Financial Planning’s Money Management Executive unveiled its list of the Top 10 Fund Managers To Watch for 2019, including Voya Investment Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Toms. According to the article, Toms “leads a team of over 100 investment professionals” and brings extensive experience “overseeing the investment teams responsible for investment grade corporate debt, high-yield corporate debt, structured products, mortgage-backed securities, emerging markets debt and money market strategies for the firm’s general account and third-party business.” Toms offered his insights into the changing nature of the fund management industry, specifically how technology is changing operations. “Technology has disrupted our relationship with waiting. A long-term investment mindset used to mean you thought beyond the quarter. Now [it] seems to mean you think beyond next Tuesday,” Toms said.
Bloomberg News reports, “U.S. corporate debt rated BB...is now looking overpriced by at least one measure as investors pour money into higher yielding debt.” Voya Investment Management’s senior high-yield portfolio manager Randall Parrish said, “Given the strong performance of BBs to start the year and the low yield they offer, and given that BBBs are relatively wide versus A rated, we believe the BBB-BB spread is too tight and prefer BBBs.”
In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Voya Investment Management’s head of asset allocation Barbara Reinhard said that while a tentative deal to avert another U.S. government shutdown is “certainly a relief to the market,” it’s “not the only worry that the market has.” With regard to ongoing U.S.-China trade talks, Reinhard said the Trump Administration “certainly has seen the effects of a potential raising of tariffs on China. It would be far less benign than they probably thought it would have been maybe a year ago and...this is likely to be an issue the markets are going to have to contend with not this year, not next year, but probably for the next decade.”
Bloomberg News reports that a number of forecasters do not expect the current investment-grade credit rally to last through 2019. Voya Investment Management Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income Matt Toms “forecasts a gradual widening in the second half with OAS drifting toward 150 basis points by year end.” Toms “says the market is trying to find its proper level to account for geopolitical and economic risk.” In the event of a continued rally, he said, “We would begin to look at the market as being a little bit tighter than it needs to be and we would look to reduce exposure.”
In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, CIO of Fixed Income at Voya Investment Management Matt Toms discussed the Federal Reserve’s dovish shift. With the Fed on hold, Toms said investor focus will turn to corporate earnings, which he estimated would be “at about a 5 percent earnings rate.” He added that there have been no signs that consumer confidence has “degraded into the political uncertainty and global trade uncertainty.”
Voya Investment Management’s head of asset allocation Barbara Reinhard appeared on Bloomberg Marketswhere she discussed the market implications of the Brexit negotiations. According to Reinhard, the rejection of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal by the British Parliament “would likely mean that you’re going to be extending the deadline for Article 50 to be invoked, that means more uncertainty, more uncertainty means slower growth, slower growth means the Bank of England is probably on hold.”
Pensions & Investments reports Voya Investment Management CEO Christine Hurtsellers said she’s not fazed by the growth in assets under management among the world’s largest money managers through passive investing and exchange-traded funds. Instead, she said, she’s excited about the company’s growth efforts using its insurance asset management expertise – its liability awareness, its ability to customize, and its ability to offer asset classes that are hard to replicate in public markets. Hurtsellers said, “There really are only a few ways to get revenue growth: adding assets to where your marginal expenses are below the price that you’re onboarding the assets, cutting expenses or developing products that are more profitable than our existing block of business.” Some of Voya’s efficiency comes from recently streamlining its product offerings. According to Hurtsellers, Voya has also used technological advances to deliver cost efficiencies.
