The VP Blog
A blog about financial markets and the VP investing framework
Narrative Shift Depends on Virus
Earlier this month, the S&P and gold both collapsed on the same trading day, which is extremely rare. The top-left chart shows that in the past 20 years, the only times gold was down more than 3% while the S&P is down more than 5% was last week and back in...
USD Funding Stresses Rise But This is Not Like 2008
A common question in recent weeks is whether today is like 2008? The price action is certainly reminiscent of the wild intra-day swings in the stock market we saw back then, with the level of the VIX, which closed at 83.6 recently, greater than the previous all-time...
Asia EM is the Likely Eventual Winner from Oil and Yield Plunge
Global recession risks have risen but if recessionary feedback loops fail to materialise, the stimulative effect of lower yields and lower oil prices should eventually give rise to selective V-shaped recoveries. Our Stimulus Index aggregates the standardised changes...
There’s Something About the Term Premium
Historically, investors have required extra yield to hold longer-term bonds instead of short-term securities to compensate them for the added uncertainty. Thus, in a “normal” world, term premium (TP) should not be persistently negative. Yet, since 2016, TP has been...
FX Vol Still Attractive
Since news of coronavirus first spread, markets have struck a decisively risk-off tone with higher yielding currencies selling-off. Commodity currencies and Asian markets have been particularly hard hit. Despite the fresh bout of FX weakness, implied vol has been...
Another Yield Curve Red Herring
After first inverting last year, the 3m10y yield curve recently re-inverted, prompting the usual slew of mechanical recession predictions. However, not all inversions are equal. The top-left chart shows that almost all of the YTD decline in 10y yields is from the fall...
Surge in EGB Issuance May Result in Lower 2H20 Supply
January is typically a very busy month for European sovereign issuance as national treasuries kick off their annual funding programmes. This year has seen a marked uptick in supply relative to the previous year as issuers have taken advantage of low borrowing costs to...
Hedge Tail Risks on Low FX Vol
Implied volatility across asset classes has receded in recent months as the barrage of global systemic risks (US-China trade war, disorderly Brexit and the manufacturing slowdown) has dissipated. Even though FX vol, along with other asset volatilities, remained...
Neutral on Industrial Commodities Despite Low Inventories
There has been much commentary pointing out low inventories for industrial commodities and the potential for a squeeze higher in prices. Inventories are indeed very low (as shown in the top left chart using LME warehouse data) but this seems to have been a persistent...
Company Story
