FICC Focus

“There are a lot of people who would love to give away their prepayment option to get their family into the home they want,” says Adam Rilander, CIO and head of agency MBS strategies at Bright Meadow, an investment team within Mariner Investment Group. Rilander joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Erica Adelberg and Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to discuss housing affordability, potential unintended consequences of mortgage policy, investment opportunities across the MBS landscape and why higher-coupon paper may be undervalued. Rilander and Adelberg also explore the pluses and minuses of mortgage lock-ins, builder buydowns, potential Basel III impacts and why static home prices could be the market’s best medicine.

The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

Oil volatility and renewed geopolitical risk have complicated what had looked like a supportive backdrop for risk assets in 2026. Brian Levitt, Invesco’s chief global market strategist, joins Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence chief US interest-rate strategist, on this Macro Matters edition of the FICC Focus podcast to discuss why he still sees a constructive medium-term outlook for markets even as the war in the Middle East has shifted the global economy from expansion toward a slower-growth phase. Levitt explains why he believes the resilience of earnings and improving market breadth have made equities healthier than they appeared in 2024, despite investors’ rotation away from some of the market’s most speculative areas. The two also discuss how higher oil prices, central-bank divergence and shifting rate expectations are affecting regional asset allocation, why Levitt expects the US would remain better positioned than Europe in a sustained energy shock and how a slower but still positive growth environment can bring leadership back to growth stocks and technology. They close with a discussion of portfolio construction, the outlook for the dollar and why Levitt remains broadly optimistic that markets are navigating a slowdown rather than the end of the cycle.

The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

Emerging market hard-currency credit continues to outperform most major fixed-income asset classes, yet it also offers a wide range of tactical and relative value positioning. Marcelo Assalin, head of EM debt and portfolio manager at William Blair Investment Management, joins Damian Sassower, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief EM fixed-income strategist, to discuss positioning and performance heading into 2H26. They also examine underlying valuations, with a focus on the fundamental and technical factors that are driving institutional interest in EM fixed income.

Housing affordability, mortgage-market modernization and changing refinance behavior are reshaping the outlook for mortgage-backed securities. Erica Adelberg, Bloomberg Intelligence MBS strategist, joins Ira Jersey, BI chief US interest-rate strategist, on this edition of the FICC Focus podcast, Macro Matters. Adelberg discusses how new credit-score models and lender choice could expand mortgage access while also complicating prepayment and credit analysis for MBS investors. The two also examine how technology and artificial intelligence are changing mortgage origination and servicing, why Rocket Mortgage’s growing servicing footprint could accelerate refinancing activity and how recent housing legislation could affect supply and financing at the margin. They also discuss curve flattening, the resurgence of hybrid ARMs, relative value across agency and non-agency mortgage products and why mortgage spreads remain highly sensitive to volatility even as all-in yields look attractive.

On the face of it, index volatility has remained relatively subdued, but underneath there is significant rotation and elevated single-stock volatility. In this edition of the All Options Considered podcast, Bloomberg Intelligence chief global derivatives strategist Tanvir Sandhu is joined by Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna, to discuss equity volatility and flows.The All Options Considered podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series. Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.