Claim OwnershipFICC Focus
Subscribed: 158Played: 8,369
Subscribe
© 628159
Description
FICC Focus offers the latest market views on interest rates, corporate bonds, emerging market debt, commodities, and currencies by Bloomberg Intelligence analysts.
498 Episodes
Reverse
SPX correlation is historically low, while the average single-stock volatility is elevated amid AI momentum. In this edition of the All Options Considered podcast, BI's Chief Global Derivatives Strategist Tanvir Sandhu is joined by Maxwell Grinacoff, Head of US Equity Derivatives Research at UBS. They discuss the dynamics of equity volatility, growth of derivative-based ETFs, shift in product composition and option flow as a source of market dislocations.
The quantity of reserves is now determined by the amount necessary to run the payment system, says Darrell Duffie, a professor at Stanford University. On the Macro Matters podcast, Duffie joins hosts Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief US rates strategist, and Will Hoffman, BI’s US and Canada rates strategist, to discuss the Federal Reserve’s policy implementation framework. They cover ongoing shifts in balance-sheet policy and a return to net Treasury purchases, changes to the US banking and payments systems and what those mean for the size of the Fed’s balance sheet. They also touch on the nuanced challenges posed by stigma around the Fed’s lending facilities.
The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
“Time can be a good thing. Time can be a very bad thing…I think the whole market moves a bit slower now when there are problems in terms of how those problems get dealt with,” says Axar Capital founder & CEO Andrew Axelrod when discussing the evolution in markets away from mark-to-market investment vehicles. Axelrod joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about how he sees the current credit backdrop, whether the 4Q credit flare-ups are cockroach, canary or just commonplace, and the challenges to recoveries from zombie owners.
The 2026 dollar bear view is at the mercy of confirmed Fed dovishness, with the different stages of respective G10 monetary policy cycles likely to shape currency performances this year. If this is your central working assumption, then the case for dollar-yen downside becomes more compelling again, as does our Australian dollar bullish bias. In this episode of FX Moment, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and Brown Brothers Harriman Global Head of Markets Strategy Elias Haddad discuss their currency views for 2026, focusing on the key drivers and strongest G10 FX convictions. Haddad confirms a dollar-yen bearish case, while Childe-Freeman believes that the bullish Aussie view from 4Q25 can extend this year.
The Conference Board isn’t expecting a recession, but Yelena Shulyatyeva, the research group’s senior US economist, anticipates a meaningful slowdown in consumer spending. On this Macro Matters podcast, Shulyatyeva joins host Ira Jersey, BI’s chief US rates strategist, and BI senior US and Canada rates strategist Will Hoffman to discuss the outlook for the US economy and its drivers in 2026. They talk about risks to the inflation profile, including the state of pass-through inflation from tariffs, and the path for core services. They also hit on AI’s directional impact to productivity, geopolitical risks and potential shifts to Federal Reserve independence narratives.
The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
EM local government bond valuations look less appealing as we enter 2026, with cross-asset volatility poised to rise from historically low levels. Phoenix Kalen, global head of emerging market research at Société Générale, joins Damian Sassower, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief EM fixed income strategist, to discuss her year-ahead outlook for EM local rates and foreign exchange. Kalen and Sassower discuss investor positioning as we near the end of the EM monetary-easing cycle, with sentiment starting to fade amid potential for wider growth differentials between the US and Europe.
“All alpha is excess return, not all excess return is alpha,” says NISA CEO and Head of Investment Strategies David Eichhorn when discussing the use of appropriate benchmarks to measure performance and beta masking as alpha. Eichhorn joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about hedging liabilities and utilizing derivative overlays, targeting high information ratios and being a liquidity provider, and the evolution in liability management. The current rate backdrop and funded status for defined benefit plans, as well as leverage costs for BDCs are also discussed.
Pensions & Investments (P&I) rankings were based on U.S. institutional,tax-exempt assets managed internally (covered for overlay) as of December 31, 2024; published on June 16, 2025. NISA paid a standard fee to access the full set of data published by P&I. Other survey participants may have reported overlay strategies on a basis other than notional values and, as such, direct comparison and rankings may not be appropriate. Visit www.pionline.com for more details, including past rankings and methodology.
As part of Bloomberg Intelligence’s 2026 Fixed Income Markets Outlook: Opportunity Amid Policy Uncertainty event, this panel examines the outlook for junk bond yields and total returns, consumer health, the role of private credit and top sector picks. Stephen Flynn, senior telecom and media credit analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, moderates a discussion with Winnie Cisar, global head of strategy at CreditSights, John McClain, global co-head of high yield at Goldman Sachs and Meghan Robson, head of US credit strategy and desk analyst at BNP Paribas.
This special edition of the FICC Focus podcast features the recording of a Dec. 4 panel discussion exploring investment grade spreads, issuance and strategies to outperform in the year ahead. Moderated by Rob Schiffman, senior technology and internet credit analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, the conversation features Meghan Graper, global head of debt capital markets at Barclays, Amanda Lynam, head of macro credit research at BlackRock, and Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at Lafayette College. The panel gathered as part of Bloomberg Intelligence’s 2026 Fixed Income Markets Outlook: Opportunity Amid Policy Uncertainty event.
“Ad hoc groups are decades old at this point. Co-ops are new. Since when do we have to promise to be friends? I think [co-ops] are inherently lame.” John Sobolewski, Partner and Global Chair of Latham & Watkins' Liability Management Practice, sat down with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Negisa Balluku and Philip Brendel at the Beard Group’s 2025 Distressed Investing Conference on Dec. 2. John shared his views on the LME landscape’s evolution and direction, jurisdictional considerations, and why he suspects the pervasiveness of cooperation agreements results from unhealthy lender distrust and advisers’ self-interest.
“There’s some articles out there that [suggest] once there’s losses, there could be a bunch of fire sales of assets ... not true,” says KKR Partner and Global Head of Private Credit Daniel Pietrzak when discussing misunderstandings about private credit markets. “We’ve got $131 billion of AUM. Almost none of that has any redemption feature.” Pietrzak joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about volatility, continued market growth – especially in asset-based finance – and strategic partnerships like the company’s recent deals with Harley-Davidson and PayPal. They also examine global opportunities, how AI factors into lending decisions and the benefits of diversification.
The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
Event risk is poised to increase across the emerging-market fixed income landscape, as creditors must contend with elections in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Israel and Peru. Elina Theodorakopoulou, managing director and EM portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management, joins Damian Sassower, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief EM fixed income strategist, to decompose year-to-date performance in emerging-market debt and set performance targets for 2026. Theodorakopoulou and Sassower touch on topics ranging from fiscal spending and monetary stimulus to new issuance and credit rating migration.
US commercial real estate is set to keep stabilizing in 2026 as liquidity improves and capitalization rates decline. Harbor Group International President Richard Litton joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief fixed-income strategist, Damian Sassower, to discuss his company’s approach to asset management amid an affordability crunch that shows no sign of abating in the year ahead. Litton and Sassower discuss the various loan types and financial structures that institutional investors can access across the US commercial real estate market.
Global credit markets are tight, and strategic insights are essential looking into 2026. In this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast, Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence's global head of credit strategy, hosts BI's global credit strategy team to highlight worldwide research, data and views. Tim Tan and Jason Lee (Asia), Basel Al-Waqayan (Middle East), Reto Bachmann (Structured Finance), himself (Europe) and Sam Geier (US) share takeaways on their market outlook, relative value and major themes shaping their regions. Access their research on the Bloomberg Terminal at BI STRTA, BI STRTE, BI STRTN and BI EMFIG.
The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The Fed and yield-driven bearish US dollar view remains our central working assumption into 2026, yet this could be a bumpy run depending on how US economic and inflation data evolve throughout the year. Beyond the dollar outlook, we touch on a compelling bullish Aussie view, look into the Hungarian forint appeal, as well as expected yuan and Malaysia ringgit outperformance in Asia FX. In Latam FX, we see possible outperformance for the Mexican peso vs the Brazilian Real.
In the last episode of FX Moment of the year, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief G10 FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and her team, Chief Asia FX and Rates Strategist Stephen Chiu, Asia FX Strategist Chunyu Zhang, EMEA EM FX and Rates Strategist Sergei Voloboev and Senior Latam FX Strategist Davison Santana present their strongest FX conviction into 2026.
“You’re in the realm of the antitrust principles and the vapors that come off the big antitrust cases. I was very skeptical of the idea of a single company’s debt instrument … being a product market,” says Jennifer Selendy, founding partner of Selendy Gay, discussing how the latest legal challenges in Altice and Selecta to creditor cooperation agreements in the liability management sector stand on the very periphery of the antitrust doctrine. In a conversation with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Negisa Balluku on this episode of the State of Distressed Debt podcast, Selendy also discusses her involvement in the early days of LME litigation, in-court lessons and surprises, and the Incora saga. Prior to that, BI’s Noel Hebert, Phil Brendel and Negisa discuss their outlooks for 2026. The podcast concludes with a discussion on the latest developments at Hertz, First Brands, Ardagh Group and Azul.
The State of Distressed Debt podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
1The Federal Reserve may cut its benchmark rate below 3% next year, bull steepening the yield curve beyond what’s priced into forwards, says Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence chief US rates strategist. Jersey is joined by BI US and Canada rates strategist Will Hoffman on this episode of the Macro Matters podcast to discuss the BI Rates team’s recently released 2026 US Treasury Market Outlook. The pair discuss the state and direction of the US economy and how Fed interest-rate and balance-sheet policies are likely to shift. They also touch on the supply-and-demand outlook for the Treasury market, as well as relative value across the yield curve.
The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
Credit is tight and entering 2026 in uncertain times. Bloomberg’s London Credit Outlook event addressed this theme in depth and was recorded for this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast. Host Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence’s global head of credit strategy, was a panelist on the macro panel, along with Iain Stealey, International CIO Global Fixed Income, JPMorgan Asset Management and Ashwin Palta, Global High Yield Fund Manager, Newton Investment Management, and Bruce Douglas, team leader, leveraged finance at Bloomberg News, moderating. The panel addressed rates impact on credit, the sovereign crisis, AI hyperscaler issuance, default risk and value hunting down the capital structure.
The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
“If there are things in your business that need to get done, but they’re pretty low risk, this is a great place to start because it has a very attractive risk-reward payout,” says Rob Slater, CEO and founder of Cognitive Credit, reflecting on one of the two areas where AI makes the most sense to deploy. “If you do an AI experiment and it doesn’t really work, you’re not really any worse off.” Slater joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast to discuss Cognitive Credit’s work to automate portions of the analytic process, beginning with reliable financial-data extraction, and how that can scale into valuation. The two discuss the increased prevalence of technology across the credit investing landscape, and the growing need to be “doing something,” building on the themes of the firm’s white paper, “Why every credit investor now needs a credit data strategy.” The founder’s journey and the evolving needs of a growing business are also discussed.
The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
Policy rates will likely be cut three times in 2026, with the 10-year yield between 4-4.5%, says Stephen Dover, chief market strategist at Franklin Templeton. Dover is joined by BI chief US rates strategist Ira Jersey and senior US and Canada rates strategy associate Will Hoffman to discuss global fixed-income markets and cross-asset relative value. The trio discuss the economic outlook for 2026 and relative value in US rate markets and abroad amid expected policy easing from the Federal Reserve. They also hit on shifts in private assets and global equity markets, before discussing how AI narratives may evolve in the coming years.
The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States