Insights

The prevailing market view on the region remains negative, mainly centring on China's debt problem and general doubts about Abenomics. We focus on some aspects of this negativity from a sovereign balance sheet perspective and conclude that the potential dangers are overstated.

Oil production in Nigeria has been severely hampered in recent months as local militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, have committed numerous attacks on oil pipelines in the region, materially lowering the country’s oil production. Our Emerging Market (EM) debt team in London take a closer look the political situation in Nigeria, the origins of the conflict, prospects for its potential resolution and its impact on global oil prices.

Many market commentators have been speculating that we are finally coming to the end of the bond rally that has endured for the past 35 years. It's worth noting that this is nothing new—we have heard similar suggestions many times before over recent years.

Given the release of the second quarter data, we update our decade-long theme about improving corporate governance in Japan.

In developed markets, global bonds have benefited from recent flows out of Japan into positive-yielding markets. The New Zealand and Canadian economies face continued pressure and a September US rate rise is now looking more unlikely.

Japan is a consensus-driven culture and improved corporate governance is now the consensus. There are clear signs that many companies are moving towards more shareholder-oriented management.

US Treasury (UST) yields ended July mixed: yields of shorter maturities climbed, whilse those of longer maturities fell.

Asia ex Japan equities rose by 4.8% in USD terms in July, outpacing global equities. Hopes for monetary and fiscal stimulus led to strong buying of Asian equities.

The CEO of our Indian joint venture and our senior EM portfolio manager in London analyze the great importance of recent legislative developments in India.

Our expert on Asian financials describes the exciting technological developments that will change the way we all do business in the future.