SUMMARY
- During the fourth quarter of 2018, high quality assets were the key drivers of the Income Fund and helped preserve capital for investors.
- Because we think the markets will remain volatile in the year ahead, the Income Fund is defensively positioned overall but will aim to use any market dislocations to go on offense.
- With high volatility in corporate credit and emerging markets, in particular, we think the environment for expressing relative value and targeted views is better in these sectors today than at any point over the last several years.
As volatility in late 2018 drove the U.S. stock market down nearly 20% from its peak and down 4.4% for the year, based on the S&P 500 Index, high quality bonds had a positive reversal of fortune and rallied in the fourth quarter. Portfolio managers for PIMCO’s Income Fund, Dan Ivascyn and Alfred Murata, discuss how the fund was positioned for the volatility and offer their outlook for 2019.
Q: What drove the change in investor sentiment during the fourth quarter, and what do you expect going forward?
Dan Ivascyn: Fourth-quarter market moves reflected investors’ reaction to a slowdown in growth, particularly outside the U.S., ongoing concerns over central bank policy, and significant uncertainty over global politics. Much of the volatility was also technical in nature, stemming from lower trading liquidity going into year-end.
It’s important to put the volatility in perspective. The last decade can be categorized as a post-crisis environment when policymakers looked to suppress volatility. We think the market environment is changing, however, and will look very different in the future, due largely to political uncertainty and central banks taking a much less active role in suppressing volatility. We weren’t surprised by the volatility in the fourth quarter, but it’s very hard to predict exactly when these bouts of fear will occur.
From an investment perspective, it’s critical to protect capital during these periods. To that end, we’re defensively positioned overall and try to use the market volatility to go on offense. We’re pleased with the resiliency in the Income Fund during the fourth quarter.
Q: U.S. Treasury bond yields moved quite a bit over 2018, with the 10-year yield starting at 2.4%, peaking above 3.2% and finishing at 2.7%. What is your outlook for yields this year?
Ivascyn: We’re not of the mindset that when you hit certain technical levels, yields rise automatically. When you look at a long-term chart of high quality government bond yields, periods of relatively range-bound bond markets are not atypical. We think this is one of those periods when rates will remain within a range over the longer term.
One reason for that is we don’t see a meaningful breakout to higher inflation. Additionally, global growth rates are quite low and debt is still high. This is a concern because the next economic slowdown is highly likely to be accompanied by much lower bond yields. We saw a preview of what can happen to rates during a market sell-off in the fourth quarter, when high quality bonds rallied significantly.
In the short term, though, we think Treasuries and other high quality bond markets likely got a little ahead of themselves. We don’t expect a significant rise in interest rates over the next 12 months, but we think there is still a meaningful chance of more tightening by the Federal Reserve. Over the next few months, we would not be surprised if high quality bond yields drift higher, which warrants a little caution.
Q: What were the key drivers of performance for the Income Fund during the fourth quarter?
Alfred Murata: The Income Fund’s combination of top-down economic views and bottom-up trade ideas worked well in 2018. Coming into the year, we thought economic growth would be relatively strong in the near term, but we were concerned about the possibility of a slowdown in the intermediate term. Because of that, we had reduced credit risk in the Income Fund, and in the fourth quarter, we were able to go on offense and add credit positions at attractive prices. Very importantly, though, we were able to preserve capital by having a portion of the fund invested in higher-quality assets; these high quality assets were the key drivers during the fourth quarter.
Overall, having a portion of the fund invested in higher-quality assets, such as Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities, has typically enabled it to remain resilient during times of economic stress, while having a portion of the fund invested in higher-yielding assets, such as non-agency mortgage-backed securities, has typically helped generate income and returns during benign economic environments.
Q: How did duration, or interest rate exposure, change over the quarter, and how are you thinking about duration in the fund today?
Murata: We see two main reasons to have duration in a portfolio: to add potential total return and to help protect the portfolio against downside risks. In general, we have increased duration as rates have gone up, and we have reduced duration when rates have fallen.
During the fourth quarter, the Income Fund’s duration positioning – mainly its exposure to U.S. Treasury bonds – helped preserve capital for investors. We favor U.S. rates relative to most other developed markets given the combination of relatively high nominal and real rates. We also continue to hold some duration in Australia because we think the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is unlikely to increase the policy rate in the near term due to the relatively soft housing market.
We have been more cautious on Japan and U.K. interest rates, where we hold negative duration exposure. In Japan, rates are so low that we don’t think Japanese bonds have much potential to rally further, while we do think there’s the potential for interest rate normalization. In the U.K., Brexit uncertainty is creating volatility, but we recently added a negative duration position as we think Brexit is unlikely to result in a significant drop in U.K. rates, and in a benign scenario, interest rates could increase significantly.
Q: During the sell-off in the fourth quarter, corporate credit spreads, both investment grade and high yield, widened significantly from near historical lows. Do you think this is a buying opportunity?
Ivascyn: The widening in spreads brought corporate credit closer to fair value from a historical perspective, and we were active in certain segments of the market. From the standpoint of overall corporate exposure, we have shifted to a more constructive stance, at least over the short term.
We like the financial sector globally, and we took advantage of market volatility to add positions there. The capital positions of many financial institutions are near or at their highest levels in more than a decade. Currently, we like U.K. banks; we think even an extremely negative Brexit scenario does not represent meaningful default risk for many of the banks in that region.
That said, we have been selective in corporate credit markets overall and maintain high liquidity in that segment of the fund. Our longer-term concerns within the corporate market remain: Elevated issuance and deterioration in investor protections across investment grade, high yield and bank loan markets lead us to be cautious.
So yes, we’ve increased exposure in select areas, but we are still cautious on corporate credit over the longer term.
Q: What other sectors do you find attractive for the Income fund?
Ivascyn: We continue to like housing-related investments. They provide attractive yields, and perhaps more importantly, in a negative economic environment – which we saw during the fourth quarter – we think these positions should be much more resilient than corporate credit alternatives.
There’s been some confusion in the market about U.S. housing of late, as increases in home prices and housing-related activity have slowed. However, from an affordability perspective – price-to-rent, price-to-income and other longer-term valuation metrics – U.S. home prices look quite reasonable in our view. Given the low loan-to-value ratios on mortgages, rising homeowner equity, strong wage growth and low unemployment, we think housing will be a very resilient sector. Not only have we maintained our exposure, we’ve increased it over the last year or so.
Additionally, we like emerging markets as a diversifier within the Income Fund. We often talk about having high quality assets that can serve as a hedge against risk in the Income Fund, but almost as important is having resilient and diversifying positions within the higher-yielding portion of the fund. The performance of emerging markets in general during the second half of last year, including the positive price performance of certain positions in the fourth quarter, showed that targeted investments in sectors with attractive total return potential can actually help suppress volatility in a portfolio, even during flight-to-quality events.
Q: What should investors expect in the markets and the Income Fund in the year ahead?
Murata: First, we expect the markets to remain volatile. Having a balance of higher-quality and higher-yielding assets along with some “dry powder” in the Income Fund should enable us to continue to seek to take advantage of dislocations in the markets.
Also, the increase in interest rates over the last year and the recent sell-off in credit mean that fixed income yields overall have been increasing, and that should be a positive factor for investors going forward.
Ivascyn: It’s critically important to us as an active fixed income manager to distinguish ourselves during challenging market environments and focus on providing resiliency for investors during periods like the fourth quarter of 2018. Volatility within the corporate credit and emerging markets, in particular, is the highest it has been in quite some time. So the environment for expressing relative value and targeted views is better in these sectors today than at any point over the last several years. The Income team is very excited about taking advantage of these opportunities in 2019.
DISCLOSURES
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the funds carefully before investing. This and other information are contained in the fund’s prospectus and summary prospectus, if available, which may be obtained by contacting your investment professional or PIMCO representative or by visiting www.pimco.com. Please read them carefully before you invest or send money.
Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results.
A word about risk:
Investing in the bond market is subject to risks, including market, interest rate, issuer, credit, inflation risk, and liquidity risk. The value of most bonds and bond strategies are impacted by changes in interest rates. Bonds and bond strategies with longer durations tend to be more sensitive and volatile than those with shorter durations; bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise, and the current low interest rate environment increases this risk. Current reductions in bond counterparty capacity may contribute to decreased market liquidity and increased price volatility. Bond investments may be worth more or less than the original cost when redeemed. Investing in foreign denominated and/or domiciled securities may involve heightened risk due to currency fluctuations, and economic and political risks, which may be enhanced in emerging markets. Mortgage and asset-backed securities may be sensitive to changes in interest rates, subject to early repayment risk, and their value may fluctuate in response to the market’s perception of issuer creditworthiness; while generally supported by some form of government or private guarantee there is no assurance that private guarantors will meet their obligations. High-yield, lower-rated, securities involve greater risk than higher-rated securities; portfolios that invest in them may be subject to greater levels of credit and liquidity risk than portfolios that do not. Bank loans are often less liquid than other types of debt instruments and general market and financial conditions may affect the prepayment of bank loans, as such the prepayments cannot be predicted with accuracy. There is no assurance that the liquidation of any collateral from a secured bank loan would satisfy the borrower’s obligation, or that such collateral could be liquidated. Equities may decline in value due to both real and perceived general market, economic, and industry conditions. Derivatives may involve certain costs and risks such as liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, management and the risk that a position could not be closed when most advantageous. Investing in derivatives could lose more than the amount invested.
There is no guarantee that these investment strategies will work under all market conditions or are suitable for all investors and each investor should evaluate their ability to invest long-term, especially during periods of downturn in the market. Investors should consult their investment professional prior to making an investment decision.
This material contains the opinions of the manager and such opinions are subject to change without notice. This material has been distributed for informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America L.P. in the United States and throughout the world.
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