Brief : Investors in exchange-traded funds are abandoning junk bonds as riskier assets come under pressure from inflation fears. About $1.2 billion was pulled from BlackRock’s iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond (HYG) on Thursday in its worst day of outflows since February 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Traders have withdrawn about $5.6 billion from the ETF so far in 2021, putting it on track for its worst year since its inception in 2007. Meanwhile, the rival $9.6 billion SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond fund (JNK) is on pace for its second week of outflows, totaling more than $970 million. With interest rates at rock-bottom lows, investors had previously favored the high-yield market. But that calculation could now be changing, said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co. “Investors are taking some risk out of their portfolio,” he said. “With inflation fears growing, that means the yields on some safer assets will be rising as well. That will provide at least some competition for a high-yield market that hasn’t seen any competition for a long time.”
Brief: When London’s Science Museum reopens next week, it will have some new artifacts: empty vaccine vials, testing kits and other items collected during the pandemic, to be featured in a new COVID-19 display. Britain isn’t quite ready to consign the coronavirus to a museum — the outbreak is far from over. But there is a definite feeling that the U.K. has turned a corner, and the mood in the country is upbeat. “The end is in sight,” one newspaper front page claimed. “Free at last!” read another. Thanks to an efficient vaccine rollout program, Britain is finally saying goodbye to months of tough lockdown restrictions. Starting Monday, all restaurants and bars in England can reopen with some precautions in place, as can hotels, theaters and museums. And Britons will be able to hug friends and family again, with the easing of social distancing rules that have been in place since the pandemic began. It’s the biggest step yet to reopen the country following an easing of the crisis blamed for nearly 128,000 deaths, the highest reported COVID-19 toll in Europe. Deaths in Britain have come down to single digits in recent days. It’s a far cry from January, when deaths topped 1,800 in a single day amid a brutal second wave driven by a more infectious variant first found in southeastern England.
Brief: Remote workers in Canada are logging more hours, experiencing more stress, and feeling less engaged with their work, according to a new survey. The online survey, conducted by ADP Canada and Angus Reid, asked 1,501 Canadians working remotely and in person to evaluate their experience working during the pandemic, including their work hours, productivity, engagement, stress levels, and quality of their work. The survey found that 44 per cent of remote workers reported they were logging more hours of work than they were in pre-pandemic times. Of those, one in ten reported working an additional day, or more than eight extra hours per week. In contrast, only 15 per cent reported working fewer hours and 38 per cent said there was no change in the hours they worked. Janet Candido, a human resources professional of 20 years and founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group, said she thinks people are working longer hours because they’re not as busy in the evenings or on weekends due to pandemic-related restrictions. “I heard this from my own team a year ago: ‘Well, I don't have anything else to do so I might as well get this done,’” she told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Thursday.
Brief: Brevan Howard Asset Management is moving to a new London headquarters that’s almost three times larger than the hedge-fund firm’s existing office, signaling an expansion plan after a record year of gains. The company has taken over a lease from French advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA in the city’s West End, according to people familiar with the matter. The building at 82 Baker Street, which is near the firm’s current headquarters, has more than 70,000 square feet (6,500 square meters) of office space, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deal is private. It’s not clear if Brevan Howard will occupy the entire space itself or sublease parts of the office. A spokesman for the firm declined to comment and a spokeswoman for Publicis didn’t respond to emails seeking comment. Brevan Howard, which managed $14.6 billion at the end of March, and other hedge funds have been on a hiring spree as market volatility creates more trading opportunities. The company co-founded by billionaire Alan Howard last year posted the best returns in its near two-decade history, with its main fund up more than 27% and its U.S. Rates Opportunities Fund soaring nearly 99%.
Brief: Global equity funds enjoyed a second consecutive month of record inflows as UK investors added nearly £3 billion to the asset class. According to the latest fund flow data from Calastone, investors favoured global, UK and North American funds. Demand for European equity products waned, perhaps as the continent lags the UK and US in its Covid-19 vaccine drive, Calastone said. UK investors also added over £880 billion to bond funds. Total inflows across all asset classes hit £6.1 billion by the end of the month. Edward Glyn, head of global markets at Calastone, highlighted that the pandemic is “claiming more lives than ever around the world, but in the UK and North America it is in retreat. “The situation in Europe is improving, and it remains under control in most parts of Asia. Stock markets have been on a gently rising trend, while bond yields which are bad for share prices when they rise, have been steady,” he said, adding that investors are looking to the post-pandemic boom.
Brief: Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who became the world’s youngest known crypto billionaire less than two weeks ago, has donated over $1 billion in crypto to the India Covid Relief Fund and a range of other charities. He made the donation by offloading massive amounts of dog-themed meme tokens, which he was gifted by the creators of Shiba Inu coin (SHIB), Dogelon (ELON) and Akita Inu (AKITA). These cryptocurrencies have taken off following Dogecoin’s staggering rally of the last few months. Though built around similar memes, these copycats have much larger token supplies. In a single transaction, Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB tokens worth $1.2 billion as of May 12, 16:37 pm E.T. to the India Covid Relief Fund set up by Indian tech entrepreneur Sandeep Nailwal. Nailwal is best known as the co-founder and COO of Polygon, a protocol which aggregates scalable solutions on Ethereum in a multi-chain system. Earlier in April, Buterin donated about $600,000 in ether and maker (MKR) tokens to the fund. Nailwal immediately took to Twitter to thank Buterin and assure SHIB investors the funds will be spent responsibly. “We will not do anything which hurts any community specially the retail community involved with SHIB,” wrote Nailwal.