And yet, contrary to expectations, both investment grade and junk bond spreads blew out in the past few months, catalyzed by the spike in real yields, the February VIX/vol ETN fiasco, the surge in $ Libor and the recent escalation in the US Chinese trade war...

... which in turn has sent the HY/IG ratio tumbling, as junk has sharply outperformed IG.

This led Citi's Hans Lorenzen to conclude the "2018 is not going to plan", prompting him to ask what's going on: "a succession of unhappy coincidences or something deeper?"