"There are concerns about volatile sectors in high yield, but IG may be vulnerable to macro changes"
High yield has heavier exposure to energy and travel credits, but IG has more rate duration

Points up front: Tasty vaccine giveaway
Asset manager Vanguard is welcoming employees back to the office by offering a $1,000 bonus to staff who are fully vaccinated by October

"Pain is on the way: spreads are too tight, while compression and carry are done. But what if it's not?"
Welshcake reminds us that mid-cycle portfolio management is a funny old game  

"In the afternoon I awoke from a pile of willow leaves to discover we had created a Welsh ether-based token"
A localised crypto-currency boom and bust cycle teaches Welshcake (again) that everything becomes correlated in a downturn  

"We should be mindful of the transfer of power to the C-suite that inheres in ESG"
As shareholder returns become one factor among many, the C-suite becomes more powerful  

"Don’t buy loans for the floating rate component alone"
Loomis Sayles' Matt Eagan takes our credit quiz

"The lack of standardised ESG data creates opportunities for data-driven investors"
Investors can gain an edge by using technology to help parse ESG data

We say it: Creditflux salutes women in credit
The credit industry is blessed with many strong women and for this issue of Creditflux we’re exclusively hearing their voices across our news, analysis and columns

CLO guys shouldn't feel quite as self-important as us Welsh... But you are in a pretty amazing spot
CLO portfolio managers should be emboldened by recent events to push for ESG strategies 

They said it: "I am extraordinarily proud of the firm I have helped build"
Apollo chief executive officer Leon Black announces he is stepping down.

All types of financing will have to incorporate ESG risks and use their real economy influence
Fund managers can no longer ignore, postpone or hide from measures to tackle climate change

Cessation of activity mid-December is an opportunity to switch off… and let the mind wander
Welshcake is grateful for a lull in credit markets. The downtime has inspired him to dream up a CLO play

I foresee various spooky spectacles hitting our screens - and your long portfolios
Welshcake is settling in for a horror movie marathon. But in the previews he sees monsters lurking behind tight credit spreads

The cost — a few basis points — is modest compared to the potency of bond buckets
If CLOs had bond buckets when Delta Air Lines issued debt, a manager could have bought the bond then rotated into the loan

They said it: "We’re going to change the world of finance"
Big ambitions in blockchain

They said it: "Imagine a garden party and all of a sudden a big wasp shows up"
On Creditflux’s US CLO webinar last month, Napier Park’s head of US CLO investments Serhan Secmen described the March sell-off as a garden party

They said it: Can I be a bond investor and invest in Netflix?
The response of a loan portfolio manager after we asked where should loan investors park their cash?

Points up front: Channelling Twain, Agent Smith and Mike Tyson
Lockdown can adversely affect one’s grasp of reality, and for credit portfolio managers this has manifested itself in a penchant for quoting famous (sometimes fictional) figures

There will surely be jewels in the high yield dung heap, but the risk-reward is more compelling in IG
Whatever the long-term effects of the pandemic, one thing stays the same: IG looks attractive

Points up front: Blame it on capitalism
You know it’s a tough month for returns when a hedge fund manager quotes Lenin and laments that capitalism and globalisation have failed to distribute wealth efficiently

Investors need to ask: can my asset manager survive the crisis?

You need a balanced portfolio that’s ready for calculated risk taking — so consider a barbell approach
Investors can’t afford to be too conservative as they prepare for the end of the cycle

Don’t get too comfortable. The truth is there are hundreds of things that could be catalysts for a sell-off
Just because there’s no obvious sign of a sell-off, doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. Often, market moves defy logic

‘Buying the dip’ is going to be a poor investment strategy when the next downturn comes
The next credit downturn will be shallower but more prolonged than the last, so what works will be different, too