The Eurosystem started its QE in March 2015.

As we approach year-end, markets can count on two pieces of news to propel some optimism. The first comes from the US, where the Biden victory, without a real Blue Wave, is seen by markets as the best possible outcome.

Marked by the most severe recession in modern history, 2020 was an unprecedented year. With the global pandemic continuing, we enter 2021 with a mildly positive outlook for the upcoming recovery, but with the assumption that the path to pre-crisis growth levels will be long and uncertain. Against this backdrop, investors should be ready to play rotations in their portfolios, favouring cyclical themes but also keeping a strong focus on quality.

With its triple impact on education, income and health, the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated existing inequalities, both among and within countries. An additional 71 million people, concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, could be pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the factor investing space in corporate bonds before and during the COVID-19 crisis and is the natural extension of our prior analysis on both the new alternative credit factors and the ESG integration in credit.

There are many pitfalls looming. Some concern China, the United States and Europe, while others are more targeted, notably on China or on the relationship between China and the United States. Some traps concern geopolitics (the Thucydides trap, the Kindleberger trap, the Herodotus trap, the Tacitus trap, the Chamberlain - Daladier trap and the cold war trap), while others deal with  purely economic issues (the middle-income trap, the inflation trap, the stagflation trap and the debt trap).