Navigating the global fixed-income landscape amid change: Question & Answer

27 April 2026

Bradley L. Lutz, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager and Co-Head, Global Multi-Sector Fixed Income
Jeffrey N. Given, CFA, Head of Developed-Market Fixed Income, Senior Portfolio Manager

Viewpoints from Bradley L. Lutz
1. How would you characterize the current economic environment and how does it affect you as a fixed-income investor?

We’d characterize the current environment as being surprisingly resilient with respect to global growth. At the moment, the macroeconomic environment is challenged by trade tensions, geopolitical fragmentation, notable military conflicts, and rising interest rates in many countries.

Yield levels in most of the world’s developed markets have moved substantially higher in early 2026. In our view, high global yield levels position multi sector fixed income as very attractive relative to equities right now, but we feel that managing credit risk, currency risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk are as important as they've ever been.

2. How has the interest rate environment changed since the start of the year?

The world is at a unique moment for global rates—interest rate paths are diverging among the world’s central banks. This is the first time that's happened since 1994.

The central banks of England, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Europe are positioned for rate increases. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve is positioned for one or two rate cuts in 2026.

Because countries’ growth and inflation dynamics vary across regions, we believe we need to maintain a high level of flexibility in managing interest rate risks.

3. How is your team managing interest rate risk?

As an active fixed-income manager, we think about interest rate risk every day.

We evaluate duration (how sensitive bonds are to interest rate changes) and interest rate exposures not just at the fixed-income subsector and overall portfolio level, but also on an individual country basis.

At the moment, more than a third of our duration exposure comes from outside the United States—these markets include Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Europe.

Overall, our goal is to maintain both a balanced and opportunistic approach to managing interest rate risk.

4. Geopolitical developments tend to leave an impression on the global foreign exchange market very quickly. How’s the team thinking about currency risk?

Managing currency and liquidity risk is a core component of our portfolio construction process, particularly as market conditions shift quickly in response to macro and geopolitical events.

We see active global currency management as serving three roles for us.

First, it can be a risk mitigator.
Second, it can be a risk diversifier.
And third, it can act as a source of alpha generation.

We believe investors can benefit from incremental alpha by taking advantage of market volatility. Regarding liquidity risk, we'll continue to focus on maintaining a resilient portfolio structure. This means that we intend to hold a diversified mix of highly liquid fixed income instruments—i.e., a cash bond portfolio.

5. Looking ahead, how are you approaching opportunities and risks?

We expect geopolitical uncertainty to persist in the near term, but it should lead to a more favorable global fixed-income environment. Dispersion caused by current uncertainty is likely to create attractive entry points across several fixed-income subsectors. Our focus is to stay nimble, i.e., managing near-term risks while being prepared to capitalize on the broader opportunity.

In the rates market, we see a particularly compelling opportunity set outside North America. For instance, we’re embracing longer duration positions in markets such as Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Europe. In terms of global currencies, we're taking a more selective approach regarding where we're finding value. At this point, we think it makes sense to reduce currency exposure to regions most likely to be directly affected by geopolitical uncertainty.

Viewpoints from Jeffrey N. Given
1. What’s the current outlook for global interest rates?

As we entered this year, the debate on the path for global central banks was, you know, pretty much consistent across the board, where the expectations were maybe a couple more cuts are being, or unchanged policy rates.

That has been turned on its head quite a bit over the last several weeks. Now in Europe, particularly expecting more central bank increases, a potential one here in the U.S. as well. I do think you need to look through that and take a look at what's going to happen in the next, you know, two to three years. I think any rate increases that we get will be short term. The impact of the consumer would be pretty big, especially in the face of the higher oil prices, and could lead to some damage to the economy and the longer term.

2. What are your views on developments in the Middle East, and how do they impact fixed income?

The geopolitical events that have occurred in the Middle East have thrown the markets for a loop, so to speak.

We’ve seen higher oil prices, you know, higher interest rate volatility. We do expect that to continue for the short run. The real unknown is how long does what's going on in the Middle East continue to occur? What are the repercussions coming out of it on the other side?

I think that the importance of this is for a fixed-income investor, really, is to take a look at longer term. And our strategies look at the world more on a bottom-up basis, understanding companies, understanding what you own, and trying to distill and take out that noise that you get on a day-to-day basis because it does change by the hour at this current pace.

3. How should fixed-income investors navigate the next 12 – 18 months?

I do think the public markets fixed-income area really shows a great opportunity for investors over the next 12 to 18 months.

Yields have increased and you have liquidity in that marketplace. So I think that creates a great opportunity. I also think the opportunity, especially when you're looking at a multi-asset manager, is finding the areas in the marketplace that maybe get overlooked with all the volatility that is occurring currently, and trying to find the pockets of value in that. Those markets as value is starting to be created.

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