Bonds

1 September 2016

The World Bank sold the equivalent of about $700 mln of a three-year of a multiple currency bond that duplicated the composition of the IMF's Special Drawing Right or SDR.  There has been much fanfare.  It is the first SDR bond in more than 30 years according to reports. ...

Featured Articles

18 January 2016

Do Bowie Bonds Have a Future?

360b / Shutterstock.com 360b / Shutterstock.com The recent death of David Bowie brought an enormous wave of eulogies focused on his revolutionary career in rock music. Many of the laudatory discussions concerning Bowie's countless musical and performance innovations mentioned his...

16 December 2015

Green Bonds Still in Too Few Hands

The climate summit in Paris has shown that global big business is now also on board with the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, the most promising instruments in finance for promoting green investing, particularly green bonds, have been around...

25 November 2015

Yield Premiums Create Cheap Funding and Lucrative Swaps

This Great Graphic was composed on Bloomberg.  It shows two time series.  The yellow line shows the premium the US pays over Germany for two-year money.  The white line shows the premium the US pays over Japan for two-year money. ...

27 August 2015

Benchmark U.S. Treasury Yields Backed Up

US 10-year Treasury yield has risen 30 bp since Monday's low water mark.  There are a number of reports that are trying to link the back up in US yields to sales by China. The Chinese sales, in turn, link...

7 August 2015

Meanwhile, in the Fixed Income Market

Several recent developments in the fixed income space are distinct from the prospect of higher rates in the US and UK, or the ongoing purchases by the BOJ, ECB, and Riksbank.  Corporates have raised 157 bln euros by issuing investment...

24 July 2015

Rough Sailing Ahead for the East Asian Credit Market

After years of smooth sailing through calm market conditions, bond markets in East Asia are navigating through stormier weather. Data from the supplement to the 2015 Asian Development Outlook released this week shows that weaker growth in the United States...

30 June 2015

Bonds

What are Bonds and why are They Important? Bonds are one of the most important but misunderstood parts of the financial industry, partly because there are so many different types that serve different purposes. Bonds have received extra attention since...

25 June 2015

Watching the Euro and Bunds Go Their Separate Ways?

Previously there was a good fit between the direction of German bund yields and the euro as this great graphic from Bloomberg illustrates.  However, recently the relationship appears to be loosening.  Consider that over the past week, the 10-year bund...

12 February 2015

Who Exactly, Pays to Lend Money?

All that is solid is melting into the air, or that is how it feels since several central banks in Europe have adopted negative policy rates.  Sweden's Riksbank became the latest with today's move (-10 bp).  The President of the...

23 November 2010

Performance Bonds, Performance Bond

Performance bonds, or surety bonds, are financial tools that act as guarantees for the satisfactory completion of a project. These bonds are generally used in the construction and services industries. They are also used frequently in the financial trading markets....

23 November 2010

Global Bonds, Global Bond

Global bonds are debt instruments that are issued simultaneously in several countries. These bonds are usually issued by large multinational organizations and sovereign entities, both of which regularly carry out large fund-raising exercises. By issuing global bonds, an issuing entity...