The People’s Bank of China announced that it’s opening up its financial markets to foreign investors in several new and quite granular ways. Among the developments, China is allowing foreign-funded institutions to conduct credit rating business on assets in the country’s inter-bank and exchange bond markets. Andrew Mattock, a portfolio manager at Matthews Asia, recalls […]
U.S.-denominated Asian bonds have reached US$1.1 trillion in outstanding bonds and now rank alongside U.S. high yield and bank loans, according to an Invesco Canada Ltd. insight brief. Amping up the market’s growth, Asian banks have been hampered by tighter regulatory capital requirements and are not able to meet the debt needs of Asia’s growing […]
Canadian defined benefit pension plans maintained their solvency levels through the second quarter of 2019, according to Mercer’s latest pension health index. The index, which represents the solvency ratio of a hypothetical plan, reached 106 per cent as of June 30, 2019, an increase from 102 per cent at the year’s outset. The current solvency […]
Looking back at the first half of 2019, bond and equity markets seem to be telling opposing stories, according to T.Rowe Price’s mid-year market outlook. Strong gains in equity markets in the U.S. and certain emerging regions would appear to suggest a renewed confidence in earnings for the year to come, the report said. Meanwhile, […]
With renewed volatility prompting money managers back on their toes, equity markets have been leading investment industry discussions over the past few quarters. Against this backdrop, how is fixed income, the other fundamental building block of defined benefit pension portfolios, faring? For David Lafferty, senior vice-president and chief market strategist at Natixis Investment Managers, the […]
A thick fog is clouding institutional investors’ efforts to gain clarity on the global market outlook, but certain key themes are peeking through, according to Manulife Investment Management’s mid-year report. Geopolitical unrest continues to be a cause for concern, the report noted. The escalation of trade tensions between the U.S. and China could point to a […]
With global and domestic equities rallying in the first quarter of 2019, Canadian defined benefit plan returns were lifted to 7.2 per cent in the first three months of the year, according to RBC Investor and Treasury Services’ universe of DB pension plans. This compares with a negative return of 3.5 per cent for the fourth […]
Pooled pension fund managers bounced back in the first quarter of 2019, posting a median return before management fees of 8.3 per cent, up from the negative 5.6 per cent return they posted in the final quarter of 2018, according to Morneau Shepell Ltd.’s latest data. However, the firm’s pension performance universe came in 0.4 per […]
At the start of April, the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index started including Chinese bonds. “Adding China to a benchmark global bond index – with two more global indexes likely to follow suit – will attract many investors to China’s domestic bond market, some for the first time,” said Kenneth Ho, managing director and head of Asia credit strategy […]
Canadian defined benefit pension plans’ solvency position rose in the first quarter of 2019, according to two new pension indexes. Representing the solvency ratio of a hypothetical plan, Mercer Canada’s index sat at 106 per cent on March 31, up from 102 per cent at the start of the year. The median solvency ratio of Mercer clients’ pension plans […]