The author is vice-chair at Oliver Wyman and former global head of banks and diversified financials research at Morgan Stanley
A trio of recent records tells us something important about capital markets: that the “barbell effect” long associated with equity investing is now playing out in the bond markets in earnest. This shift underscores just how much the market structure of finance is changing.
Investors have poured nearly $190bn into US fixed income exchange traded funds this year to August according to Morningstar, 50 per cent higher than this time last year. Last month Ares raised the largest private credit fund in history at $34bn. And 13 major banks have formed partnerships with private credit firms to distribute their loans in the last year — up from two the year before.