Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and medicine.
Abbott Laboratories is making quiet progress in cardiac care, announcing the first commercial use of its Volt pulsed field ablation system in Canada, deployed at Montreal's McGill University Health Centre to treat atrial fibrillation patients. The technology represents a newer, more precise approach to ablation therapy, and early clinical adoption in a major academic center signals growing physician confidence in the platform, a meaningful step for Abbott's electrophysiology pipeline.
Shifting to fixed income, Morgan Stanley's five-star portfolio managers are making the case that distressed debt and frontier local-market investing are the sharpest tools available for long-term bond returns right now. In an environment where conventional rate plays have disappointed, that thesis leans heavily on credit selection and emerging-market exposure, a higher-risk posture that has nonetheless delivered for their fund.
And from the strategist community, Vincent Deluard at StoneX is calling British equities the most hated, under-owned asset class in the market today, pairing a long position in UK stocks with a short on the euro against the Japanese yen. The trade is a macro overlay as much as an equity call, betting on sterling resilience and continued yen strength as European growth assumptions soften.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
