Rücklagenfonds I USD

BPM - Berlin Portfolio Management GmbH

A veritable flood of new issues swept across the investment-grade corporate bond markets in September. Among them were names that are normally more talked about among equity investors, such as Oracle. The US software giant is increasingly moving to the center of the current artificial intelligence hype and tapped the credit markets to the tune of approximately EUR 15 billion in September. The purpose: to finance new AI applications and the necessary infrastructure. Issuers like Oracle and several others with massive credit needs for AI investments are becoming competition for the equally extensive new issues from the US Treasury, although their volumes (USD 70 billion in 5-year notes in September alone) are still somewhat larger. The strong appetite for "fresh money" and the interest rates, which are currently apparently considered "affordable", seem to be connecting the dots. In the Rücklagenfonds, we have been known to be skeptical of government bonds for some time (France recently reaffirmed our stance) and are also uneasy about the massive amounts of money currently being poured into the AI sector. As expected, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) lowered its key interest rate in September for the first time after a nine-month hiatus. The shift in focus (labor market instead of inflation) seems remarkable. This, and the ongoing political pressure on the central bank, make further interest rate cuts more likely. In contrast, the ECB appears to have reached the end of its interest rate cuts for the time being. The lack of growth and the subdued outlook for the coming year, coupled with increased inflation, do not suggest any change in the near future, so the short end of the euro yield curve could remain anchored at the 2% mark for some time. The Rücklagenfonds posted its first slightly negative monthly result in September. This is partly due to the slightly higher yields at the short to mid-term end of the euro yield curve, and partly due to the occasional movements in the yield spreads of some issuers last month. We expect that the high current yield in the Rücklagenfonds bond portfolio will demonstrate its ability to offset such market fluctuations in the short term.

09/30/2025