Dennis Badlyans
Former Associate Director, Global Research & Design , S&P Dow Jones Indices
Green Bond Issuance Doubled in 2017
Gross issuance of green bonds reached USD 157 billion in 2017, nearly double that of the previous year. Fourth quarter issuance was the fastest quarterly pace on record, adding USD 48 billion, 30% more than seen in each of the previous three quarters. Issuers and issuance types continue to diversify. Asset-backed security (ABS) issuance had…
A Look Inside the S&P Green Bond Select Index
In a previous post, “Rising Above the Noise in ESG: Green Bonds,” we argued that green bonds provide a simple way to add an element of environmental investing into core fixed income holdings. In this blog, we take a closer look at the composition of the S&P Green Bond Select Index and show that it…
Rising Above the Noise in ESG: Green Bonds
The emergence of ethical and sustainable concerns and the need for environmental investing has come with a wide range of options for fixed income market participants to navigate. One approach has been to rely on evaluation metrics, or ratings that measure the environmental and social impact of companies’ operations. The main challenge of this approach…
Green Bond Market: October 2017
In October 2017, nearly USD 10 billion of green bonds were issued, bringing the total to USD 94 billion YTD (see Exhibit 1). The pace was slower than the record USD 15 billion of issuance seen in September 2017; however, if history repeats itself, November 2017 may give us another record month. Germany led the…
Green Bond Market: September 2017
In the first three quarters of 2017, green bond issuance reached USD 83 billion, nearing the issuance reported by the Climate Bond Initiative for full-year 2016 (see Exhibit 1). France accounted for 18% (USD 14.8 billion) of the issuance, driven primarily by the USD 7.6 billion sovereign bond issued by the country in January. Commercial…
How the Liquidity of S&P 500 Investment-Grade Bonds Compares Against Non-S&P 500 Bonds
Liquidity may be defined as the ability to buy or sell a bond within a reasonable period of time and at a reasonable price. A simple way to compare two bonds is through the use of Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) daily volume data. The data represents the daily aggregation of each reported trade…
Green Bonds: Addressing Solvency II Benchmarking Requirements
Solvency II is the new region-wide supervisory framework for insurance and reinsurance companies operating in the European Union. The new regime includes three pillars, calculation of capital reserves, management of risk and governance, and reporting to the national supervisory authority. Moving to a risk-based approach in calculating solvency capital requirements (SCR) will require reassessment of…
Green Bond Update for May 2017
Green bond Issuance picked up in the first two weeks in May compared with the previous two-week period. Twenty new green labeled bond offerings were announced, including 11 U.S. municipal offerings with maturity structure (215 unique instruments). Issuance totaled USD 7.56 billion, of which USD 2.4 billion was in U.S. municipal bonds. Of note, German…
Monetary Cycles and the Fixed Income Market – How Does the Slope Affect Returns?
In an earlier blog post, we provided a brief survey of recent monetary policy cycles in the U.S., showing that a higher Fed funds rate doesn’t necessarily affect the yield on Treasury bonds in the same way. Policy rate changes affects short-term bond yields much more directly than longer-term yields (see Exhibit 1). We argued…
- Categories Fixed Income
- Tags long duration bonds, monetary tightening, rising rates, yield curve
- Categories
- Fixed Income
Evolution of the Green Bond Market
Over the recent weeks, there has been much debate about the notable increase of issuance in the fledgling green bond market. Indeed, green bond issuance ramped up significantly in 2016, and the accelerated pace is expected to continue this year. Total issuance of bonds labeled as green in 2016 amounted to USD 92.9 billion, nearly…
- Categories ESG
- Tags ESG, green bonds, S&P Green Bond Index, S&P Green Bond Select Index, sustainability
- Categories
- ESG