Last week was a tiring and noisy week, so this note will try and stick to the key developments and their implications for markets going forward.
The “Trump” or “Bessent” put
The relatively bullish interpretation of the recent developments in US tariff negotiations, and the one we tend to favor, is that the US administration seems to have been forced to lower the heat on reciprocal tariff negotiations, pushed by the fast sell-off of US Treasury markets. Through-to-peak, the US Treasury 10-year yield surged by 66bps to > 4.5%, from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 April. Credit spreads, IG and HY, also widened from historically sub-10th 10-year percentiles to their median, again in a matter of days.
The US’s...