In this issue:

• REITs, commodities and US junk bonds buck the trend with gains this week
• Losses across the board for our four portfolio strategy benchmarks

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Forecasting Bond Risk Premia using Stationary Yield Factors
Tobias Hoogteijling (Robeco Asset Management), et al.
April 12, 2021
The standard way to summarize the yield curve is to use the first three principal components of the yield curve, resulting in level, slope and curvature factors. Yields, however, are non-stationary. We analyze the first three principal components of yield changes, which correspond to changes in level, slope and curvature. The new factors based on changes in yields have strong predictive power for bond risk premia, in contrast to the factors based on yield levels. We also provide insights into the impact this has on the added value of macro data for bond risk premia predictions and the recent conclusion that machine learning provides better forecasts than linear regression.

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* Economists expect strong acceleration in US jobs creation for April
* Eurozone economy contracted in first quarter
* Slower growth for China’s mfg and services sectors in April via PMI data
* Rare and perhaps fleeting bipartisan vote as Senate passes water bill
* Pending US home sales rose less than forecast amid tight supply
* US jobless claims continued falling, dropping to new pandemic low last week
* US GDP growth accelerated in Q1 to strong +6.4%: