trend in inflation continues, then this re-anchoring will occur relatively soon. The annualized 6-month rate of change in the trimmed mean PCE deflator has already returned to the Fed's target, and the annual rate of change jumped from 1.71% to 1.77% in March (Chart 8). Pipeline measures of inflation pressure also continue to strengthen. Our Pipeline Inflation Indicator is in a strong uptrend and the prices paid component of the ISM manufacturing survey is closing in on 80, a level last seen in 2011 (panel 4). ABS: Neutral Chart 9ABS Market Overview Asset-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 13 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to -6 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for Aaa-rated ABS narrowed 4 bps on the month and now stands at 40 bps, 7 bps above its pre-crisis low. Our recently introduced excess return Bond Map shows that both Aaa-rated credit card and Aaa-rated auto loan ABS exhibit lower risk and less potential for gains than the Barclays Aggregate index.9 It also confirms that credit card ABS are somewhat more attractive than auto loan ABS, offering approximately the same potential for excess return with less risk. Compared to other fixed income sectors, Aaa-rated ABS offer greater potential return and higher risk than Agency CMBS, Domestic Agencies and Supranationals. But the ABS sector also has a less attractive risk/reward profile than the Foreign Agency, Local Authority and Investment grade corporate sectors. Fundamentally, while consumer delinquencies remain low, they are heading higher alongside a rising household debt service coverage ratio (Chart 9). The persistent (though mild) deterioration in credit quality causes us to maintain a neutral allocation to the sector, despite reasonably attractive valuations. Non-Agency CMBS: Underweight Chart 10CMBS Market Overview Non-Agency Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 60 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to 71 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for non-agency Aaa-rated CMBS tightened 4 bps on the month and currently sits at 69 bps, close to one standard deviation below its pre-crisis mean. Our excess return Bond Map shows that Aaa-rated non-Agency CMBS offer greater potential reward, but also greater risk, than the majority of other high-rated spread products. The exception is conventional 30-year Agency MBS, which offer a less attractive risk/reward trade-off.10 That being said, the fundamental picture for commercial real estate is less appealing than on the residential side. CMBS spreads continue to diverge from commercial property prices (Chart 10). Agency CMBS: Overweight Agency CMBS outperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 26 basis points in April, bringing year-to-date excess returns up to 12 bps. The index option-adjusted spread was flat on the month and currently sits at 47 bps. According to our Bond Map, Agency CMBS offer greater potential excess return and less risk than both the Supranational and Domestic Agency sectors. We continue to view the Agency CMBS space as an attractive low-risk spread sector. Treasury Valuation Chart 11Treasury Fair Value Models The current reading from our 2-factor Treasury model (based on Global PMI and dollar sentiment) pegs fair value for the 10-year Treasury yield at 2.70%. The drop in the model's fair value stems from a decline in the global PMI to 53.5 from a recent peak of 54.5. While global growth has undoubtedly lost momentum in recent months, we also suspect that our 2-factor model is finally breaking down. The 2-factor model does not contain a variable to capture the degree of resource utilization in the economy. Logically, as slack dissipates in the economy and inflationary pressures mount, then the same level of global growth should be associated with a higher Treasury yield, all else equal. This means that at some point, as we approach the end of the cycle, the model will break down and consistently produce fair value readings that are too low. We suspect that we may be reaching this point. When we augment our model with an additional variable to measure the degree of resource utilization, in this case the employment-to-population ratio, we find that the new model projects a fair value of 3.28% for the 10-year Treasury yield (Chart 11). This 3-factor model would not have worked as well as our 2-factor model during the zero-lower bound period, as can be seen by looking at how rolling regression betas from each of the three variables moved sharply following the recession (bottom three panels). However, as we move further away from the zero-lower bound we expect the regression coefficients to return to pre-crisis levels, meaning that it will be important to monitor both trends in global growth and the amount of resource slack in the economy. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com Jeremie Peloso, Research Analyst jeremiep@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "On The MOVE", dated February 13, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 4 For details on the Bond Map please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 6 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Monetary Restraints", dated February 27, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 7 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Profiting From A Higher LIBOR", dated March 20, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 8 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "A Signal From Gold?", dated May 1, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 9 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 10 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "As Good As It Gets For Corporate Debt", dated April 24, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification Corporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation Total Return Comparison: 7-Year Bullet Versus 2-20 Barbell (6-Month Investment Horizon)
Highlights Corporate Bonds & The Yield Curve: Corporate bond excess returns fall sharply once the yield curve flattens to below 50 basis points, though they typically remain positive until the yield curve inverts. Interestingly, excess returns for equities relative to Treasuries exhibit the opposite pattern. Corporate Bonds & Leverage: The outlook for top-line corporate revenue growth is strong, but employee compensation costs will also rise this year. We are doubtful that corporate profit growth will keep pace with debt growth for the remainder of year, meaning that leverage is likely to rise. Rising leverage will be a signal to reduce exposure to corporate bonds. Bond Map: We perform a back-test to assess the effectiveness of the Bond Map framework for sector allocation that was introduced in last week's report. Feature It's been a while, but last week's bond market performance was reminiscent of an old fashioned risk-on phase. The 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level since early 2014, causing a temporary halt in the yield curve's flattening trend. Spread product also responded to investor optimism, and returns from the investment grade corporate bond index now lag the duration-equivalent Treasury index by only 52 basis points year-to-date, up from a mid-March trough of -94 bps (Chart 1). High-Yield index returns also rebounded, and that index is now outpacing Treasuries by +150 bps so far this year. Chart 1Corporate Credit: Annual Excess Returns But for corporate bond investors, now is not the time for complacency. Out of the criteria we use to signal turns in the credit cycle, we are progressively checking more and more off our list.1 Spreads are already tight relative to history and corporate debt levels are already high. That much has been true for some time. Next up, we await a more restrictive monetary policy and a more severe slow-down in corporate profit growth to below the pace of corporate debt growth. Both of those conditions also need to be met before corporate defaults start to occur and spreads start to widen materially. In this week's report we consider each of those two conditions in turn, noting the triggers that will need to be hit for us to downgrade our current overweight allocation to corporate bonds. Condition 1: Restrictive Monetary Policy Chart 2Monetary Policy Not Yet Restrictive On the monetary policy front, we expect that monetary conditions will turn restrictive in the not-to-distant future (Chart 2). For the time being, long-maturity TIPS breakeven inflation rates are still below levels that are consistent with the Fed achieving its 2% inflation target. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate is currently 2.17% and the 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rate is 2.24%. But once both of those rates reach a range between 2.3% and 2.5%, they will be consistent with well-anchored inflation expectations and the Fed will have one less reason to stay cautious. We will start paring exposure to corporate bonds once both the 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate and the 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rate cross above the 2.3% threshold. The re-anchoring of inflation expectations will also impart further upside to nominal Treasury yields, and we therefore maintain our below-benchmark duration stance and continue to follow the road-map laid out in our February report detailing the two-stage Treasury bear market.2 Another traditional signal of restrictive monetary policy is a flat or inverted yield curve (Chart 2, panel 2). Intuitively, a very flat yield curve tells us that the market expects very few (if any) Fed rate hikes in the future. An inverted yield curve tells us that the market actually anticipates rate cuts. While the yield curve is not yet close to inverting, it is approaching levels that are consistent with much lower (and often negative) excess returns for both investment grade and high-yield corporate bonds, as is discussed below. A third indicator of the stance of monetary policy is simply the spread between the real federal funds rate and an estimate of its equilibrium level - the level consistent with neither an accommodative nor a restrictive policy stance (Chart 2, bottom panel). While the fact that the real fed funds rate is currently quite close to the popular Laubach-Williams estimate of its equilibrium level certainly reinforces our view that policy is almost restrictive, the large degree of uncertainty inherent in this sort of estimate leads us to prefer the market signals from the slope of the yield curve and TIPS breakeven inflation rates when forming an investment strategy. The Yield Curve And Corporate Bond Returns To assess the importance of the yield curve as a predictor of turns in the credit cycle, we split each cycle going back to the mid-1970s into regimes based on the yield curve slope. We then calculate excess returns during each phase for both investment grade and high-yield corporate bonds, as well as the stock-to-bond total return ratio. We use the 3/10 yield curve slope instead of the more often quoted 2/10 slope because it allows for the inclusion of more historical data. This decision did not materially impact the results of our analysis. Chart 3 shows how we divided each cycle into three phases: Chart 3Corporate Bond Performance And The Yield Curve Phase 1 runs from the end of the previous NBER-defined recession until the slope crosses below 50 bps. Phase 2 runs from the time that the slope crosses below 50 bps until it crosses below zero. Phase 3 runs from the time that the yield curve first inverts to the start of the next recession. Notice that we do not include recessionary periods in our analysis, usually the periods with the worst excess corporate bond returns. The results of our analysis are shown in Table 1, and the first obvious result is that corporate bond excess returns are much higher in Phase 1 than in Phase 2, although Phase 2 returns are usually still positive.3 Negative excess returns occur more often than not in Phase 3, after the yield curve has inverted. Table 1Risk Asset Performance In Different Yield Curve Regimes The biggest exception to the above observations is that Phase 2 High-Yield returns actually exceeded Phase 1 High-Yield returns in the 2001-07 cycle. In our view, this exception results from the fact that corporate profit growth was well above corporate debt growth in 2005, and did not really decline until 2007, shortly after the yield curve inverted. In contrast, Phase 2 returns were exceptionally weak in the prolonged period between 1994 and 2000. In this instance, corporate profit growth actually fell below corporate debt growth in 1998, well before the yield curve inverted in 2000. This reinforces that both the stance of monetary policy and the trend in corporate leverage matter for corporate bond returns. The latter is discussed in the next section of this report. Another interesting result shown in Table 1 is that the pattern of stock market excess returns over Treasuries is the mirror image of the pattern in corporate bond excess returns. The stock market tends to perform better in Phase 2 than in Phase 1, and often even performs well in Phase 3 after the yield curve has inverted. This means that multi-asset investors should consider paring exposure to corporate bonds relative to Treasuries before they think of reducing exposure to the stock market. Bottom Line: Restrictive monetary policy is one condition that must be met before we reduce exposure to corporate bonds in our recommended portfolio. The first indication of this will likely be the re-anchoring of long-maturity TIPS breakeven inflation rates in a range between 2.3% and 2.5%. We will start paring exposure to corporate bonds when that occurs. The slope of the yield curve is already at levels that are consistent with very low excess returns. Though we demonstrate that an inverted yield curve is historically linked to even lower returns. Conviction that the yield curve is about to invert will be another trigger to further reduce corporate bond exposure in the future. Condition 2: Rising Leverage The second condition that will cause us to take even more credit risk off the table is when gross leverage for the nonfinancial corporate sector - calculated as total debt over pre-tax profits - enters an uptrend. Chart 4 shows that periods of spread widening almost always coincide with rising gross leverage, or put differently, periods when the rate of debt growth exceeds the rate of profit growth. Profit growth has kept pace with debt growth during the past few quarters, causing leverage to flatten-off and allowing corporate spreads to narrow. Going forward, the outlook for top-line corporate revenue growth (a.k.a. net value added) remains favorable, owing to an ISM index that is well above the 50 boom/bust line and still climbing (Chart 5). But on the expense side of the ledger, employee compensation - the largest expense for the corporate sector - is also poised to increase in the months ahead. Unit labor costs jumped sharply in the fourth quarter of 2017 (Chart 5, panel 2), and with the unemployment rate at 4.1% and the economy still adding jobs at a robust pace - nonfarm payrolls have increased by an average of +211k during the past six months - a further acceleration in employee compensation is likely this year. Chart 4Corporate Leverage Has Flattened Off Chart 5Wage Growth Will Hamper Profits The key question then becomes whether corporations will be able to offset rising compensation costs by lifting prices. This remains uncertain, but early indications are not favorable. Our Profit Margin Proxy - the growth in the corporate sector's implicit selling price deflator relative to the growth in unit labor costs - does an excellent job tracking pre-tax profits (Chart 5, bottom panel). At the moment, this indicator signals that profit growth will moderate in the coming quarters. Bottom Line: The outlook for top-line corporate revenue growth is strong, but employee compensation costs will also rise this year. We are doubtful that corporate profit growth will keep pace with debt growth for the remainder of year. A decline in the rate of profit growth to below the rate of corporate debt growth will be another signal to reduce exposure to corporate bonds. The Bond Map Back-Test Last week we introduced the BCA Bond Map, a graphical depiction of the current risk/reward trade-off on offer from the different sectors of the U.S. bond market.4 To summarize, in our excess return Bond Map we plot the number of days of average spread tightening required for each sector to earn 100 bps of excess return on the vertical axis, and the number of days of average spread widening required for each sector to lose 100 bps versus Treasuries on the horizontal axis (Chart 6). The diagram is then split into four quadrants based on the location of the Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate index, which we have modified to also include junk bonds. The upper-left quadrant, which we label "Best Bets", contains those sectors that offer less risk and greater excess return potential than the benchmark. The upper-right quadrant, which we label "Exciting", contains those sectors that offer higher risk than the benchmark but also higher potential returns. The bottom-left ("Boring") quadrant contains those sectors with low risk of losses but also low probability of gains, and the bottom-right ("Avoid") quadrant contains those sectors with higher risk than the benchmark and lower expected returns. As can be seen in Chart 6, the current excess return Bond Map shows that Local Authorities, Foreign Agencies and investment grade corporate bonds offer the best combination of risk and expected return. No sectors currently plot in the "Avoid" quadrant. Chart 6Excess Return Bond Map (As Of April 20, 2018) This week, we publish the results of a back-test of the real time performance of our Bond Map. To do this we produced the Bond Map at the beginning of each calendar year starting in 2006 and then calculated average excess returns for each quadrant. For example, if three sectors were in the "Best Bets" quadrant at the beginning of the year, we calculated 12-month excess returns for each sector and then averaged them together to get an excess return for "Best Bets" sectors that year.5 Table 2 shows the average and standard deviation of calendar year excess returns for each quadrant, using a sample that spans from 2006-2017. As would be expected, the "Exciting" quadrant displays the highest average excess return, but also the highest standard deviation. Conversely, the "Boring" quadrant delivers the lowest average return and the lowest risk. The performance of the "Best Bets" quadrant is somewhere in between, delivering a greater average return than the "Boring" quadrant with less risk than the "Exciting" quadrant. Although the Sharpe Ratio for the "Best Bets" quadrant turns out to be worse than the Sharpe ratio for both the "Exciting" and "Boring" quadrants. This provides some support for the investment strategy of favoring either the "Exciting" or "Boring" quadrants depending on your assessment of the macro environment. The "Avoid" quadrant actually delivered negative excess returns on average, with elevated risk. Table 2Excess Return Bond Map Track Record (2006-2017) For comparison we also show the average and standard deviation of excess returns for the Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate index, augmented with High-Yield. The benchmark delivered excess returns only slightly greater than the "Boring" quadrant, with significantly more risk. The total return version of the Bond Map is shown in Chart 7. This is identical to the excess return Bond Map, except it shows the number of days of average increase/decrease in yields for each sector to lose/earn 5% total return. We perform the identical back-test as with the excess return map, and display the results in Table 3. Chart 7Total Return Bond Map (As Of April 20, 2018) Table 3Total Return Bond Map Track Record (2006-2017) Here we see the interesting result that the average total returns are higher in the "Best Bets" quadrant than in the "Exciting" quadrant, but strangely the "Best Bets" quadrant also delivered greater volatility. The "Boring" quadrant delivered the best Sharpe Ratio, while the "Avoid" sector delivered both lower average returns and greater volatility than the "Boring" quadrant. For comparison, the average total returns for the Aggregate index (plus High-Yield) were lower than the total returns from any of the four quadrants, but also with less volatility. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com 1 We define the "turn" in the credit cycle as when corporate defaults start to occur and corporate spreads enter a sustained widening phase. 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Two-Stage Bear Market In Bonds", dated February 20, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 For the Phase 1 period in Cycle 2 we use an interval of June 1983 to July 1988 because High-Yield excess returns are only available starting in June 1983. In reality, the Phase 1 period should have started when the prior recession ended in December 1982. Using the correct interval (starting in December 1982) investment grade corporate bond excess returns are +131 bps and the stock-to-bond ratio returns are +5.19%, both annualized. 4 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Back To Basics", dated April 17, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 5 We started our back-test sample in 2006 even though our sector data goes back to 2000. Because our bond map relies on historical estimates of spread/yield volatility, we wanted a sample of at least five years of data before starting the test. With each passing year more back-data is incorporated into our spread/yield volatility estimates, which should improve the Bond Map's accuracy over time. Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification
Highlights Global corporate bond markets have seen both ups and downs so far in 2018. Credit spreads in the developed markets and emerging markets, both for investment grade (IG) and lower quality credit tiers, tightened in January. This was followed by a sharp widening of spreads in the two months after the "VIX spike" in early February. Spreads have begun narrowing again in April, but remain above levels that began the year in all major countries with one notable exception - U.S. high-yield. Feature The volatility in corporate credit is a reflection of the growing list of investor worries, coming at a time when yields and spreads still remain near historically low levels in almost all markets. Topping that list is the fear that low unemployment and rising inflation rates will force the major central banks to maintain a more hawkish (or, at least, less dovish) policy bias in the medium term, even with the global economy losing some upside momentum so far this year after a robust 2017. Add in other concerns over U.S. trade policy (i.e. tariffs), U.S. fiscal policy (i.e. wider deficits, more U.S. Treasury issuance) and even signs of potential stresses in global funding markets (i.e. wider LIBOR-OIS spreads), and it is no surprise that more uncertain investors have become less comfortable with the risks stemming from credit exposure. This can be seen in the volatility of mutual fund and ETF flows into riskier bond categories like U.S. high-yield (HY), which saw a whopping -$19.8bn in outflows in Q1/2018, but has already seen +$3.8bn in inflows in April - possibly in response to the surprisingly strong results seen in Q1 U.S. corporate earnings reports.1 Against this backdrop of more uncertainty in credit markets, we are presenting our latest update of the BCA Corporate Health Monitor (CHM) Chartbook. The CHMs are composite indicators of balance sheet and income statement ratios (using both top-down and bottom-up data) that are designed to assess the financial well-being of the overall non-financial corporate sectors in the major developed economies. A brief overview of the methodology is presented in Appendix 1 on page 16. In this CHM Chartbook, we introduce new country coverage to our CHM universe, adding a bottom-up measure for Japan and both top-down and bottom-up CHMs for Canada. After these new additions, we now have CHMs covering 92% of the Barclays Bloomberg Global Corporate Bond Index universe, based on country market capitalization weightings. The broad conclusion from the latest readings on our CHMs is that global credit quality has enjoyed a cyclical improvement in response to the coordinated growth seen in 2017, but with important geographical differences (Chart 1): Chart 1Global Corporates: Now Supported##BR##By Growth, Not Central Banks Credit quality in the U.S. has improved on the back of the solid performance of U.S. profits over the past year, but high leverage and low interest coverage suggest corporates are highly vulnerable to any slowing in economic growth Underlying credit quality in euro area corporates remains supported by low interest rates and the easy money policies of the European Central Bank (ECB), but the CHMs are trending in the wrong direction due to poor profitability metrics - most notably, a very depressed return on capital - and rising leverage among core European issuers U.K. corporate health continues to benefit from a very robust short-term liquidity position, although sluggish profitability and weak interest coverage suggest potential medium-term problems beneath the surface Japanese corporates are in good shape, enjoying strong interest coverage and low leverage, although absolute levels of profitability remain much lower than the other countries in our CHM universe Canadian corporate health has enjoyed some modest cyclical improvement, but low absolute levels on profitability and interest coverage, combined with high leverage, point to underlying risks. Looking ahead, the tailwinds that have supported corporate health and the performance of global corporate debt in the past couple of years - a coordinated cyclical upturn driving solid earnings growth, with low inflation allowing monetary policies to stay accommodative - are becoming headwinds. Inflation expectations are moving higher in most countries, fueled by low unemployment rates and rising oil prices. This is most evident in the U.S., where the additional boost to growth from fiscal stimulus will keep the Fed on its rate hiking path over the next year. A mild inflation upturn is also visible in the euro area and Japan, where the ECB and Bank of Japan (BoJ) are already contributing to a less favorable liquidity backdrop for corporates by reducing the pace of their asset purchases. That trend is projected to continue over the next year, to the detriment of credit market returns that have been boosted by those unusual monetary policies (see the bottom panel of Chart 1). At some point within the 6-12 months, more hawkish central banks will act to slow global economic growth, triggering a more fundamental underperformance of corporates versus government bonds. For now, the backdrop remains supportive, but the clock is ticking as the end of this credit cycle draws closer. U.S. Corporate Health Monitors: A Cyclical Improvement, But Underlying Problems Persist Our top-down CHM for the U.S. has been flashing "deteriorating health" for fourteen consecutive quarters dating back to the middle of 2014 (Chart 2). Yet there has been a modest cyclical improvement seen in many of the individual CHM ratios over the past couple of years - most importantly, return on capital and profit margins - helping push the top-down level to close to the zero line. It is important to note that, due to delays in the reporting of the data used in the top-down U.S. CHM, the latest reading is only from the 4th quarter of 2017.2 A move into "improving health" territory in the 1st quarter of 2018 would require additional increases in cyclical profitability measures. This will be difficult to achieve with U.S. economic growth cooling off a bit in the first three months of 2018 (although the enactment of the Trump corporate tax cuts will likely help support the after-tax measure of margins used in the top-down CHM as 2018 progresses). From a longer-term perspective, the fact that the top-down CHM return on capital metric is well off the post-crisis peak is a disturbing development, given that non-financial corporate profit margins have been stable over the same period. This suggests a more fundamental problem with weak U.S. productivity growth and lower internal rates of return on marginal investments for companies, which is a longer-term concern for U.S. corporate health when the economic growth backdrop becomes less friendly. The bottom-up versions of the U.S. CHMs for IG corporates (Chart 3) and HY companies (Chart 4) have also both improved, with the HY indicator sitting right at the zero line. This confirms that the signal from our top-down CHM is being reflected in both higher-rated and lower quality companies. Yet the longer-term problems of high leverage and low returns on capital are not going away. In particular, HY interest and debt coverage remains near multi-decade lows. Chart 2Top-Down U.S. CHM:##BR##A Cyclical Pause Of A Structural Deterioration Chart 3Bottom-Up U.S. Investment Grade CHM:##BR##A Bit Better, But Still Deteriorating What is rather worrying is the fact that IG interest coverage has fallen in recent years, despite high profit margins and historically low corporate borrowing rates. This indicates that the stock of debt has now expanded to a point where the interest expense required to service that debt is eating up a greater share of corporate earnings, even at a time when profit growth is still quite strong. This will raise downgrade risk if corporate borrowing rates were to increase significantly or the U.S. experiences a major economic downturn. Interest costs would rise while earnings deteriorate, which would push interest coverage to historic lows, as was discussed in a recent report from our flagship Bank Credit Analyst service.3 For now, we are still recommending playing the growth phase of the business cycle by staying overweight U.S. corporate debt within global fixed income portfolios (Chart 5). The time to scale back positions will come after U.S. inflation expectations rise to levels consistent with the Fed's inflation target (i.e. when both the 5-year/5-year forward U.S. TIPS breakeven and the outright 10-year TIPS breakevens reach 2.4-2.5%). This will give the Fed confidence to follow through on its rate hike projections, pushing the funds rate to restrictive levels. In turn, that will dampen future corporate profit expectations and raise risk premiums on U.S. corporate bonds. With those breakevens now sitting at the highest point in four years (2.19%), that tipping point for credit markets is drawing nearer. Chart 4Bottom-Up U.S. High-Yield CHM:##BR##A Strong Cyclical Improvement Chart 5The Beginning Of The End Of##BR##The U.S. Credit Cycle Euro Corporate Health Monitors: Getting Better Thanks To The Economy & The ECB Our top-down Euro Area CHM remains in "improving health" territory, as it has for the entire period since the 2008 crisis. The trend in the indicator has been steadily worsening since 2015, however, and the top-down CHM now sits just below the zero line (Chart 6). The steady deterioration of the top-down CHM is due to declines in profit margins, return on capital and debt coverage. This is offsetting the high and rising levels of short-term liquidity and interest coverage, which are being supported by the easy money policies of the ECB (negative short-term interest rates, liquidity programs designed to prompt low-cost bank lending, and asset purchase programs that include buying of corporate bonds). Compared to the top-down CHMs we have constructed for other countries, there is an even longer lag on data availability from euro area government statisticians. Our top-down euro area CHM is only available to the 3rd quarter of 2017 and, therefore, does not reflect the strong performance of the euro area economy at the end of last year. Our bottom-up versions of the euro area CHMs for IG (Chart 7) and HY (Chart 8), which are based on individual earnings data that is more timely, both show that corporate health continued to improve at the end of 2017. Return on capital for euro area IG issuers (both domestic issuers and foreign issuers in the European bond market) is between 8-10%, similar to the level in the bottom-up U.S. IG CHM but higher than the equivalent measures in our U.K., Japan and Canada CHMs. Both interest coverage and liquidity ratios for euro area IG are also close to U.S. IG levels. The euro area HY CHM is also showing improvement though declining leverage, although these results should be interpreted with caution as the sample size is relatively small. Chart 6Top-Down Euro Area CHM:##BR##Health Improving At A Diminishing Rate Chart 7Bottom-Up Euro Area##BR##Investment Grade CHMs: Steady Improvement Within the Euro Area, our bottom-up CHMs show that the gap has closed between issuers from the core countries versus those in the periphery, but all still remain in the "improving health" zone. (Chart 9). Return on capital, interest coverage and debt coverage are higher in the core, while liquidity is better in the periphery despite more highly levered balance sheets. Chart 8Bottom-Up Euro Area High-Yield CHMs:##BR##Steady Improvement As Leverage Declines Chart 9Bottom-Up Euro Area IG CHMs:##BR##Core Vs. Periphery While all of our euro area CHMs are indicating healthier balance sheets, that fact is already discounted in the low yields and tight spreads for both IG and HY issuers (Chart 10). Euro area corporates are also benefitting from the supportive bid of the ECB, which buys credit as part of its asset purchase program. We expect the ECB to fully taper its government bond purchases by the end of 2018, while continuing to reinvest the proceeds of maturing debt in 2019 and beyond. It is less clear what the ECB will do with its corporate bond buying program, and there has been some speculation that the ECB could leave its corporate program untouched while tapering the government purchases. That would be a scenario that could be keep euro area credit spreads tight, although the momentum in the euro area economy will likely be the more important driver of credit valuations. If the soft patch in growth seen in the first few months of 2018 continues in the coming months, euro area credit spreads would likely widen, although by less than if the ECB was not buying corporates. We have preferred to own U.S. corporates over Euro Area equivalents for much of the past year. The gap between our top-down CHMs for the U.S. and Europe has proven to be an excellent directional indicator for the relative performance of U.S. credit vs. Europe (Chart 11). That CHM gap continues to favor U.S. credit, although that has not yet flowed through into any meaningful outperformance of U.S. IG and HY corporates. Chart 10European Credit:##BR##Spreads & Yields Have Bottomed Out Chart 11Relative Top-Down CHMs##BR##Still Favor The U.S. Over Europe U.K. Corporate Health Monitor: Still No Major Causes For Concern The top-down U.K. CHM remains firmly in the "improving health" zone, led by cyclical improvements in profit margins and interest coverage, combined with very strong short-term liquidity (Chart 12). Return on capital remains near 20-year lows around 6%, however, mirroring levels seen in this ratio in the CHMs for other countries. Profit margins remain at 20%, near the middle of the historical range. U.K. credit has benefitted from highly stimulative monetary policy settings by the Bank of England (BoE) - especially after the 2016 Brexit shock when the central bank not only lowered policy rates, but announced bond buying programs for both Gilts and U.K. corporates. The BoE has begun to take back some of that monetary easing by raising rates 50bps since last November. However, we remain skeptical that the central bank will be able to deliver much additional tightening over the rest of 2018 given sluggish growth, falling realized inflation and lingering Brexit uncertainties weighing on business confidence. An environment of mushy domestic growth and a stand-pat central bank would typically be good for risk assets like corporate credit. Yet both yields and spreads have been drifting higher in recent months, mirroring the trends seen in other global corporate bond markets (Chart 13). It is difficult to paint a scenario of renewed outperformance of U.K. credit versus Gilts without a fresh catalyst like accelerating growth or monetary easing. Yet the combination of accommodative monetary policy with a solid credit backdrop leads us to maintain a neutral recommendation on U.K. corporate debt. Chart 12U.K. Top-Down CHM:##BR##Steady Improvement Chart 13U.K. Credit: Yields & Spreads##BR##Are Drifting Higher Japan Corporate Health Monitor: A Small, But Very Healthy, Market We introduced our Japan CHM in a recent Weekly Report.4 We only have a bottom-up version of the indicator at the moment, as there is not the same consistency of top-down data sources as are available in other countries. Furthermore, the Japanese corporate bond market is small, as companies have historically chosen to borrow money (when needed) through bank loans and not bond issuance. This means that we have a much more limited amount of data available with which to build a Japan CHM, which covers only 43 companies and only goes back to 2006. The Japan CHM has been in "improving health" territory for the past decade, driven by very healthy liquidity levels and rising return on capital and interest coverage (Chart 14). While the trend in the latter two ratios differs from what is shown in all CHMs for other countries, it is noteworthy that Japan's return on capital has risen to a "high" level (6%) that is similar to the current historically low levels in the U.S. and Europe. The comparison is even less flattering when looking at profit margins, which have been steadily improving over the past five years but are only around 6% - less than half the levels seen in the bottom-up IG CHMs for the U.S. and Europe. Turning to the corporate spread, it has slightly widened in 2018, but by a far smaller amount than seen in other corporate bond markets (Chart 15). We have shown that Japanese corporate spreads are highly correlated to the level of the yen. The direct effect is obvious, as a stronger yen will hurt the competitiveness and profitability of the exporter-heavy Japanese non-financial corporate sector. Yet a strong yen is also a reflection of the market's belief in the next move by the BoJ with regards to Japanese monetary policy. On the front, we continue to expect the BoJ to maintain a very dovish policy stance, with no change in the central bank's interest rate targets (both for short-term interest rates and the 10yr JGB yield). The bigger issue will be if the current softness in the Japanese economic data turns into a broader trend, which would damage corporate profits and likely result in some widening of Japanese credit spreads.  Chart 14Japan Bottom-Up CHM:##BR##Very Healthy Chart 15Japanese Corporates##BR##Will Continue To Outperform JGBs Canada Corporate Health Monitor: In Good Shape On A Cyclical Basis In this CHM Chartbook, we are introducing new CHMs for Canada. Like Japan, this is another relatively small market. Canadian corporates represent a slightly larger share of the Bloomberg Barclays Global Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index (5%) than Japan (3%). The average credit rating of the Canadian corporate bond index is A2/A3, which is higher quality than that of the U.S. IG index with but with similar credit spreads over their respective government bonds. However, due to the lack of liquidity and market accessibility, Canadian corporates are considered a niche market that has not gained much attention from global investors. We created both a top-down and bottom-up version of the Canada CHM. For the bottom-up CHM, we gathered data on 85 companies from both the Bloomberg Canadian dollar-denominated IG and HY indices. We combined IG and HY bonds into one set of data given the small sample sizes of each category, which also allows us to compare it to the top-down Canadian CHM that does not distinguish by credit quality. Both Canadian CHMs are firmly in the "improving health" territory (Chart 16). Unsurprisingly, these CHMs have shown a reasonably strong correlation to oil prices, which are a key driver of the Canadian economy through the energy sector. This can be seen in the deterioration in the CHMs after global oil prices collapsed in 2014/15, and the subsequent improvement as oil prices have recovered over the past couple of years. Going through the individual CHM components, leverage has been steadily rising and currently sits around 100%. While Canada's problems with high household debt levels are well known, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) noted in its March 2018 Quarterly Review that high Canadian corporate leverage could also pose a future problem for the Canadian economy.5 Among the other CHM ratios, return on capital and profit margin have fallen for nearly a decade, although there has been some moderate improvement of late thanks to higher oil prices. Debt coverage and interest coverage are also showing some very moderate recovery due to low interest rates - a trend also observed in other countries where central banks have maintained easy monetary policy. Canadian corporate bond valuations are not cheap at the moment, with the index spread around decade-lows of 100bps (Chart 17). BCA's commodity strategists expect global oil prices to continue climbing over the next year, which should support Canadian corporate valuations versus government bonds given past correlations. We also expect the Bank of Canada to continue to slowly raise interest rates over the next year, as well, mimicking moves we also anticipate from the U.S. Federal Reserve. Given the cyclical signs of improving corporate health from our Canadian CHMs, and our bearish views on Canadian government bonds, we are upgrading our recommended allocation on Canadian corporates to overweight while downgrading governments. This is strictly a carry trade, however, as we do not anticipate spreads narrowing much from current levels. Chart 16Canada CHMs:##BR##Cyclical Improvements, Structural Problems Chart 17Canadian Corporates:##BR##No Cyclical Case For Spread Widening Yet Robert Robis, Senior Vice President Global Fixed Income Strategy rrobis@bcaresearch.com Ray Park, Research Analyst ray@bcaresearch.com Appendix 1: An Overview Of The BCA Corporate Health Monitors The BCA Corporate Health Monitor (CHM) is a composite indicator designed to assess the underlying financial strength of the corporate sector for a country. The Monitor is an average of six financial ratios inspired by those used by credit rating agencies to evaluate individual companies. However, we calculate our ratios using top-down (national accounts) data for profits, interest expense, debt levels, etc. The idea is to treat the entire corporate sector as if it were one big company, and then look at the credit metrics that would be used to assign a credit rating to it. Importantly, only data for the non-financial corporate sector is used in the CHM, as the measures that would be used to measure the underlying health of banks and other financial firms are different than those for the typical company. The six ratios used in the CHM are shown in Table 1 below. To construct the CHM, the individual ratios are standardized, added together, and then shown as a deviation from the medium-term trend. That last part is important, as it introduces more cyclicality into the CHM and allows it to better capture major turning points in corporate well-being. Largely because of this construction, the CHM has a very good track record at heralding trend changes in corporate credit spreads (both for Investment Grade and High-Yield) over many cycles. Top-down CHMs are now available for the U.S., euro area, the U.K. and Canada. The CHM methodology was extended in 2016 to look at corporate health by industry and by credit quality.6 The financial data of a broad set of individual U.S. and euro area companies was used to construct individual "bottom-up" CHMs using the same procedure as the more familiar top-down CHM. Some of the ratios differ from those used in the top-down CHM (see Table 1), largely due to definitional differences in data presented in national income accounts versus those from actual individual company financial statements. The bottom-up CHMs analyze the health of individual sectors, and can be aggregated up into broad CHMs for Investment Grade and High-Yield groupings to compare with credit spreads. In 2018, we introduced bottom-up CHMs for Japan and Canada. With the country expansion of our CHM universe, we now have coverage for 92% of the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Corporate Bond Index (Appendix Chart 1). Table 1Definitions Of Ratios##BR##That Go Into The CHMs Appendix Chart 1We Now Have CHM Coverage For 92% Of##BR##The Developed Market Corporate Bond Universe 1 http://lipperalpha.financial.thomsonreuters.com/2018/04/high-yield-bond-funds-attract-investor-attention/ 2 The majority of data used in the top-down U.S. CHM comes from the Federal Reserve's quarterly Financial Accounts Of The United States Z1 release (formerly known as the Flow of Funds), which is typically published in the third month following the end of a quarter. Thus, those data inputs for Q1/2018 will not be available until June. 3 Please see Section II of the March 2018 edition of The Bank Credit Analyst, available at bca.bcaresearch.com. 4 Please see BCA Global Fixed Income Strategy Weekly Report, "Sticking With The Plan", dated March 13th 2018, available at gfis.bcaresearch.com. 5 https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1803.htm 6 Please see Section II of The Bank Credit Analyst, "U.S. Corporate Health Gets A Failing Grade", dated February 2016, available at bca.bcaresearch.com. Appendix 2: U.S. Bottom-Up CHMs For Selected Sectors The GFIS Recommended Portfolio Vs. The Custom Benchmark Index Recommendations Duration Regional Allocation Spread Product Tactical Trades Yields & Returns Global Bond Yields Historical Returns
Highlights U.S. Treasury Curve: The U.S. Treasury curve has flattened to new cyclical lows as the market has moved to fully price in the Fed's interest rate forecasts. Inflation expectations must rise further for those forecasts to be fully realized, however. Expect renewed U.S. curve steepening through higher inflation expectations and longer-term Treasury yields in the next 3-6 months. UST-Bund Spread Update: Stay in our recommended 10yr UST-Bund spread widening trade. as Treasury yield increases will not be matched in Bunds given slowing euro area economic momentum and a more balanced tone from the ECB. Global IG Corporate Sector Allocation: Our investment grade (IG) sector allocations, taken from our relative value models, have added positive performance since our last update in August. Feature The unpredictable, and at times unruly, behavior of financial markets over the first few months of 2018 has been exhausting for investors. A calm January was followed by the early February volatility spike and, more recently, huge intraday swings based on the ebb and flow of news on U.S. trade and foreign policy. Yet when looking at the year-to-date returns for various asset classes, the numbers do not seem unusually alarming given the amount of surrounding noise. Chart of the WeekA Long Road Back From The VIX Spike The S&P 500 index is only down -0.7%, while both equities in both the euro area and emerging markets (EM) equities are up +1.8% and +1.1%, respectively (using MSCI data in U.S. dollar terms). Credit markets are also delivering rather boring performance so far in 2018, from U.S. high-yield (+1.2% excess return over government debt) to euro area investment grade and EM hard currency corporates (both with an -0.1% excess return in U.S. dollar terms). Admittedly, these numbers look far less flattering considering the robust rally in risk assets in January. Yet the year-to-date returns simply do not line up with our impression of how investors' feel about how this year has gone so far. The perception is much gloomier than the actual outcome. Right now, markets are looking for guidance and direction and finding little of both. A big problem is that global bond yields, most notably in the U.S., have not fallen much from the highs for the year - even with global growth clearly losing some steam in the first quarter of 2018. The reason? Global inflation is in a mild cyclical upswing, a product of persistently tight labor markets and rising oil prices (Chart of the Week). The "leadership" in government bond markets has shifted away from accelerating global growth and an upward repricing of future central bank tightening, to rising inflation and unchanged monetary policy expectations. The notion of central bankers not being friendly to the markets remains our key theme for this year. We continue to expect that policymakers will not respond to the latest softer patch of economic data and will focus more on the reacceleration of inflation. This is especially true with risk assets stabilizing and volatility measures like the U.S. VIX index continuing to drift lower and, more importantly, the "volatility of volatility" (as measured by the VVIX index) now back to the levels that prevailed before the early February volatility spike (bottom panel). Although as BCA's strategists discussed at our View Meeting yesterday, volatility can quickly return with a vengeance given softer global growth momentum, and with the geopolitical calendar heating up next month (the U.S. government must make its final decision on the China trade tariffs and investment restrictions).1 This led the group to downgrade our recommended global equity exposure and upgrade our global bond exposure on a tactical (0-3 months) basis, although our more medium-term cyclical allocations (6-12 months) were unchanged (overweight stocks versus bonds). From the point of view of global bond markets, we may now be in period of mild "stagflation" with softening growth and rising inflation. We remain of the view that the former is temporary and the latter is not. This backdrop will keep global bond yields under upward pressure for at least the next few months, with better expected performance of corporate debt over governments - albeit with the potential for higher volatility given more elevated geopolitical risks. What Next For The U.S. Treasury Curve? The Treasury curve flattened to a new cyclical low last week, with the spread between 2-year and 10-year bonds now sitting at 45bps. On the surface, this flattening seems consistent with a Fed that is maintaining a "cautiously hawkish" message and that its rate hike plans for 2018 are unchanged despite more volatile financial markets. Chart 2This UST Curve Flattening Is Different What makes this current episode different from other bouts of Treasury curve flattening over the past five years, however, is the starting point for the absolute of bond yields. According to our two-factor valuation model for the 10-year Treasury yield, yields are now just a touch above fair value, which is currently 2.78%. That yield valuation was at least +25bps before the previous flattening episodes between 2014 and 2017 (Chart 2). That distinction is critical in differentiating a bull flattener from a bear flattener. Simply put, longer-dated Treasuries are not yet cheap enough to suggest that investors should extend duration risk to benefit from any additional curve flattening from here. In fact, we see a greater risk that Treasury curve re-steepens a bit from here, as there is more room for longer-term inflation expectations to move higher than there is for the front-end of the curve to reprice an even more hawkish Fed. The recent softening of cyclical global economic data has been occurring while realized inflation rates have been slowly rising from depressed levels (Chart 3). Yet in the U.S., the slowing of growth seen in the first quarter of the year remains very modest compared to that seen in Europe or Japan, while core inflation rates (for both the CPI index and the PCE deflator) have accelerated back to 2%. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecasting model is calling for Q1/2018 growth of 1.9%, while the New York Fed's Nowcast model is predicting Q1 growth of 2.8%. While both forecasts are a deceleration from the 3% rates seen in the previous three quarters in 2017, neither is below U.S. potential GDP growth, which the U.S. Congressional Budget Office now estimates to be 1.9%. Even in China, where the economy had been slowing as policymakers have aimed to tighten monetary policy and slow credit growth, cyclical indicators such as the Li Keqiang index (the preferred indicator of our China strategists) have shown a bit of a rebound of late. Right now, underlying U.S. growth and inflation momentum are still pointing towards the Fed delivering on its current projection of an additional 50bps of rate hikes in 2018, taking the funds rate to 2.25%, with even a chance of an additional hike if inflation continues to accelerate. This is essentially fully priced with a 2-year Treasury yield just under 2.4%, however, and the real funds rate is now at neutral according to measures like the Fed's r-star. Therefore, additional flattening pressures from the front end of the curve are unlikely unless the Fed is willing to signal a faster pace of rate hikes than currently laid out in its economic projections (the "dots"). At the same time, the 10-year TIPS inflation breakeven remains 25-35bps below the 2.4-2.5% range that would be consistent with the market expecting U.S. inflation to sustainably return to the Fed's 2% inflation target on the headline PCE deflator. Hence, a steeper Treasury curve is far more likely than a flatter Treasury curve from current levels. Where could this view go wrong? Perhaps the Trump administration's trade skirmishes with China could broaden into a full-on trade war that could cause deeper damage to U.S. equities, dampen growth expectations and drive longer-term yields lower. Coming at a time when there is a significant short position in the U.S. Treasury market, this could look similar to the prolonged bull-flattening seen in 2015-16. During that episode, duration exposure flipped from a big net short to very net long according to measures like the J.P. Morgan Duration Survey (Chart 4, top panel), while the market priced out all expected Fed rate hikes (2nd panel). However, that also occurred alongside a 50bp decline in inflation expectations (3rd panel) and a big deceleration of U.S. growth (bottom panel), both related to a weakening global economy and collapsing oil prices. It is uncertain if the current U.S.-China trade skirmish would have an equivalent impact on both the U.S. economy and the Treasury curve, especially given a starting point of stronger global growth a far more positive demand/supply balance in world oil markets. Chart 3A Whiff Of Stagflation? Chart 42018 Is Not 2015/16 In sum, we are sticking to our view that the Treasury curve is more likely to bear-steepen through higher longer-term yields than flatten bearishly through more discounted Fed hikes or flatten bullishly through much weaker growth and inflation. We continue to recommend a below-benchmark duration stance in the U.S., within an underweight allocation in a currency-hedged global government bond portfolio. We are also are sticking with our tactical trade of staying short the 10-year U.S. Treasury versus the 10-year German Bund, even with the spread now looking a bit too wide on our fundamentals-based valuation model (Chart 5). The unrelenting string of disappointing economic data in the euro area has already resulted in a far more cautious tone from European Central Bank (ECB) officials regarding the potential for quick rate hikes after the expected end of the asset purchase program at the end of this year. The gap between the U.S. and euro area data surprise indices has proven to be a good directional indicator for the Treasury-Bund spread (Chart 6, bottom panel). Given our views on the potential for renewed bear-steepening in the Treasury curve, which is unlikely to be matched in the German curve in the next 3-6 months, we see no reason to take profits yet on our spread trade. Chart 5UST-Bund Spread Now A Bit Too Wide... Chart 6...But Too Soon For Spread Tightening Bottom Line: The U.S. Treasury curve has flattened to new cyclical lows as the market has moved to fully price in the Fed's interest rate forecasts. Inflation expectations must rise further for those forecasts to be fully realized, however. Expect renewed U.S. curve steepening through higher inflation and longer-term Treasury yields in the next 3-6 months. Stay in our recommended 10-year Treasury-Bund spread widening trade, as Treasury yield increases will not be matched in Bunds given slowing euro area economic momentum and a more balanced tone from the ECB. A Brief (And Belated) Performance Update For Our Corporate Bond Sector Allocations It has been some time (August 2017) since we last published a performance update for our investment grade (IG) corporate sector allocations for the U.S., euro area and U.K. As a reminder, those allocations come from our relative value model, which is designed to measure the valuation of each individual sector compared to the overall Barclays Bloomberg corporate bond index for each region. The methodology takes each sector's individual option-adjusted spread (OAS) and regresses it in a panel regression with all the other sectors in each region, as a function of the sector's duration, convexity (duration squared) and credit rating - the primary risk factors for any corporate bond. Using the common coefficients from that regression, a risk-adjusted "fair value" spread is calculated. The difference between the actual OAS and the fair value OAS is our valuation metric from the model for each region. The latest output from the models can be found in the tables and charts in the Appendix starting on Page 14. We also show the duration-times-spread (DTS) for each sector in those tables, using that as our primary way to measure the volatility of each sector. The scatterplot charts in the Appendix show the tradeoff between the valuation residual from our model and each sector's DTS. Chart 7Performance Of Our IG Sector Allocations We then apply individual sector weights based on the model output and our desired level of overall spread risk that we wish to take in our recommended credit portfolio. At our last update in August 2017, we made a decision to keep the overall (weighted) DTS of our sector tilts roughly equal to the overall IG corporate DTS for each region. With credit spreads looking tight at the time, credit spread curves flat relative to history, and with the Fed in the midst of a tightening cycle, we did not see a case for taking aggressive spread risk (i.e. having a high aggregate DTS) in the portfolio. The performance of our latest sector recommendations since our last update in August 2017, and in the first quarter of 2018, are shown in Chart 7. We show both the total return and excess return of each sector versus duration-matched government bonds. Since that last review, our U.K. sector allocations have performed the best, delivering an additional 12bps of total return and 10bps of excess return versus the U.K. IG corporate index. Our euro area corporate allocations have added 2bps of total return and 3bps of excess return, while our U.S. allocations have modestly underperformed both on total return (-1bp) and excess return. We also show the performance numbers for just the first quarter of 2018 in Chart 7, and we will present the return numbers on this quarterly basis in the future as part of our regular model bond portfolio performance reviews. The sector allocations offered a modest underperformance in Q1 2018, with -5bps of total return and -8bps of excess return coming mostly from euro area and U.K. allocations. The U.S. allocations actually outperformed by +3bps on a total return basis in Q1. The return numbers for our U.S. sector allocations can be found in Table 1. Since our last update in August, the best performing sectors (in excess return terms) for our U.S. portfolio allocation were the overweights to all Energy sub-sectors (+35bps combined), Cable & Satellite (+4bps) and Banks (+4bps). Of those names, only the Independent Energy sub-sector delivered a positive excess return (+3bps) in Q1 2018. Table 1U.S. Investment Grade Performance The return numbers for our euro area sector allocations can be found in Table 2. Since our last update in August, the best performing sectors (in excess return terms) for our euro area portfolio allocation were the overweights to Financials (+35bps, coming mainly from Banks, Senior Debt and Insurance) and Integrated Energy (+13bps). Those overweights also delivered small positive excess returns (+3bps and +1bps, respectively) in Q1 2018. The return numbers for our U.K. sector allocations can be found in Table 3. Since our last update, the best performing sector (in excess return terms) was the overweight to Financials (+6bps, coming mostly from Banks). Looking ahead, credit spread curves remain very flat by historical standards (Chart 8), which suggests there is not enough spread compensation for extending credit risk to lower quality tiers. Thus, we are sticking with keeping our target DTS for our combined sector allocations equal to that of the overall IG index for each region. We will update our sector allocations in an upcoming Weekly Report. Table 2Euro Area Investment Grade Performance Table 3U.K. Investment Grade Performance Chart 8Credit Quality Curves Remain Very Flat Bottom Line: Our investment grade (IG) sector allocations, taken from our relative value models, have added positive performance since our last update in August. We continue to recommend a cautious approach to sector allocation, targeting index levels of spread risk (in aggregate) in the U.S. euro area and U.K. Robert Robis, Senior Vice President Global Fixed Income Strategy rrobis@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Weekly Report, "Expect Volatility ... Of Volatility", dated April 11, 2018, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. Appendix Appendix Chart 1U.S. Corporate Sector Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Appendix Chart 1U.S. Corporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* Appendix Table 2Euro Area Corporate Sector Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Appendix Chart 2Euro Area Corporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* Appendix Table 3U.K. Corporate Sector Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Appendix Chart 3U.K. Corporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* Recommendations The GFIS Recommended Portfolio Vs. The Custom Benchmark Index Duration Regional Allocation Spread Product Tactical Trades Yields & Returns Global Bond Yields Historical Returns
Highlights Q1 Performance Breakdown: The GFIS recommended model bond portfolio returned -0.55% (hedged into U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2018, underperforming the custom benchmark index by -11bps. The overweight to U.S. corporate bonds was the main drag on performance. Stress Test & Scenario Analysis: We introduce a simple framework to conduct scenario analysis and stress testing of the model bond portfolio. Our conclusion is that some shifting in our corporate bond allocations - reducing exposure to U.S. investment grade, increasing exposure to euro area and emerging market corporates - can actually help eliminate expected losses in scenarios that run counter to our base case. Feature This week, we present our regular quarterly report on the performance of the BCA Global Fixed Income Strategy (GFIS) model bond portfolio. As a reminder to existing readers (and for new clients), the portfolio is a part of our service that is a departure from the usual BCA macro analysis of global fixed income markets. The model portfolio is how we communicate our opinion on the relative attractiveness between government bond and spread product sectors, by applying actual percentage weightings to each of our recommendations within a fully invested hypothetical bond portfolio. This framework also gives us a vehicle to discuss many of the typical bond portfolio management issues that our clients face on a daily basis. In that vein, we are introducing a new element to our framework in this report - estimating future portfolio performance using scenario analysis, and conducting stress testing of outcomes that are contrary to our base case expectations for global bond markets. Q1/2018 Model Portfolio Performance Breakdown: An Unexpected Hit From U.S. Corporates Chart of the WeekShifting Correlations Hurt##BR##The Model Portfolio In Q1 The surge in global market volatility in the first quarter of the year weighed on the returns for the GFIS model bond portfolio. The portfolio had a total return of -0.55% (hedged into U.S. dollars), which lagged that of our custom benchmark index by -11bps.1 The quarter started out on a good note, with the portfolio outperforming by +12bps in January, as gains from our below-benchmark duration stance offset some underperformance from our overweight on global spread product. The story changed in early February, however, as the U.S. wage inflation "scare" and the associated VIX spike resulted in wider U.S. corporate bond spreads. This counteracted the gains on the government bond side of the portfolio as bond yields continued to climb. After yields peaked in mid-February, the portfolio gave back much of the outperformance from duration, with no recovery of the early February losses from spread product (Chart of the Week). In terms of the breakdown between the government bond and spread product allocations in our model portfolio, the former generated +9bps of outperformance versus our custom benchmark index while the latter underperformed by -19bps (Table 1). The bar charts showing the total and relative returns for each individual government bond market and spread product sector are presented in Charts 2 and 3. The main individual sectors of the portfolio that drove the excess returns were the following: Biggest outperformers Underweight U.S. Treasuries (+16bps) Underweight emerging market (EM) U.S. dollar (USD) denominated corporate debt (+5bps) Overweight Japanese government bonds (JGBs) with maturities of ten years or less (+4bps) Underweight EM USD-denominated sovereign debt (+2bps) Biggest underperformers Overweight U.S. investment grade (IG) Financials (-14bps) Overweight U.S. IG Industrials (-8bps) Underweight JGBs with maturities beyond ten years (-8bps) Overweight U.S. Ba-rated high-yield (HY) corporates (-4bps) Table 1GFIS Model Bond Portfolio Q1-2018 Overall Return Attribution Chart 2GFIS Model Bond Portfolio Q1-2018 Government Bond Performance Attribution By Country Chart 3GFIS Model Bond Portfolio Q1-2018 Spread Product Performance Attribution By Sector The hits from the overweight positions in U.S. corporate debt were the most surprising, given that the U.S. economy and corporate profits are still expanding at a solid pace. That would typically keep corporate credit spreads well-behaved, especially when U.S. Treasury yields are rising or stable as was the case in the first quarter. Yet volatility has spiked and stayed elevated in response to heightened uncertainty over slowing global growth momentum, rising U.S. inflation and worries about future U.S. trade policy. Investors have demanded moderately higher credit risk premiums in the U.S. as a result, to the detriment of U.S. corporate bond performance. This can be seen in Chart 4, which presents the returns of the individual countries and spread product sectors in the GFIS model bond portfolio. The returns are hedged into U.S. dollars (we do not take active currency risk in this portfolio) and also adjusted to reflect duration differences between each country/sector and the overall custom benchmark index for the model portfolio. We have also color coded the bars in each chart to reflect our recommended investment stance for each market.2 On this "apples-for-apples" basis, U.S. IG corporates were the worst performing fixed income market in the first quarter of 2018. Chart 4Ranking The Winners & Losers From The Model Portfolio In Q1 Looking ahead, we see no need yet to get out of our recommended overweight in global spread product or underweight in global government bond exposure (Chart 5). While there are some signs of slowing growth momentum in major economies (euro area, China), a deeper slowdown is not being heralded by leading economic indicators, which continue to rise. Much of the global economy continues to operate at or beyond full employment, which will continue to put moderate upward pressure on inflation rates. This will force central banks to maintain a relatively hawkish bias, despite more elevated financial market volatility. The most likely outcomes are still more bearish for government bonds than for corporate credit. Chart 5We're Sticking With Our##BR##Spread Product Overweight Having said that - the higher volatility environment does argue for some reduction in the size of the spread product overweight in the model portfolio. Especially after we consider some scenario analysis on returns, as we discuss in the next section. Bottom Line: The GFIS recommended model bond portfolio returned -0.55% (hedged into U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2018, underperforming the custom benchmark index by -11bps. The overweight to U.S. corporate bonds was the main drag on performance, thanks to the more elevated level of market volatility and spread widening during the quarter. Stress Tests & Scenario Analysis A common analytical tool used by professional fund managers is to perform "stress tests" on their portfolios. This is done to estimate the size of potential losses that could occur after major market moves, typically those that went against current positioning in a portfolio. Those estimates are critical to the effective risk management of a portfolio. As part of the ongoing development of the infrastructure for our model bond portfolio framework, we are introducing scenario analysis and stress testing of our current recommended allocations. The goal is to determine the magnitude of potential returns that could be expected under our base case and alternative scenarios. This is meant to complement the main risk management tool that we added last year, a "risk budget" based on the tracking error (i.e. volatility difference) of the portfolio versus our custom benchmark.3 We have deliberately been targeting a modest tracking error for our model portfolio, given the historical richness (low yields, tight spreads) of so many parts of the global bond universe. Yet our estimate of the GFIS model bond portfolio's tracking error has fallen even below the low end of the 40-60bp range that we have been targeting (Chart 6).4 Chart 6Lower Tracking Error Through Higher##BR##Corporate Bond Volatility This appears to be due to an odd development. The model bond portfolio's volatility was running below that of its benchmark index over the past year, but with the increase in the return volatility of U.S. IG corporate debt - the biggest overweight within spread product - the portfolio's volatility has been converging to that of the benchmark from below, hence lowering the tracking error. In other words, being overweight U.S. IG was a portfolio diversifier last year, but that is no longer the case. This obviously highlights some of the limitations of using tracking error as the sole risk management tool for a bond portfolio. Shifting cross-asset correlations and volatilities can wreak havoc on any "guesstimate" of a portfolio's underlying risk. A more simple solution is to conduct scenario analysis of expected returns, then shock the analysis for changes in the underlying assumptions. The key is having a reasonable framework for estimating returns for various asset classes. For our purposes in the model portfolio, we are using a simple approach to forecast the expected returns. We use a factor-based framework that models changes in global bond yields as a function of changes in the following four variables: the U.S. dollar, the price of oil, the fed funds rate and the VIX index. We show the regression results of our factor-based modeling of yield changes for each spread sector in our model bond portfolio in Table 2A. We ran the regressions for different time horizons, but we decided on using the post-crisis period since 2009 in all cases. We also attempted to model the yield changes of government bonds using those same four factors, but the R-squareds for all those regressions were far too low to make them useful. We instead used a simple approach of calculating the beta since 2009 of changes in individual bond yields to changes in U.S. Treasury yields for each corresponding maturity bucket. We present those yield betas in Table 2B. Table 2AFactor Regressions Used To Estimate Spread Product Yield Changes Table 2BEstimated Government Bond Yield Betas To U.S. Treasuries With these tools, we can forecast returns for each bond sector under different scenarios. We can then use those forecasts to predict the expected return for our model bond portfolio under those same scenarios. In Tables 3A & 3B. We show three differing scenarios, with all the following changes occurring over a one-year horizon: Table 3AScenario Analysis For The GFIS Model Portfolio Table 3BU.S. Treasury Yield Assumptions For The Scenario Analysis Our Base Case: the Fed delivers another 75bps of rate hikes, the U.S. dollar rises by 5%, oil prices rise by 20% (the non-consensus view of BCA's commodity strategists), the VIX index stays unchanged at current elevated levels and there is a modest bear steepening of the U.S. Treasury curve. A Very Hawkish Fed: the Fed delivers 150bps of rate hikes, the U.S. dollar rises by 10%, oil prices fall by 10%, the VIX index increases by ten points from current levels and there is a sharp bear flattening of the U.S. Treasury curve. Chart 7U.S. IG Corporates Have A##BR##High Yield Beta (a.k.a. Duration) A Very Dovish Fed: the Fed only hikes rates by 25bps, the U.S. dollar falls by 5%, oil prices fall by 5%, the VIX index increases by five points from current levels and there is a modest bull steepening of the U.S. Treasury curve. In Table 3A, we also show the expected yield changes generated by our regressions for each spread product sector and the yield betas to U.S. Treasuries for each government bond market. This produces expected returns for the GFIS model bond portfolio, which are shown in the top part of the table. In our base case, the portfolio is expected to outperform the benchmark by +42bps, but underperform by nearly equivalent amounts in both alternative scenarios. In the bottom part of the table, we show expected returns where we reduce our large overweight to U.S. IG corporates. The latter has a high sensitivity to rising global government bond yields compared to some of our other significant overweights like Japanese government debt and U.S. high-yield (Chart 7). We then take that reduced U.S. IG weighting and increase the exposure to euro area and EM corporate bonds. This adjusted portfolio results in higher excess returns not only in our base case (now +78bps) but even in the "very hawkish Fed" scenario (now +8bps). The "very dovish Fed" scenario produces a similar loss in this scenario (now -37bps), but that is to be expected since this includes a fall in global bond yields that would hurt our current underweight duration stance (Chart 8). Importantly, this adjusted portfolio would not alter the positive carry of the model portfolio (i.e. the portfolio yield remains at 16bps above that of the custom benchmark index, Chart 9) Chart 8Flattening Yield Curves##BR##Have Also Hurt Returns Chart 9Some Help From##BR##Positive Carry Based on this scenario analysis, we are going to implement the changes in the bottom half of Table 3A. We are cutting our overweight to U.S. IG corporates in half (which still leaves us overweight), raising euro area IG and HY corporate exposure to neutral and reducing the size of our EM corporate underweight. The changes to the model portfolio can be found on Page 14. These changes will reduce our exposure to a sector that not only has become riskier, but which also looks relatively expensive to U.S. high-yield (Chart 10) and which has been underperforming euro area (Chart 11) and EM equivalents (Chart 12). Chart 10U.S. IG Looks More##BR##Expensive Than U.S. HY Chart 11An Unexpected Underperformance##BR##Of U.S. IG vs. European Corporates Chart 12An Unexpected Underperformance##BR##Of U.S. IG Vs. Versus EM Corporates Bottom Line: We introduce a simple framework to conduct scenario analysis and stress testing of the model bond portfolio. Our conclusion is that some shifting in our corporate bond allocations - reducing exposure to U.S. investment grade, increasing exposure to euro area and emerging market corporates - can actually help eliminate expected losses in scenarios that run counter to our base case. Robert Robis, Senior Vice President Global Fixed Income Strategy rrobis@bcaresearch.com 1 The GFIS model bond portfolio custom benchmark index is the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index, but with allocations to global high-yield corporate debt replacing very high quality spread product (i.e. AA-rated). We believe this to be more indicative of the typical internal benchmark used by global multi-sector fixed income managers. 2 For Italy & Spain, the bars have two colors since the portfolio weights were changed in mid-February, when we upgraded Italian debt to neutral at the expense of a reduction in Spanish government bond exposure. 3 Please see BCA Global Fixed Income Strategy Special Report, "Adding A Risk Management Framework To Our Model Bond Portfolio", dated June 20th 2017, available at gfis.bcaresearch.com. 4 In general, we aim to target a tracking error no greater than 100bps. We think this is reasonable for a portfolio where currency exposure is fully hedged and less than 5% of the portfolio benchmark is in bonds with ratings below investment grade. Recommendations The GFIS Recommended Portfolio Vs. The Custom Benchmark Index Duration Regional Allocation Spread Product Tactical Trades Yields & Returns Global Bond Yields Historical Returns
Highlights Chart 1Inflation Pressures Mount Spread product underperformed equivalent-duration Treasuries for the second consecutive month in March. But last month's underperformance was different than February's in one important way. In February it was the fear of inflation and tighter Fed policy that prompted the sell-off in spread product. Investment grade corporate bonds underperformed Treasuries by 62 basis points, while the Treasury index provided a total return of -75 bps and TIPS outperformed nominals. In March, the sell-off in spread product coincided with Treasury returns of +94 bps and TIPS underperformed nominals. The negative correlation between yields and spreads re-asserted itself signaling that the sell-off was not driven by inflation, but by concerns about a potential slow-down in global growth. A severe slow-down in global growth is not imminent. But higher inflation and tighter Fed policy remain our chief concerns. With that in mind, core inflation printed higher again last month (Chart 1), and we think it is only a matter of time before our TIPS breakeven target range of 2.3% to 2.5% is met. That will trigger a reduction in our recommended allocation to corporate bonds. Stay tuned. Feature Investment Grade: Overweight Chart 2Investment Grade Market Overview Investment grade corporate bonds underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 91 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -81 bps. The sell-off of the past two months has returned some value to the investment grade corporate space, but spreads are still quite tight relative to history. The 12-month breakeven spread for a Baa-rated corporate bond has only been tighter 19% of the time since 1989.1 Our opinion of investment grade corporate bonds is unchanged. We continue to view value as relatively unattractive, and will reduce our overweight allocation once both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are above 2.3%. Corporate profit data for the fourth quarter of 2017 were released last week, and our measure of EBITD for the non-financial corporate sector grew at an annualized rate of 2.4%, slightly below the 3% annualized increase in corporate debt. Gross leverage for the non-financial corporate sector ticked higher as a result (Chart 2). In a recent report we showed that sustained periods of corporate spread widening almost always coincide with rising gross leverage.2 We also showed that while most leading profit indicators are still in good shape, a profit margin proxy based on the difference between corporate selling prices and unit labor costs is sending a warning sign. We expect profit growth to fall sustainably below debt growth later this year, driven by rising unit labor costs. Table 3ACorporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation* Chart 3BCorporate Sector Risk Vs. Reward* High-Yield: Overweight Chart 3High-Yield Market Overview High-Yield underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 114 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -19 bps. The average index option-adjusted spread widened 18 bps on the month and currently sits at 354 bps. The 12-month trailing speculative grade default rate ticked up to 3.56% in February, its highest reading since last July, but Moody's still expects it to decline to 1.96% during the next year. Based on the Moody's default rate projection and our own estimate of the recovery rate, we forecast High-Yield default losses of 0.97% for the next 12 months. This translates to a 12-month excess return of 257 bps for the High-Yield index versus Treasuries, assuming an un-changed junk spread (Chart 3). One hundred basis points of spread widening would lead to an excess return of -149 bps during this time horizon, and 100 bps of spread tightening would lead to an excess returns of +664 bps. However, such a large amount of spread tightening is probably over-optimistic. As inflation continues to rise and the Fed applies the brakes, a floor will likely remain under the VIX index of implied equity volatility and this will prevent junk spreads from recovering their cycle lows (top panel). We continue to await a firmer signal from our inflation indicators before reducing our allocation to high-yield. MBS: Neutral Chart 4MBS Market Overview Mortgage-Backed Securities underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 14 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -39 bps. The conventional 30-year zero-volatility MBS spread widened 7 bps on the month, split between a 4 bps widening in the option-adjusted spread (OAS) and a 3 bps widening in the compensation for prepayment risk (option cost). The widening in MBS OAS has not been as severe as the widening in investment grade corporate OAS. As a result, mortgages no longer appear cheap relative to investment grade corporates (Chart 4). But while the value proposition in mortgages is less alluring, we still see limited potential for spreads to widen during the next 6-12 months. Refinancing risk will remain muted as interest rates rise (bottom panel), and in past reports we showed that extension risk will likely be immaterial.3 In the structured product space, Agency MBS offer 11 bps less spread than Aaa-rated consumer ABS, but are supported by falling residential mortgage delinquencies and easing bank lending standards. In contrast, consumer credit (auto loan and credit card) delinquency rates have bottomed and banks have begun to tighten lending standards (see page 12 for further details). Government-Related: Underweight Chart 5Government-Related Market Overview The Government-Related index underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 20 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +2 bps. Sovereign debt underperformed the Treasury benchmark by 58 bps on the month, while Foreign Agencies underperformed by 38 bps and Local Authorities underperformed by 33 bps. Domestic Agencies outperformed duration-equivalent Treasuries by 6 bps, and Supranationals underperformed by a single basis point. USD-denominated sovereign bonds have performed worse than Baa-rated U.S. corporate bonds during the past six months, despite persistent weakness in the U.S. dollar (Chart 5). However, we do not think recent dollar weakness will provide much support for sovereign bond returns going forward. Rather, it is more likely that the U.S. dollar will appreciate during the next 6-12 months as the distribution of global growth shifts toward the United States. This month's issue of the Bank Credit Analyst discusses the cyclical and structural outlook for the U.S. dollar in detail.4 Elsewhere, Foreign Agencies and Local Authorities continue to offer attractive spreads after adjusting for duration and credit rating. We remain overweight those segments of the Government-Related universe despite an overall underweight allocation. Municipal Bonds: Underweight Chart 6Municipal Market Overview Municipal bonds underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 56 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +29 bps (before adjusting for the tax advantage). The average Aaa-rated Municipal/Treasury yield ratio widened 4% on the month, with short maturities performing somewhat worse than long maturities. The tax-adjusted yield for a 10-year municipal bond remains about 17 bps below the yield offered by an equivalent-duration corporate bond (Chart 6). As we have shown in prior research, investors typically get an opportunity to shift out of corporates and into munis at a positive spread differential before the end of the cycle.5 We will await this more attractive entry point before aggressively shifting our allocation in favor of munis. In a recent report we noted that state and local governments are still working to repair their budgets.6 More states enacted tax increases than decreases in fiscal year 2018 and the projected nominal budget increase across all states is a paltry 2.3%. Fortunately, our Municipal Health Monitor indicates that the hard work is paying off, and suggests that ratings upgrades should continue to outpace downgrades for the time being (bottom panel). Treasury Curve: Favor 5-Year Bullet Over 2/10 Barbell Chart 7Treasury Yield Curve Overview The Treasury curve flattened in March, as long maturity yields fell quite sharply despite a small increase in yields out to the 2-year maturity point. The 2/10 slope flattened 15 basis points on the month and currently sits at 47 bps. The 5/30 slope flattened 7 bps on the month and currently sits at 41 bps. The trade-off between the pace of Fed rate hikes on the one hand, and the re-anchoring of long-dated TIPS breakeven inflation rates on the other will dictate the path for the yield curve during the next six months. Last month the Fed lifted rates for the sixth time this cycle, and signaled its desire to hike another 2-3 times before the end of the year. But just as further rate hikes will apply flattening pressure to the curve, the recent rebound in inflation will exert some offsetting steepening pressure. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate is still 25-45 bps below a range that is consistent with inflation being anchored around the Fed's target. We recommend a curve steepening trade for now, specifically a position long the 5-year bullet and short a duration-matched 2/10 barbell, because upward pressure on inflation will make it difficult for the curve to flatten much further during the next few months. We will shift aggressively into flatteners once TIPS breakevens reach our target range. Further, the 2/5/10 butterfly spread is priced for 19 bps of 2/10 flattening during the next six months (Chart 7). In other words, the 2/10 slope needs to flatten by more than 19 bps for a long 5-year bullet position to underperform. We view this as unlikely. TIPS: Overweight Chart 8TIPS Market Overview TIPS underperformed the duration-equivalent nominal Treasury index by 17 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +67 bps. The 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation rate fell 7 bps on the month and currently sits at 2.05%. The 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rate fell 2 bps on the month and currently sits at 2.18%. As we explained in a recent report, we view the first stage of the bond bear market as being driven by the re-anchoring of inflation expectations.7 We will consider inflation expectations well anchored when both the 10-year and 5-year/5-year forward TIPS breakeven inflation rates are in a range between 2.3% and 2.5%, where they were the last time that inflation was well anchored around the Fed's target. If the recent trend in realized inflation continues, then this re-anchoring could occur relatively soon. February data show that the annualized 6-month rate of change in trimmed mean PCE rose to 2.03% (Chart 8), and while the 12-month rate of change held steady at 1.7%, it will start to move higher in March when the strong inflation prints from January and February 2017 are removed from the sample. Pipeline measures of inflation pressure also suggest that inflation will head higher, as evidenced by our Pipeline Inflation Indicator, and in particular, the Prices Paid component of the ISM Manufacturing index which just hit its highest level since 2011 (panel 4). ABS: Neutral Chart 9ABS Market Overview Asset-Backed Securities underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 3 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -19 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for Aaa-rated ABS widened 2 bps on the month and currently sits at 44 bps, 11 bps above its pre-crisis low. While in prior research we highlighted that consumer ABS offer attractive spreads relative to many other sectors, we also pointed out that collateral credit quality is starting to weaken.8 With respect to value, Aaa-rated Consumer ABS offer a 12-month breakeven spread of 21 bps, while Agency MBS offer a spread of 6 bps and Agency CMBS offer a spread of 9 bps.9 However, household debt service ratios and delinquency rates appear to have bottomed for the cycle (Chart 9). While the pace of consumer credit accumulation remains robust, it has also moderated in recent months alongside rising delinquencies and tightening lending standards. We maintain a neutral allocation to ABS for the time being due to attractive valuation, but expect to downgrade in the future as household credit quality deteriorates. Non-Agency CMBS: Underweight Chart 10CMBS Market Overview Non-Agency Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 36 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to +11 bps. The index option-adjusted spread for non-agency Aaa-rated CMBS widened 9 bps on the month and currently sits at 72 bps, close to one standard deviation below its pre-crisis mean. While a spread of 72 bps is still attractive compared to similarly-rated alternatives, we remain concerned about the gap that has emerged between CMBS spreads and the rate of appreciation in commercial real estate (CRE) prices (Chart 10). While bank lending standards on CRE loans are still tightening, they are tightening less aggressively than in recent years (bottom panel). This could eventually remove a headwind from CRE prices, but for now we view a position in non-agency CMBS as overly risky. Agency CMBS: Overweight Agency CMBS underperformed the duration-equivalent Treasury index by 22 basis points in March, dragging year-to-date excess returns down to -14 bps. The index option-adjusted spread widened 6 bps on the month and currently sits at 47 bps. The Agency CMBS sector continues to offer an attractive spread pick-up relative to similar investment alternatives, and has historically exhibited low excess return volatility.10 Remain overweight. Treasury Valuation Chart 11Treasury Fair Value Models The current reading from our 2-factor Treasury model (based on Global PMI and dollar sentiment) pegs fair value for the 10-year Treasury yield at 2.96% (Chart 11). While the fair value reading from our 2-factor model remains elevated for now, we expect it to fall once March Global PMI data are released this week. Based on a combination of final PMI data and Flash estimates for countries that have yet to report final March figures, we estimate that the Global PMI will decline to 53.8 in March from 54.2 in February. When combined with the most recent reading for dollar bullish sentiment, this gives a fair value of 2.85% for the 10-year Treasury yield. We will provide an official update to the model in next week's report, after the data are finalized. For further details on our Treasury models please refer to U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Message From Our Treasury Models", dated October 1, 2016, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com At the time of publication the 10-year Treasury yield was 2.74%. Ryan Swift, Vice President U.S. Bond Strategy rswift@bcaresearch.com Alex Wang, Research Analyst alexw@bcaresearch.com Jeremie Peloso, Research Assistant jeremiep@bcaresearch.com 1 The 12-month breakeven spread is the spread widening required during the next 12 months for the bond to break even with a position in an equivalent-duration Treasury security. 2 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Brainard Gives The Green Light", dated March 13, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Monetary Restraints", dated February 27, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 4 Please see Bank Credit Analyst, "U.S. Twin Deficits: Is The Dollar Doomed?", dated March 29, 2018, available at bca.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Monetary Restraints", dated February 27, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 6 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Profiting From A Higher LIBOR", dated March 20, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 7 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "The Two-Stage Bear Market In Bonds", dated February 20, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 8 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Monetary Restraints", dated February 27, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com 9 The 12-month breakeven spread is the spread widening required during the next 12 months for the bond to break even with a position in an equivalent-duration Treasury security. 10 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Monetary Restraints", dated February 27, 2018, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com Fixed Income Sector Performance Recommended Portfolio Specification Corporate Sector Relative Valuation And Recommended Allocation Total Return Comparison: 7-Year Bullet Versus 2-20 Barbell (6-Month Investment Horizon)