Diversity database shines light on credit firms not stepping up
Private credit managers are significantly lagging behind their industry counterparts when it comes to hiring under-represented groups, including front office, distribution and investment committee roles, according to data from Diversity­Metrics, a new data-driven platform launched by executive search firm Jensen Partners

Fund performance: Déjà vu as April leaders dominate
CLO funds stayed in the top flight for another month as they took over the top 10 credit hedge fund return table in May, when 87% of all funds listed made positive returns

"It may be worth adding hedges of six-plus months’ duration when spreads trade this tight"
Options and tranches offer cost-effective hedges amid tight credit spreads  

"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  

Credit index tranche trading on the rise amid low dispersion
At its halfway point, 2021 is shaping up as another big year for credit index tranche trading, with new investors having entered the market and dealers projecting full-year volume could vie with 2020’s record of recent times.

Credit grind pushes back volatility bets
With recent weeks having all-but crushed volatility from the market, uncertainty about the timing of future risk triggers is leading credit options traders to spurn traditional horizons to focus on longer-dated expiries

Credit slumbers in departure lounge as airline equities take off
Credit and equity markets have been in a balancing act on Tuesday between the positive and negative implications of surging oil prices and Germany opting to relax travel restrictions

French food producer gets cold shoulder following bond issue
Picard, the French frozen foods producer, is one of the biggest movers in the European high yield market on Monday, after investors showed little warmth for its new bond issue in the secondary market

All eyes on NFP as credit seeks exit from 'no man's land'
Credit markets look to be ending wider on the week but, with focus mainly on today's US non-farm payroll numbers, the lack of movement in early trading could give way to a stronger directional play ahead of the long US weekend

Birch Grove merges with American Securities' credit business
US private equity firm American Securities has merged its opportunistic credit business, Ascribe Capital, with boutique alternative credit hedge fund Birch Grove Capital

Tranche trader leaves Apollo for sell side
BNP Paribas has filled a gap in its structured credit trading group with the hire of an index tranche market maker

It's all relative: CDX HY touches record tights but junior US CLO tranches leak wider
Credit spreads are marching tighter, but someone forgot to tell the CLO market. European and US CDS spreads have moved in step with each other for the most part with investment grade and high yield tightening 4-6% in the last week, whereas CLOs have been losing ground

Real estate firm blows wider but BoE allays broader market concerns
Adler Real Estate traded sharply against trend as high yield credit spreads hit new post-pandemic tightest levels on Thursday

Triple Bs in the firing line as Fed turns hawkish, says BofA
Triple B and long duration credit are likely to be casualties of tightening central bank policy, Bank of America strategists have warned. But high yield and cyclical investment grade sectors could fare better

Axa IM extends palm oil policy to cover ecosystem protection and deforestation
Axa Investment Managers says it is expanding its 2014 policy of excluding investments in companies which do not have sustainable palm oil production certificates by factoring in deforestation and ecosystem protection

Credit indices hit impasse after US high yield returns to pre-covid tights
Credit improvement looks to be taking a breather on Thursday after the compression play in CDS indices took US high yield index CDX HY to its tightest prints since February 2020, before the outbreak of covid-19 began to blow out spreads

"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  

Focus shifts to macro views amid blurry relative value picture
Relative value trading has become a difficult place to operate in credit, with previously effective strategies such as compression, pairs and basis hard to discern and opportunities difficult to source, according to portfolio managers. 

Single Bs bomb as beta narrative shifts
Few signalled themes in credit have died away as quickly as that of the outperformance of single B rated credit, which several firms proposed at the start of May but soon found crushed by a cocktail of worries around inflation, central bank policy, supply and high yield fund outflows

Past returns: Having a whale of a time in tranches
In Creditflux 10 years ago we reported on JP Morgan’s “little known prop book” making waves in index tranches

Equity tranche longs fall out of favour as spreads tighten and dispersion picks up after uniform moves
Dispersion is picking up after relatively uniform moves in credit in the early part of 2021. CDS index equity tranches had outperformed for much of this year but spreads have gapped out a touch in the past few weeks

Fund performance: CLO funds outperform as two hit over 100% 12-months return
CLO funds swatted away the competition in April on their way to dominating our top 10 credit hedge fund return table after an upbeat month

Credit bull run picks up amid commodities surge
European credit spreads have made a sharp turn for the tighter, building on last week's strong run, even after Asian spreads weakened on rising commodity costs

Credit grind makes it five days out of five in bullish week
Credit markets are heading into the weekend on a fifth straight day of improving spreads, amid signs of returning economic confidence and appetite to invest in the asset class

Financials and high yield outperform as rally gathers momentum
Credit spreads are enjoying a second day of improvement to regain some of the ground they lost last week, with Italian banks, commodity traders and higher yielding borrowers among outperformers in a broad rally of both indices and single name borrowers