Graph of the week - Relative value at work

A line graph titled "US agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) offer attractive yield pick-up". The graph displays two lines from 2000 to 2025: an orange line representing the MBS 30-year spread (left y-axis, 50-250 bp) and a green line representing the US investment grade credit spread (right y-axis, 0-600 bp). Data as of 28 July 2025, from Bloomberg and BNP Paribas Asset Management.

At a time when spreads on US investment-grade corporate bonds are at record lows, US agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) offer better credit quality plus a pickup in yield. What’s more, these securities offer investors potential return streams that are uncorrelated with other fixed income segments.

The primary risk with US agency MBS is not credit risk (they benefit from the implicit backing of the US Treasury), but volatility via prepayment risk.

US agency MBS is a large component of the global bond universe: it makes up about 12% of the fixed income market globally and about 23% of the US bond market (source: Bloomberg, June 2025). That size means market liquidity is deep. 

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Please note that articles may contain technical language. For this reason, they may not be suitable for readers without professional investment experience. Any views expressed here are those of the author as of the date of publication, are based on available information, and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may take different investment decisions for different clients. This document does not constitute investment advice. The value of investments and the income they generate may go down as well as up and it is possible that investors will not recover their initial outlay. Past performance is no guarantee for future returns. Investing in emerging markets, or specialised or restricted sectors is likely to be subject to a higher-than-average volatility due to a high degree of concentration, greater uncertainty because less information is available, there is less liquidity or due to greater sensitivity to changes in market conditions (social, political and economic conditions). Some emerging markets offer less security than the majority of international developed markets. For this reason, services for portfolio transactions, liquidation and conservation on behalf of funds invested in emerging markets may carry greater risk.

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