Fixed Income Market Recap and Performance Summary Following the sharp selloff in Treasury bond prices witnessed in November and December, price action in January was relatively sanguine. Looking beyond headline performance, the most notable price action for the month was the (3.5%) loss in 30-year Treasury bonds, and the 2.10% gain in the Merrill Lynch […]
Investors continued their exit from municipal bond funds throughout December and the first two weeks of January. Concurrent with heightened credit fears in the Municipal market, higher long term US Treasury rates, and an expected supply shift from long term taxable municipal bond issuance to long term tax exempt issuance led to indiscriminate selling among […]
Fixed Income Market Recap Despite ongoing open-market Government bond purchases by the Federal Reserve, investment grade bond prices declined in December. The most intense selling pressure occurring in the first half of the month, as the market continued to be buffeted by the selling pressure that commenced in November. The principal driver was a much […]
Fixed Income Market Recap November could be characterized as a month in which old news, thought to be resolved and impotent, reemerged to the detriment of the capital markets. With attention focused on the Federal Reserve and its well broadcast plan to reduce rates through a second round of quantitative easing (QE2), investors had positioned […]
Fixed Income Market Recap Dominating attention through the month was the Federal Reserve with the Fed and Wall Street trading-desks attempting to out-game each other. Clearly, the Fed has not handled the idea and implementation of QE2 very well. When the concept was first floated, interest rates fell as the Fed had certainly hoped. Then, […]