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Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy

Fixed Income Strategy - Apr 2024
Key Takeaways
  • It is now consensus that interest rates will stay higher for longer.
  • Chair Powell has clearly articulated that he does not see a path to further rate hikes.
  • The latest U.S. jobs report suggest the labour market is softening
  • The most recent selloff in bonds presents an attractive entry point for investors.

Monthly commentary discusses recent developments across the Ninepoint Diversified BondNinepoint Alternative Credit Opportunities and Ninepoint Credit Income Opportunities Funds.

Economics

U.S. inflation continues to surprise to the upside, dispelling this notion that the elevated price pressures seen so far this year were merely a “bump in the road”. With that, it has become clear that the path to rate cuts this year has narrowed significantly. As Figure 1 shows, the bond market has gone from pricing 1.6% of cuts in January to now only 0.3% for all of 2024. Here in Canada, despite lower inflation readings and a softer labour market, we have also seen expectations for rate cuts get downgraded significantly, from 1.5% earlier this year, to about 0.5% at the end of April.

Figure 1: the interest rate pendulum has now swung far enough

At the April/May FOMC meeting, Chair Powell himself acknowledged the persistent strength of U.S. inflation, and aligned himself with market expectations, casting doubt on the likelihood of rate cuts in the near term. But importantly, he made sure to quell markets’ fear that he might be thinking about increasing rates if inflation proved too persistent. The bar is now very high for the Fed to consider further rate hikes, and during the press conference, Powell insisted that monetary policy is sufficiently restrictive, and that it was unlikely that the next move would be a hike. Overall, the message was that of a patient Fed, that is happy to wait for monetary policy to work its way through the system.

With only 0.3% of rate cuts priced-in for 2024, the current situation feels eerily similar to October 2023, where we saw peak hawkishness in monetary policy and positioning by investors. At this point in the cycle, expectations for monetary policy are the main driver of interest rates across the yield curve, and with the recent selloff, we believe rates are much more attractive. When the pendulum swings too far one way or another, it doesn’t take much to trigger a rapid repricing.

Since month end, we have been seeing signs of a shift in sentiment. The April U.S. employment report was soft across the board, resulting in a strong bid for bonds. We believe for those who had missed the 2023Q4 rally, this most recent repricing could offer a great entry point for duration.

Credit

As per Bloomberg, Canadian investment grade spreads continued their march tighter in April, with spreads narrowing another 4bps and outpacing the 3bps move in the US. Higher beta sectors fared the best while the laggards were utilities and senior banks. It was a quieter month for new issues (only ~$9bln), which, along with positive inflows, helped drive the narrowing. May and June tend to be very busy for corporate bond supply, and our portfolios are positioned for it, with many maturities approaching. Given the potential for supply indigestion in Canada (corporate supply up 57% YTD), we began layering in some additional credit hedges in the Alternative and Credit Income Opportunities funds.

Individual fund commentary

Ninepoint Diversified Bond Fund

April was a challenging month for any strategy with even modest duration, and ours was no exception. Due to the rapid increase in long term interest rates, the fund gave back its YTD gains. We see this setback as temporary; as discussed in the earlier section, we believe that we have reached peak hawkishness on the rates front. Already in May we have clawed back more than half of last month’s drawdown.

Otherwise, there has been little change to our positioning. We continue to barbell the fund between high-quality low-coupon short-term corporate bonds for income and long-term government bonds for ballast. With high yield priced to perfection, we also have a small short position in the U.S. Index ETF. There are very few pockets of value left in credit markets, so we are content to keep risk low and wait for better opportunities to emerge. Nonetheless, with a yield-to-maturity of 7.6% and a cash yield of 4.6%, investors are getting reasonably paid to wait.

NINEPOINT DIVERSIFIED BOND FUND - COMPOUNDED RETURNS¹ AS OF APRIL 30, 2024 (SERIES F NPP118) | INCEPTION DATE: AUGUST 5, 2010

1M

YTD

3M

6M

1YR

3YR

5YR

10YR

Inception

Fund

-1.6%

-0.5%

-0.3%

6.0%

3.0%

-1.3%

0.6%

2.1%

3.1%

Ninepoint Diversified Bond Fund

Ninepoint Alternative Credit Opportunities

While credit continues to perform well, gains have become more modest as we approach the 2021 tights in credit spreads. The fund was down 16bps in April (+2.21% YTD), entirely due to our long-term government bond exposure, which we expect will bounce back. Overall, we haven’t materially changed our positioning (nor do we expect to), with portfolio stats almost unchanged month-over-month (yield-to-maturity of 8.6% and a cash yield of 6.7%, leverage 0.7x). We continue to seek cost-effective ways to protect our portfolios against adverse events, and with credit spreads so tight, we found some compelling relative value hedges, which we are slowly layering on.

NINEPOINT ALTERNATIVE CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES FUND - COMPOUNDED RETURNS¹ AS OF APRIL 30, 2024 (SERIES F NPP931) | INCEPTION DATE: APRIL 30, 2021

1M

YTD

3M

6M

1YR

Inception

Fund

-0.2%

2.2%

1.7%

7.4%

7.5%

0.5%

Ninepoint Alternative Credit Opportunities Fund

Ninepoint Credit Income Opportunities

Similar to the Alternative Credit Opportunities fund, our government bond exposure was the main source of performance drag, taking the fund down 2bps in April (+2.70% YTD). Otherwise, positioning remains the same. Portfolio stats are almost unchanged month-over-month (yield-to-maturity of 9.0% and a cash yield of 6.6%, leverage 0.7x). Because we carry more credit risk in this strategy, we scour the markets for cost-effective credit hedges, particularly with credit spreads so tight. We found some compelling relative value hedges which we are layering on slowly. Please reach out if you would like to learn more.

NINEPOINT CREDIT INCOME OPPORTUNITIES FUND - COMPOUNDED RETURNS¹ AS OF APRIL 30, 2024 (SERIES F NPP507) | INCEPTION DATE: JULY 1, 2015

1M

YTD

3M

6M

1YR

3YR

5YR

Inception

Fund

0.0%

2.7%

1.9%

7.3%

7.6%

2.1%

5.0%

4.6%

Ninepoint Credit Income Opportunities Fund

Until next month,

Mark, Etienne & Nick
Ninepoint Partners

Historical Commentary

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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
    A lot has happened since our last commentary. Global growth (excluding the U.S.) continues to slow, prompting central banks around the world to loosen monetary policy (China, UK, Sweden, ECB, Canada and the Fed all cut rates this past month).
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    All eyes were on the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting in September, and Chair Powell did not disappoint, kicking off the rate cut cycle with an oversized 50bps cut. For reference, the last time the Fed cut rates by 50bps was during the pandemic, and prior to that 2008. Suffice to say, they are a rare occurrence typically associated with extreme events.
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    Following the intense volatility of early August, all eyes were on central bankers at the annual Jackson Hole symposium. In his speech, Chair Powell did not disappoint, stating that “We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions” and that “The time has come for policy to adjust”.
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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
    As discussed last month, economic momentum has started to wane, and this has caught the attention of central banks
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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
    Over the past month, economic momentum in the U.S. has taken a turn for the worse, with housing, retail sales, PMIs and even employment measures all coming in very weak. To put it all in perspective, we have shown in Figure 1 below, the U.S. economic surprise index, as calculated by Bloomberg. Rarely has it been this weak, and the weakness is quite broad across most sectors. With fiscal stimulus waning, U.S. households running out of pandemic-era savings and monetary policy biting, it was to be expected that economic activity would eventually wane.
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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
    Last month, we discussed that the market had become too bearish on bonds, assuming that the string of strong data would continue and therefore expecting monetary policy to remain very restrictive (or perhaps even more restrictive). Since then, we have seen U.S. economic data surprise to the downside (the strong U.S. May jobs report being the exception, but the details were mixed) and with that, bonds have rallied off the lows.
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    After getting overly excited about rate cuts at the start of the year, market sentiment has now gone full circle, discounting fewer and a much later start to rate cuts.
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    Last month, we made the point that market expectations for rate cuts this year were still unrealistic, and that given the current growth and inflationary dynamics, rate cut expectations needed to be both pushed out in time and reduced in magnitude. As of the end of February, with only about 3 full cuts expected for 2024 in both Canada and the U.S. (same as the Fed’s guidance), we feel like expectations are much more reasonable.
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  • Ninepoint Fixed Income Strategy
    Despite all the ups and downs in rates, high quality short-term corporate bonds performed well, generating a lot of income for the funds. Long-term interest rates rallied a lot in Q4, we expect a consolidation before the next leg lower.
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All Ninepoint Diversified Bond Fund returns and fund details are a) based on Series F units; b) net of fees; c) annualized if period is greater than one year; d) as at 4/30/2024. All Ninepoint Credit Income Opportunities Fund returns and fund details are a) based on Class F units; b) net of fees; c) annualized if period is greater than one year; d) as at 4/30/2024. All Ninepoint Alternative Credit Opportunities Fund returns and fund details are a) based on Class F units; b) net of fees; c) annualized if period is greater than one year; d) as at 4/30/2024.

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