Notes

There was strong domestic corporate bond issuance before the US election, and I thought most Australian companies had satisfied their 2024 funding requirements, so that new issuance post the election would trail off. But contrary to expectations, there’s been solid ongoing supply. I rarely show all of the kangaroo issuance...

Annual US inflation accelerated to 2.6% in October 2024, up from 2.4% in September. It’s the first increase in seven months. Coupled with expected inflationary Trump policies including tax cuts, tariffs and a cut on immigration, many commentators think the US rate cutting cycle will be shallow and brief. Similarly,...

There’s plenty of speculation about what a new Trump presidency will bring to financial markets. Will inflation rise? Will the Fed continue cutting rates? One thing is for sure, US debt is set to keep growing. Have a look at the US Debt Clock below. If you look it up...

Did you back a winner yesterday? I gamble once a year and have no idea about any of the horses that run in the Melbourne Cup, but had $5 each way on Okita Soushi, so I came home with a net $20! It was a good day. Sadly, today, I’m...

Quarterly inflation is heading in the right direction, albeit, still above the RBA board 2-3% target band. The trimmed mean for the September quarter was up 0.8% to take the annual change to 3.5%. The trimmed mean excludes irregular or temporary price changes, such as electricity bill rebates and...

Global bonds have been selling off this week as strong US data has participants reassessing US rate cut expectations. The US 10-year was up to 4.214% overnight, while our 10-year is at 4.45%. T. Rowe Price’s fixed income CIO Arif Husain, predicts that the US 10-year Treasury yield may rise...

Corporate bond issuance has slowed over the last few weeks, as we head into the US election on 5 November 2024. Interestingly, there’s still plenty of activity in asset-backed securities. One corporate bond issue that caught my eye was Judo Bank’s new Tier 2 subordinated bond, issued this week. Tier...

A combination of higher brent crude oil prices and stronger than expected US jobs data has the market concerned about inflation once again. Global benchmark 10-year US Treasury bonds have sold off with yields back up over 4%, as were 2-year Treasuries. Australian government 10-year yields were higher at yesterday’s...

Did you know there’s been a record set for annual Australian corporate bond issuance this year? KangaNews recently announced issuance of $21.4 billion, topping strong 2017 and 2021 years. The top three deals, excluding financials, were NBN $1.75 billion, Telstra $1.2 billion and Nestle, which also issued $1.2 billion. It’s...

Does your portfolio align with your interest rate expectations? Yesterday the RBA Board elected to keep the cash rate on hold at 4.35%, in contrast to the US Fed which delivered a super-sized 50 basis point cut last week, so its range is now 4.75 – 5.00%. That is still...