FX & rates insights, IGM FX and Rates

IGM FX Case Study: Banking and Financial Service Provider

13 Nov 2019

Our main sponsor (referred to throughout as ‘MP’), a Senior VP, Sales FX used IGM’s service 12 years prior to moving to BFSP. His initial hesitancy on sourcing economic data from an external data provider was alleviated once he sampled IGM as an intelligence source. Working in a fast-paced environment such as foreign exchange, requires concise, relevant content and IGM’s services were a perfect fit for our main sponsor and his team for day to-day requirements. IGM’s daily information alerts allowed team members to keep abreast of global news in what MP termed, ‘short and sharp content, which can be read 15 minutes prior to the start of a working day, whilst providing a good understanding of the current market’. Read more...

Topic Industry News

IGM Credit, IGM FX and Rates

China Insight: Long-Awaited MLF Rate Cut Finally Happened

By Tim Cheung 12 Nov 2019

PBOC cut the 1-year mid-term lending facility (MLF) rate by 5bp to 3.25% on 5 November (chart 1) while rolling over the matured MLF refinancing. The cut will likely drive down the loan prime rate (LPR) further, which was left unchanged at 4.20% and will be repriced on 20 November (chart 2). As the first cut in the MLF rate in this easing cycle, it suggests PBOC is faced with growing risk of further economic slowdown. However, the magnitude of the cut is small, reflecting the degree of monetary easing is constrained by growing CPI inflation.  

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

Quants Corner

By Sayad Baronyan 12 Nov 2019

Investors: Capture the wisdom of the crowds ahead of UK Elections UK General Elections have had a long-standing tradition of running on a Thursday. The most cited reasons for the election falling on a Thursday, has been town ‘market’ days which increased the chances of footfall, another, there appears to be a concomitant increase in voter turnout. No one wants elections, for instance, on a Friday, where pay days could lead to a rise in the number of newly-paid, and newly inebriated, voters at the polls!

Topic Industry News

LendersBenchmark™ - Financial Lending Analytics

Rutger Responds: Money20/20 USA | 7 Key Take-aways & How to Prepare Your Business

By Rutger van Faassen 11 Nov 2019

Rutger Responds: Money20/20 USA | 7 Key Take-aways & How to Prepare Your Business The experience of attending Money2020 for the first time was overwhelming in the best way – so many compelling sessions to attend….so little time to attend them all! Great ideas and insights were shared leaving me with an abundance of food for thought. It took some time to digest this avalanche of information, but below is a collection of my thoughts and key take-aways about the future of money. Multiple tracks were going on simultaneously at Money2020; here is my summary of the journey I chose. Because of the caliber and quantity of the content, even armed with my filter of Consumer Lending, I still had to make hard choices when it came to which sessions to attend.

Topic Industry News

IGM Credit, IGM FX and Rates

The Context 11.11.19

11 Nov 2019

Inside this week’s edition of The Context, Financial Intelligence thought leaders discuss: The Power of Trade Talk Given events towards the end of last week, focus will fall on any details of the Phase 1 trade deal currently under negotiation between the US and China. The moves were sharp in debt markets which suggests any sort of negative news flow will lead to an equally sharp reversal. The NZD Week - Bias is Neutral RBNZ rate cut probability for Nov, i.e. early Wed, is back at 60%. On balance, we think the RBNZ could wait, but suspect the market will stay cautious. Outlook Into Year-end Now Looks More Positive For EMs The Emerging Market carry trade is so far heading for its best quarter in two (and possibly in four if upside persists), and in an environment of still ultra-low global bond yields and with some concerns starting to creep in over equity valuations after a surge in stocks, currency related strategies may find particular favour among investors. Read more from The Context and subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox each week!

Topic Industry News

PSN Enterprise - Separate Account Analytics Software, Zephyr...

Ryan Nauman's Weekly Recap 11.11.19

By Ryan Nauman 11 Nov 2019

While we are entering the later stages of the third quarter earnings cycle, the week ahead includes a few big-name earnings releases, including Walmart, Cisco, and some pot stocks. As for economic data, the CPI reading will be widely watched as most expect inflation to remain muted, furthermore, retail sales will be a popular release as strong consumer spending remains vital for the expansion to continue. Additionally, next week is a busy week for Federal Reserve talk, as Chairman Powell is scheduled to testify, and numerous Fed officials are scheduled to speak throughout the week. Read more from Ryan Nauman's Weekly Recap and subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox each week!

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

With US rate cut in the bag, focus shifts back to trade

By Cameron Brandt 11 Nov 2019

With US rate cut in the bag, focus shifts back to trade Mutual fund investors got a rate cut for Halloween. Will they get a Sino-US trade deal for Thanksgiving? Hopes of an end to the bruising trade war rose during the first week of November, propelling US benchmark indexes to new record highs and the Euro Stoxx 50 to levels last seen in 1Q18. Fund flows during the first week of November reflected this optimism, with US Equity Funds chalking up their third inflow in the past four weeks and Asia ex-Japan Equity Funds posting consecutive weekly inflows for the first time since early July while Emerging Markets Bond and Equity Funds both attracted fresh money. Funds with diversified global mandates were the biggest beneficiaries of this shift in sentiment: Global Bond Funds recorded their third largest inflow year-to-date and Global Equity Funds their biggest since the fourth week of 2018.

Topic Industry News

iMoneyNet - Money Market Fund Analysis

Prime Money-Market Fund Assets Continue Steady Climb

11 Nov 2019

Prime money-market fund assets took a deep dive after the SEC imposed dramatic reforms on the industry in 2016. Since then, they’ve grown – and in 2019 they’ve soared. The industry hasn’t yet “rebalanced,” as many hoped, but it’s moving in that direction, to the particular benefit of institutional investors. iMoneyNet tracks the trend line for prime-fund assets in the current issue of Money Fund Report.

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

Does today’s monetary policy leave investors in purgatory or hell? A view from industry experts

By Cameron Brandt 11 Nov 2019

Does today’s monetary policy leave investors in purgatory or hell? A view from industry experts Last month Informa, EPFR and Fintech company ClearMacro held an evening event: The 2020 Road to Returns, where industry experts were presented with the question, “Does the current monetary policy environment leave investors and financial professionals in purgatory or hell,” the panelists were split down the middle.

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

Data Simply Financial Scores: Getting bang for one’s buck

By Vik Srimurthy 07 Nov 2019

EPFR has joined forces with Data Simply to provide investors with better and faster ESG and financial data insights. This blog post will be the first in a series which looks at the added value of ESG Financial Scores. Firstly, Data Simply analyzes corporate SEC filings by word count through a combination of artificial Intelligence and analyst expert. Key words are identified and classified from filings as either positive, neutral or negative. The total word count per sentiment is counted for each company and published as a total financial score on a monthly basis for companies that file with the SEC.

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

Quants Corner

By Vik Srimurthy 05 Nov 2019

Finding bear markets -- The separating hyperplane approach In the Quant’s Corner blog that was posted in August, we outlined the basic methodology for a ‘Bear Detector’ based on a combination of flow and volatility data. The model we presented used the data to create a two-dimensional representation, with the points corresponding to the past eight weeks (dark green triangles), to previous bull markets (light green circles) and previous bear markets (gray circles) all colored differently. It was left to the reader to determine by visual inspection whether the latest data point was bear or bull, depending on the density of green or gray dots surrounding the dark green triangles (see chart below).

Topic Industry News

IGM Credit, IGM FX and Rates

China Insight: Special Bond Issuance Will be Subdued in Q4

By Tim Cheung 05 Nov 2019

Given the lower-than-budgeted fiscal revenue growth so far in 2019 (chart 1), the central government may find it difficult to fulfil its fiscal transfer budgets. As such, local governments could rely more on borrowing to support infrastructure investment. As the total local government bond issuance quota of CNY3.1tn has been fulfilled this year, the total size of extra issuance could be up to CNY2.5tn (including CNY1.3tn in general and CNY1.2tn in special) if necessary. If the government decides to fully utilize the extra special bond issuance quota within the debt ceiling, it could bring CNY2.1tn funds to the government to support infrastructure investment. However, chart 2 shows that special bond issuance has been subdued since it reached its year-high in June. Given the restricted commencement of winter construction, special bond issuance will likely remain subdued in Q4.  

Topic Industry News

IGM Credit, IGM FX and Rates

The Context 11.04.19

04 Nov 2019

Inside this week’s edition of The Context, Financial Intelligence thought leaders discuss: The AUD Week - Bias is Bullish The RBA decision takes centre stage this week, and the Bank is widely forecast to keep rates steady at 0.75%, with a mere 6% chance of a cut currently priced. Evidence of Damage Wrought. Little Central Bankers Can Do South Korean exports continue to plummet (-14.7% y/y in October) indicative of the slowdown in both global trade and in turn economic growth. That the US isn’t insulated from these dynamics was made clear by the Fed chief after the October FOMC. Still, domestic demand continues to bound along at a healthy pace in the US and remains supportive in other jurisdictions… Pinera Gives More Ground to Chilean Protesters, But is CLP Ripe For Bulls? There have been over ten days of riots, protests and strikes in Chile, and after adopting a number of stances (from tough to conciliatory) and failing to quell the unrest with a raft of proposed policy changes, President Pinera has given in to demands and fired eight ministers, including the interior, finance and economy ministers. Read more from The Context and subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox each week!

Topic Industry News

PSN Enterprise - Separate Account Analytics Software, Zephyr...

Ryan Nauman's Weekly Recap 11.04.19

By Ryan Nauman 04 Nov 2019

The third quarter earnings cycle continues to roll along during the week ahead. Meanwhile, the services sector will be examined with the release of the Markit services PMI reading and ISM non-manufacturing index. With the manufacturing sector showing some promise that it may have bottomed, it will be important for the services sector to remain on solid footing to support the economy while the manufacturing sector recovers. Read more from Ryan Nauman's Weekly Recap and subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox each week!

Topic Industry News

EPFR Fund Flows

US Equity Funds record first retail inflow since late 2Q17

By Cameron Brandt 01 Nov 2019

US Equity Funds record first retail inflow since late 2Q17 The final week of October saw the Federal Reserve cut short term US interest rates by another 25 basis points, the benchmark S&P 500 index set a fresh record high and EPFR-tracked US Equity Funds post their first retail inflow in nearly 28 months. With the latest US rate cut in hand and trade and Brexit deals still visible in the bushes, investors also stepped up their commitments to Emerging Markets Equity Funds and allowed Europe Equity Funds to record their first consecutive weekly inflows since 1Q18. Increasing optimism and higher risk appetite translated into the first back-to-back outflows since mid-May for Gold Funds, which had a 15-week inflow streak snapped during the previous week, and Silver Funds experienced net redemptions for the third week in a row. Overall, EPFR-tracked Equity Funds took in $6 billion during the week ending Oct.30 while investors steered $770 million into Alternative Funds, $7.8 billion into Bond Funds and $24.2 billion into Money Market Funds. It was another good week for Dividend Equity Funds, which chalked up their biggest weekly inflow since March, and the assets managed by all EPFR-tracked ETFs moved over the $5.8 trillion mark.

Topic Industry News