Credit market wrap 2017

In 2017, market participants were faced with several dilemmas on whether the credit market will uphold the generosity it offered to investors over the past couple of years.

Indeed, this uncertainty was mainly brought about by the wave of monetary easing, which markets were under the impression yet comforted that it had been approaching its end.

That said, once again the asset class per se offered very decent returns, despite the surrounded uncertainty, as investors upheld their search for yield.

It is to no surprise that yields over the past year touched lows, as bond prices continued to increase due to the accommodative stances by major Central Banks.

The main yield tightening was experienced in Europe following the quantitative easing program introduced by the European Central Bank (ECB), which continued to combat the low inflation issue by flooding the market through the QE program.

On the contrary, in line with the rate hikes put forward by the Federal Reserve, we saw some adjustments in US credit, both at a sovereign and investment grade level, but also within the sub-investment grade segment. The said adjustments offered investors the opportunity to dip-in at more...