Business

“The global economy risks becoming trapped in a low growth, low inflation, low interest rate equilibrium,” BOE governor Mark Carney warned, in a speech at the G20 summit in Shanghai. “For the past seven years, growth has serially disappointed—sometimes spectacularly,” he added.

That’s a bit of unwelcome “truthiness” from one of the world’s most powerful central bankers and it comes as his predecessor, the incomparable Mervyn King, warns that a new financial crisis is “certain.”

Two weeks ago, during the peak of the February market rout, UBS' credit strategist Matthew Mish looked at the latest round in the junk bond selloff and answered a rhetorical question: "Is it time to buy" the bonds that comprise some/any/all of the bonds that make up the USD-denominated $3 trillion speculative grade universe. His answer was hardly pleasant for those who have kept peddling junk credit (including bonds, loans and revolvers) for the past several months:

An interesting fact has hit the newswires earlier this week, as the Dutch Central Bank confirmed it was looking to (temporarily?) move its gold reserves to another secure location. The DNB claims it has to renovate its vaults and thus needs to store the yellow metal elsewhere and that’s quite surprising as the central bank repatriated a large part of its gold reserves less than 18 months ago.

Via ConvergEx's Nicholas Colas,

It happens at the top of every tech cycle – everyone wants to be a tech company.  We’re there now.

 

Earlier today, we noted that Citi can’t believe how enticing CLO mezz tranches have become.

“Can CLO mezz get any more attractive?” the bank’s structured credit team asked. You’d be forgiven for being a bit incredulous. After all, CLO 2.0 mezz hasn’t exactly been somewhere you want to be. As Morgan Stanley noted last week, “the median total return for US CLO 2.0 (2014-15 vintage) BBs is -9.2%, and for single-Bs is -20.9%.”