Every Friday, Brian Jacobsen provides perspective on key events and topics of the current week and his thoughts about what the week ahead may hold. Here’s his report for the week of September 19–25, 2020.

Recently, we had a chance to catch up with George Bory, Managing Director of Fixed Income Strategy and Product Specialists at Wells Fargo Asset Management on what’s driving the fixed-income markets and how investors can respond to a highly volatile environment for bonds. Here were the top 5 takeaways.

The latest edition of Overview, Strategy, and Outlook, the monthly Portfolio Manager Commentary that includes the latest updates and views from Wells Fargo Asset Management’s money market investment team, led by Jeff Weaver, is now available.

Every Friday, Brian Jacobsen provides perspective on key events and topics of the current week and his thoughts about what the week ahead may hold. Here’s his report for the week of September 12–18, 2020.

Every Friday, Brian Jacobsen provides perspective on key events and topics of the current week and his thoughts about what the week ahead may hold. Here’s his report for the week of September 5–11, 2020.

Every Friday, Brian Jacobsen provides perspective on key events and topics of the current week and his thoughts about what the week ahead may hold. Here’s his report for the week of August 29–September 4, 2020. Plus: Since we’ve just started a new month, there’s a quick recap of the big stories from August.

Every Friday, Brian Jacobsen provides perspective on key events and topics of the current week and his thoughts about what the week ahead may hold. Here’s his report for the week of August 22–28, 2020.

• Each market disruption provides the opportunity for companies to bring future demand forward and accelerate adoption of new technologies.
• Businesses benefiting from secular growth trends have shown greater resiliency, leading to strong outperformance by growth stocks in the first half of 2020.
• In our view, long-term success for growth managers requires an effective valuation framework, balance in portfolio construction, and a sharp focus on execution—including when to sell.

Investors looking for tax-exempt income in the municipal fixed-income markets are in a tough bind these days. Highly rated bonds, with very high prices and correspondingly low yields, are “priced for perfection.” Lower-rated bonds, from which investors may be able to source slightly more attractive yields, may be under more credit risk pressure given the pandemic and recession in the United States. The combination of low nominal yields and increasing credit risk puts municipal fixed-income investors in a challenging position.