This note analyzes the stress experienced (and caused) by open-end mutual funds during the March COVID-19 stress episode, with a focus on global fixed-income funds. In light of increased valuation uncertainty, funds experienced a short period of intense withdrawals while the market liquidity of their holdings deteriorated substantially. To cover redemptions, afflicted funds predominantly shed liquid assets first—for example, cash, cash equivalents, and US Treasury securities. But forced asset sales amplified price pressures in markets and contributed to liquidity falling across fixed-income markets. This drop in market liquidity, as well as the general stress in financial markets, may have led to fund investors becoming even more sensitive to challenging portfolio performance and encouraged further withdrawals. Only after central banks intervened, directly and indirectly supporting asset managers, did liquidity and redemption stress subside. Overall, the March episode validated the financial-stability concerns about liquidity vulnerabilities in the fund industry and calls for further action to address them.

Unconstrained multi-sector bond funds (MSBFs) can be a source of spillovers to emerging markets and potentially exert a sizable impact on cross-border flows. MSBFs have grown their investment in emerging markets in recent years and are highly concentrated—both in their positions and their decision-making. They typically also exhibit opportunistic behavior much more so than other investment funds. Theoretically, their size, multisector mandate, and unconstrained nature allows MSBFs to be a source of financial stability in periods of wide-spread market turmoil while others sell at fire-sale prices. However, this note, building on the analysis of Cortes and Sanfilippo (2020) and incorporating data around the COVID-19 crisis, finds that MSBFs could have contributed to increase market stress in selected emerging markets. When faced with large investor redemptions during the crisis, our sample of MSBFs chose to rebalance their portfolios in a concentrated manner, raising a large proportion of cash in a few specific local currency bond markets. This may have contributed to exacerbating the relative underperformance of these local currency bond markets to broader emerging market indices.

Fixed income investments have been a topic of broad interest, in particular for institutional investors such as insurance companies and pensions schemes. They were considered safe heavens in turbulent times by almost all other institutional and individual investors and are used for strategies such as portfolio immunization and asset liability matching (ALM). The latest crisis, however, revealed some of the weaknesses of fixed income instruments. They proved to be not as safe as originally thought with both credit and interest rate risks emerging. Consequently, fixed income investments have been in the spotlight once more. This book presents all aspects pertaining to fixed income investments, starting from the basics—i.e. the types of bonds, their valuation, the interest rate term structure—then moving to fixed income portfolio management and the interest rate and credit derivatives and their relevant markets, funds, risks and risk management. Finally, the book addresses contemporary issues such as their behavior in times of crisis, their relation to debt, their coexistence with equity and the current regulatory environment. This book, providing a look at the broader environment of fixed income alongside the current market structure, will be of interest to students, academics, researchers and practitioners in fixed income and investing strategies.​

A practitioner's guide to finding alpha in fixed income trading in emerging markets Emerging fixed income markets are both large and fast growing. China, currently the second largest economy in the world, is predicted to overtake the United States by 2030. Chinese fixed income markets are worth more than $11 trillion USD and are being added to global fixed income indices starting in 2019. Access for foreigners to the Indian fixed income market, valued at almost 1trn USD, is also becoming easier – a trend repeated in emerging markets around the world. The move to include large Emerging Market (EM) fixed income markets into non-EM benchmarks requires non-EM specialists to understand EM fixed income. Trading Fixed Income in Emerging Markets examines the principle drivers for EM fixed income investing. This timely guide suggests a more systematic approach to EM fixed income trading with a focus on practical trading rules on how to generate alpha, assisting EM practitioners to limit market-share losses to passive investment vehicles. The definitive text on trading EM fixed income, this book is heavily data-driven – every trading rule is thoroughly back-tested over the last 10+ years. Case studies help readers identify and benefit from market regularities, while discussions of the business cycle and typical EM events inform and optimise trading strategies. Topics include portfolio construction, how to apply ESG principles to EM and the future of EM investing in the realm of Big Data and machine learning. Written by practitioners for practitioners, this book: Provides effective, immediately-accessible tools Covers all three fixed income asset classes: EMFX, EM local rates and EM credit Thoroughly analyses the impact of the global macro cycle on EM investing Examines the influence of the financial rise of China and its fixed income markets Includes case studies of trades that illustrate how markets typically behave in certain situations The first book of its kind, Trading Fixed Income in Emerging Markets: A Practitioner’s Guide is an indispensable resource for EM fund managers, analysts and strategists, sell-side professionals in EM and non-EM specialists considering activity in emerging markets.

The COVID-19 global health pandemic, which started in late December 2019, forced many countries to adopt unusual measures such as social distancing and strict lockdowns. It changed many of our certainties and practices, including the foundations of the market-led version of capitalism, by bringing social and health considerations back to the forefront of firms' considerations, investors' strategies and governments' priorities. Under the effects of this unprecedented crisis, all sectors of finance and real economy have been seriously affected.Health uncertainties and their increasing consequences for human life and activities require stronger and faster actions to shape pathways towards sustainability and better resilience. The COVID-19 health crisis is a visible part of a greater iceberg: the World Health Organization has tracked, over recent years, a large number of epidemic events around the world, suggesting that many other similar diseases could appear and evolve in the future from epidemic to pandemic in a globalized world.Financial Transformations Beyond the COVID-19 Health Crisis was specifically designed to provide the readers with new results, recent findings and future outlook on the impacts of COVID-19 on financial markets, firm behaviors, and finance and investment strategies. It favors multidimensional perspectives and brings together conceptual, empirical and policy-oriented chapters, using quantitative and qualitative methods alike. This is a timely and comprehensive collection of theoretical, empirical and policy contributions from renowned scholars around the world, and provides the thoughts and insights required to rethink the financial sector in the event of new shocks of the same nature.

We explore how a relatively small amount of heterogeneous securities created turmoil in financial markets in much of the world in 2007 and 2008. The drivers of the financial turmoil and the financial crisis of 2008 were heterogeneous securities that were hard to value. These securities created concerns about counterparty risk and ultimately created substantial uncertainty. The problems spread in ways that were hard to see in advance. The run on prime money market funds in September 2008 and the effects on commercial paper were an important aspect of the crisis itself and are discussed in some detail.

We study the impact of the COVID-19 recession on capital structure of publicly listed U.S. firms. Our estimates suggest leverage (Net Debt/Asset) decreased by 5.3 percentage points from the pre-shock mean of 19.6 percent, while debt maturity increased moderately. This de-leveraging effect is stronger for firms exposed to significant rollover risk, while firms whose businesses were most vulnerable to social distancing did not reduce leverage. We rationalize our evidence through a structural model of firm value that shows lower expected growth rate and higher volatility of cash flows following COVID-19 reduced optimal levels of corporate leverage. Model-implied optimal leverage indicates firms which did not de-lever became over-leveraged. We find default probability deteriorates most in large, over-leveraged firms and those that were stressed pre-COVID. Additional stress tests predict value of these firms will be less than one standard deviation away from default if cash flows decline by 20 percent.