As we wrote earlier this year in our piece “Pricing Risk and Playing Defense,” we are not believers in a significantly higher interest rate environment.  The global economy is simply too weak to tolerate higher rates.  The Fed will raise …

Every investment opportunity set (asset classes and individual securities) has risk.  The key is to identify the risk and “price” it correctly.  For us, assessing and pricing risk involves analyzing credit spreads in light of their expected default rates.  This …

The consensus is that rates will be going up, but the consensus has been wrong about rates time and again over the past several years—none of us know the future.  What we do know is that the two monsters of …

With Trump’s election, it is now seems to be “consensus” that the Federal Reserve is going to raise rates another three times in 2017.  We question this assumption.  In fact, we may have already seen the highs on the 10-year …

After working to sizably cut our energy allocation in early 2015 as we expected the volatility in oil to continue, we are now selectively adding a few energy names to our portfolio.  Since we have been clanging gongs for a …

As we look at the high yield market, we see decent market fundamentals.  While it would be a normal occurrence to see companies re-lever themselves after six years into a cycle, we have seen little of this type of bad …

Throughout history of the high yield market there have been various legislative acts that have created and continue to create the market dislocation that allows investors an opportunity to produce what we see as attractive risk-adjusted returns.  The Financial Institutions …

Just what is the formal definition of high yield? High yield, or its more polite acronym, non-investment grade, is based off of the ratings grids provided by the two major credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. All bonds …

Here are some of the reasons we believe that the high yield bond market looks attractive at current levels: MODERATE RISK:  With default being the primary risk for high yield bonds and bank loan investing, we see no systemic default …

With this week’s 4.0% GDP number and FOMC meeting statement, concern seems to re-emerge that rates will be headed higher in the near-term.  The Fed has said that they will keep rates low for a “considerable time” once the asset …