Dan Ivascyn Is Excited About a New Era in Fixed Income

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

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Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

Tracy, you know, we've been doing this podcast for 10 years.

Tracy Alloway (0:28)

I am aware, yes.

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

As you know.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

A whole decade.

Joe Weisenthal (0:30)

And we've been doing episodes, talking about big picture things and things that have changed and what's different now in 2025 versus 2015 when we started. And some things are the same, some things are different, et cetera. But I think, and we've mentioned this before, I think the one thing that could not be more different is the rates environment. We were right in the middle of like the ZERP decade or the ZERP era or maybe in 2015 Maybe at that point, the Fed had tried to hike one time already and then the market sort of slapped it down and said, oh, no, no, no, no, we're not ready for more rate hikes, et cetera. The rate environment could not be more different than when we first started this podcast.

Tracy Alloway (1:06)

Absolutely. Can I say one thing about the anniversary?

Joe Weisenthal (1:09)

Yeah.

Tracy Alloway (1:10)

So we started the podcast in November 2015

Joe Weisenthal (1:13)

Yeah.

Tracy Alloway (1:14)

We were going to celebrate for the month of November, but we're now in December. So are we going to make this a two month celebration?

Joe Weisenthal (1:20)

Well, you know, we're having our 10 year anniversary party in December. So I think it's allowed. We'll just keep going. It's allowed to bleed the 10 years into both months, given that we're formally celebrating in December. I think this is how I'm rationalizing this framing for this conversation. Since yes, we're technically no longer an anniversary month.

Tracy Alloway (1:42)

I guess it's our party and we can celebrate as long as we want to.

Joe Weisenthal (1:45)

However we want.

Tracy Alloway (1:46)

But you're absolutely right about the rates environment. And you could see that if you go back and look at some of the old episodes. The other thing that strikes me looking back at the old podcast episodes is how many of them were about shadow banking, which of course nowadays we call private credit. And that's another thing that's changed enormously. So the private credit market now basically rivals the public credit market in terms of size. And there's obviously a lot of concern about what that means, the outlook. So lots of differences.

Joe Weisenthal (2:15)

Lots of differences. Yeah, completely dramatic. And setting aside the big picture questions, there are also some small picture questions, is maybe how you put it.

Tracy Alloway (2:23)

Immediate questions.

Joe Weisenthal (2:24)

At the time we were recording this, it looks like the December meeting is basically a lock, that there's going to be a cut. But up until recently, there was a lot of market uncertainty.

Tracy Alloway (2:33)

If we recorded this two weeks ago, it would have looked very different.

Joe Weisenthal (2:35)

It would have looked very different. And what happens after December, highly uncertain, on many dimensions, the follow through for the rate cutting cycle, there have been increases in various credit concerns of various source. We've had a few small blow ups, but nothing that big, but like what Jamie Dimon called the cockroaches. We mentioned it on the show that suddenly people are talking about credit default swaps on certain high tech companies, which is very unusual. But there's-

Tracy Alloway (3:03)

That's that Star Wars meme. I haven't heard that word in a long time.

Joe Weisenthal (3:06)

That's right. But with the AI build out and how much that's getting financed by various forms of credit, suddenly people are talking about the fact that big tech companies are credits, which we don't really think about very much. There are some big picture things, but also some things happening right here and right now that warrant further understanding and further explanation from the people who really understand them.

Tracy Alloway (3:27)

Absolutely.

Joe Weisenthal (3:28)

Well, I'm very excited to say we really do have the perfect guest, someone who we've had on the show before, but someone we love speaking to. We are going to be speaking with Dan Ivascyn. He is the CIO over at Pimco, which of course everybody should know about. Dan, thank you so much for coming back on the Odd Lots podcast.

Dan Ivascyn (3:45)

Thanks for having me and congratulations on the big 10-year anniversary. It's an honor to be invited back during this series of podcasts. Thank you so much.