On this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan and Corey welcome Martin "Marty" Fridson back to the show. Marty is an author and expert in the field of high-yield bond investing. He is also a senior analyst at Porter & Co.'s Distressed Investing newsletter.
Marty kicks off the show by discussing the top-down view of the high-yield market. He comments that right now, there is a very small risk premium. Marty breaks down the factors that he uses in his model of fair value and concludes that the high-yield market is extremely overvalued. At the same time, the market is forecasting a higher default rate than credit- ratings agency Moody's. Marty also gives his opinion on whether we'll see a recession, what it means that the inverted yield curve has not yet resulted in a recession, and why he's less critical of the Federal Reserve than other investors. (1:39)
Next, Marty explains that the current situation of the federal-funds rate and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield moving in opposite directions is not rare. He says it happens 40% of the time. This segues to a discussion about what's happening with the junk-bond market... including companies potentially having to roll over their debt to higher rates... and private credit lenders now competing with high-yield bond buyers. Marty then names which sectors present attractive buying opportunities today. (18:03)
Finally, Marty goes further in depth about his quantitative model and what data it draws upon to find attractively priced distressed debt. He then explains that because high-yield bonds aren't very liquid, exchange-traded funds centered around these investments tend to have a lot of variance in performance. This can have serious consequences in times of extreme market disruption. (34:12)
