DoubleLine Minutes

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel recap a heck of a week in markets (Oct. 26-30), as concerns over earnings and AI buildout contributed to stock dispersion, fixed income assets turned green across the board (4:51) and commodities had a pretty volatile run (6:43). In Macro Land (13:24), the big event of the week was the penultimate FOMC meeting of the year, where rates were held steady and the Fed chairman waxed poetic about the agency’s brief. The rich week in economic data also provided prints on sticky PCE inflation (19:10) and a robust advance Q3 GDP estimate (24:23). Ne...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough discuss the market week ended Oct. 23, including what could end up being a mini-run for tech stocks and a bond market acting as a safe haven (3:42), with commodities (6:38) rounding out what was a volatile week across asset classes that ended relatively flat all around. It was a light week in Macro Land leading into next week’s FOMC meeting, including some unsurprising labor numbers (9:20) and another firm S&P Global U.S. PMI report (10:10) in which inflation is a noticeable issue. Aside from Fed Day, which the market does not ex...

Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel survey improved stock breadth even as tech led the S&P 500 lower (1:06) the week ended Oct. 16. Bonds (5:11) enjoyed bull-flattening as short squeezes took hold despite hotter-than-expected inflation. While Bloomberg Commodities Index gained, Eric calls the move a “one-trick pony” in the form of headline-juiced energy prices. Macro news (11:15) was dominated by September core CPI and PPI reports which registered broad, hotter-than-expected inflation, outside factors attributable to the energy complex; retail sales came in more mixed.

Even without tech to liven up the party, stocks staged a broad rally on the S&P 500 (0:42) for the week ended Oct. 9, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough observe. After four weeks of rising yields, bonds (3:01) at last caught a bid. Commodities ended higher (4:55), led by energy on the Middle East conflict. Eric advises being on the lookout for distillate supply interruptions in the wake of Hurricane Isaias’ imminent forecast landfall on the Gulf Coast.

For the week’s macro news (10:14), ISM services for September arrived in line with expansionary expectations, with an in...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review the month of September in markets and the week’s macro news. The S&P 500 (1:01) gave ground in September across all sectors except for gains in tech and a flat communications services sector. Fixed income (4:57) fell to rising rates across the curve with bank loans, thanks to their floating-rate mechanism, the lone holdout. Jeff and Ryan also take note of spread-widening in riskier corporate credit, with higher rates possibly jeopardizing refinancing prospects for some companies. Commodities (9:58) rose, led by energy, amid some of the closest correlation in ye...

Hot purchasing manager reports raising growth and inflation expectations the week ended Sept. 25 explain, per DoubleLine’s Eric Dhall and Mark Kimbrough, a narrow tech-driven gain in the S&P 500 (1:04) and higher yields along the U.S. Treasury curve (4:27). Commodities (9:33) eased, led by lower energy prices on Midde East conflict hopes.

The week’s macro prints (13:31) were led by strong S&P purchasing manager readings in the manufacturing and especially services sectors, bringing in tow higher wage pressures and prices-paid inputs. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey found that durable-goods buying conditions improved on the p...

DoubleLine Analyst Mark Kimbrough and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel recap the market week ended Sept. 18, including the modest extension of a downturn in stocks. Fixed income was basically flat on the week, according to the Agg, and rates experienced a bear flattener (3:11). Commodities were also flattish but still way up year-to-date (6:26). The big macro news of the week was Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, which brought the first rate hike since 2023 (10:28). Messrs. Kimbrough and Kimmel note that while the markets were prepared for the hike, what was surprising was the extent of hawkish support for the move and possible fu...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough review a holiday-shortened week (Sept. 8-11) that delivered a mixed bag for markets: S&P 500 stocks were mostly down but not by much (00:53); bonds had an exciting week as the U.S. Treasury Department’s buyback exceeded its initially discussed goal of $4 billion (3:05); and commodities climbed on higher energy prices, including record diesel prices at the pump (6:09). Over in Macro Land, the main attraction was Inflation Week (7:34). Messrs. Mayberry and Kimbrough break down new prints for the Producer Price Index (8:55) and Consumer Price Index (11:02), which contained no surprises but boosted th...

Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel on Sept. 4 survey a week ended with a flat S&P 500 (0.42) and, despite a slight rise in yields, a flat return on the Bloomberg Aggregate (3:02). Energy prices rose (6:10) on persistent hostilities in the Middle East. Their macro wrap-up (7:51) includes Friday’s report of stronger-than-expected payroll growth in August. “The market doesn’t seem to care about the labor market. By any stretch of the imagination, we’re at full employment,” Jeff Mayberry notes. “It’s not the jobs number or the unemployment rate that people worry about. It’s inflation.” The...

Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh burnished his tainted inflation-fighting reputation at Jackson Hole, Friday, ending an Aug. 24-28 week, note DoubleLine’s Jeff Mayberry and Mark Kimbrough, characterized by a positive S&P 500 (0:59) but with most sectors in the red. On the back of Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech, they note the yield curve flattened (3:29) and fed funds futures repriced the odds of a rate hike on Sept. 16 to 60% from 35%.

Among the week’s macro prints (9:10), Mark Kimbrough notes Personal Income in July rose 0.4%. “0.4% is usually the bogey I’m looking for on a monthly basis; that annualizes to 4.9%. I...

After surveying a softening S&P 500 on weaker tech (0:26) for the week ended Aug. 21, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough scrutinize bond pricing (1:53) that appeared less than impressed with Treasury Secretary Scott Besssent’s interventionism. Treasury’s limited buying at the long end, Eric Dhall remarks, stirred up volatility at that long end of the curve; nonetheless, term premia on government debt ended the week higher from shorter to longer tenors. That market verdict, coinciding with the national debt topping $40 trillion, he notes, left some investors spooked. Commodities (4:57) rose, led by energy, while gold and bitcoin rall...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel Aug. 14 review improving stock-market breadth (0: 43) underneath a flat S&P 500. Higher risk premia priced into the long end of the Treasury curve (4:06) amid concerning acceleration of the U.S. deficit (6:47) and benign news on the inflation front (9:52). They also observe YTD returns making the case for diversification benefit of commodities (8:30). In the absence of fist-tier economic data for Aug. 17-21, Jeff and Ryan expect a week of August doldrums, barring an outbreak from never-absent headline risk.

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel survey markets Aug. 7, noting an earnings-driven rally in equities (0:44) apart from energy, real estate and consumer staples. Positive returns posted across investment and below-investment grade fixed income (3:31) on easing rate worries. Currency markets (6:41) witnessed coordinated U.S.-Japan intervention to stave off yen weakness. The action was aided by a weak dollar. On the macro front (9:21), softer-than-expected July payrolls led the week’s news. Ryan also took note of a flagging labor participation rate. Looking ahead to Aug. 10-14, Eric and Ryan will be focused on the July CP...

Beneath a slight gain for July 27-31 in broad indexes (00:37), stock market leadership continues to churn, note DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel. In fixed income (6:58), a bearish steepener took hold as markets perceived Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh striking a dovish stance. Fed funds futures adjusted to price in a two-thirds probability of a fed fund rate hike at the Sept. 16 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Warsh’s July 27 news conference (15:48) became the main event for the week’s market news. “He was channeling his inner Alan Greenspan, rest in peace, because he was sa...

For the week ended July 24, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough see a lot of red on the ticker tape (00:20), with the S&P 500 down on the week amid the AI skepticism that the market is kind of dishing out right now. It was also a red week for fixed income (3:20) as the U.S. interest rate curve sold off, but commodities (4:48) benefited from a potential second energy shock.

While it was a light week in Macro Land, Eric and Mark discuss the 186,000 jobless claims (8:17), the lowest print since 1969, and positive-territory manufacturing and service...

For the week ended July 17, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel delve into rotating stock leadership amid a route in chipmakers (0:45), a clip-the-coupon bond world (4:47) and stronger commodities (5:55) as war drums spiked energy prices. Notwithstanding losses in erstwhile tech leadership, Ryan Kimmel sees positive signals for the U.S. economy in the form of broadening gains in equities, stellar bank earnings and robust corporate lending. Copper, an economic bellwether, while weak on the week, still is holding up for the month.

Topping the week’s macro news (10:23) was outright month-over-month deflation in...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough review the second quarter with stocks (1:44) led by a 43%+ gain in tech, high-grade bonds (6:07) grinding out the carry despite selling in the belly of the yield curve and commodities (9:53) giving back part of their still-healthy YTD gains. The U.S. dollar (12:28), Eric notes, was very resilient on the Federal Reserve’s commitment to defeat inflation.

In a tour of the last two weeks’ macro news (13:25), Mark finds a mostly stable labor market based on his readings of the June U-3 unemployment report, the latest JOLTS report and the upda...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review the market week ended June 26. Trading was marked by new leadership from neglected stock sectors (00:22), significant Treasury curve flattening (5:02) on a more hawkish than expected Kevin Warsh and weak commodities (6:41) as the dollar joined the long bond in cheering the new presumed hawk at the Fed.

Appraising the previous week’s FOMC meeting (9:21) and Warsh’s first news conference as Fed chair, Jeff observes the futures market upped its fed funds expectations to 1½ rate hikes in the remainder of 2026. “With less emphasis on forwa...

DoubleLine’s Eric Dhall and Ryan Kimmel run down the June 8-12 market week, which marked the arrival of the historic SpaceX IPO – an impressive debut for a company with no profits, as Mr. Dhall notes. Aside from the SpaceX splash, the broader equities market was up a little with quite a bit of dispersion in performance. Fixed income (3:37) was positive across the board, with a rally in rates catalyzed by talk of a potential ceasefire. Commodities (5:22) were down for the week, led by energy, but the spike for Dr. Copper could be a positive sign.

On the...

DoubleLine’s Jeff Mayberry and Mark Kimbrough survey a June 1-5 market week ending with a selloff in stocks (1:28) led lower by the high-flying tech, consumer discretionary and communications services sectors; higher, flattening bond yields (4:14); and weaker commodities (6:18) with the exception of energy. The risk retreat came on Friday’s strong payrolls report for May, which topped the week’s macro news (7:52) that also included a resilient ISM manufacturing report and an April JOLTS report showing a persistently low-hire, low-fire labor market.

Payrolls strength disappointed the doves. Fed funds futures (15:30) now price a hike in the rate by the...

On the last trading day of May, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review a month that saw a few tech giants (0:41) drive the S&P 500 to new highs while bond yields eased (5:56) albeit to still elevated levels versus the start of the month. Commodities (10:53) declined, led by energy. These moves came amid a ping pong of headlines fueling both hopes for a détente in the Persian Gulf and fears over the precarity of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. “The U.S. is negotiating with some more moderate people in...

“I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

– Democratic Election Strategist James Carville, 1993

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey a “neck-snapping” week ended May 15 that saw stocks (0:32) sell off Friday after the S&P 500 marked an all-time high on Thursday. The party crasher came from the fixed income market (3:27). Inflation-focused bond vigilantes sent Treasury yields higher by 20 basis points or more fro...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel on May 8 review a stock market (0:39) dominated over the month by a handful of tech giants, a fixed income market (3:32) earning its carry while Treasuries danced to oil’s war tune. Commodities ended the month mixed with energy lower amid gains for industrial and precious metals.

The week’s macro news (7:41) was led by stronger-than-expected nonfarm payrolls in April, with Ryan noting improving breadth in terms of sectors adding vs. detracting jobs as well as more jobs in the cyclically sensitive sectors. On the inflation fron...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey April market returns, with stocks (0:32) rebounding strongly from wartime losses in the prior month, and IG fixed income (2:55) managing a positive carry in the face of rising yields. Emerging markets debt led risky credit with a 2.7% return. Commodities (3:58) moved higher, led by energy. The week ended May 1 was packed with macro news (6:35), with strong readings in capital goods spending driven by tax-code changes incentivizing business investment and AI investment, and strong but decelerating personal incomes.

The April 29 FOMC meeting (8:05), Jerome Powell’s last as Fed chair while he...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel on April 24 review a market week with U.S. stocks nearing all-time highs (0:56), led by rampaging tech, in the teeth of Washington and Tehran’s “double embargo” of the Persian Gulf. Semiconductor hunger (2:58) fed historic rallies in chipmakers and in the South Korean and Japanese stock markets. Fixed income (4:18) staged no big moves, with investment grade sectors slightly lower amid steepening in the belly of the yield curve. Commodities (6:18) moved higher, led by energy, alongside a stronger dollar and weaker gold. Ryan explains the interesting month-long correlation betwee...

Risk assets rallied the week ended April 17, sending stocks (0:43) to all-time highs on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, while fixed income (4:49) rallied across sectors, led by emerging markets, and across the yield curve. DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel welcome the market driver: signs belligerents in the U.S.-Iran war might de-escalate and re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Eric and Ryan, however, take a wait-and-see stance amid uncertainties on a hope-for road from ceasefire to lasting peace.

Within the rally in rates, Eric notes most of the gains occurred within...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough analyze two weeks ended April 10 of markets convulsed by the fog of war, then unleashed by a no-less nebulous ceasefire. Macro news similarly was dwarfed by events in and around the Persian Gulf.

“This is not an easy market to see through,” Eric comments. “There’s a lot of fog of war, impeding investors’ ability to discern the fair price of securities right now.” As Exhibit #1, Eric cites the dramatic dispersions in stocks (2:18). For example, he points out the selloff in the SP 500 in the wake of the outbreak of...

With the S&P 500 nearing a 10% drawdown from its Jan. 27 closing high, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel survey the week ended March 27. They start with a stock market with multiple stock sectors (0:30) in the red, energy the only positive sector for the week and month-to-date. Fixed income (3:43) was flat on the Bloomberg Aggregate investment-grade benchmark, albeit with rates higher in the belly of the Treasury curve. Commodities (6:14) as tracked by the BCOM were flat, with the energy sector actually down while agricultural products and industrial metals ended the week in the green.<...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey weakness across equity, fixed income and commodities for the week ended March 20 amid light macro reports, an uncertain Fed and war in the Middle East. For the week’s macro news, Jeff says surging energy costs and concerns over the Persian Gulf wiped out earlier expectations for federal funds rate cuts this year. Mark notes “everything across the board” in the February PPI report “exceeded expectations.” With a light economic calendar for March 23-27, Mark is more interested in the March data coming through in two weeks, showing “the effects of a...

At the end of a March 9-13 week whipsawed by the fog of war, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel survey down but not (yet) correcting stocks, higher yields across the curve led by the front end on inflation jitters and energy surging amid rumor-fed price swings. In forex markets, they survey the dollar’s wartime dominance and the yen crushed on Japan and its neighbors’ vulnerability to the interruption liquified natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Eric and Ryan cover the week’s macro prints, including the February CPI an...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough cover a March 2-6 market week rocked by the Feb. 28 outbreak of war in the Middle East, related energy-supply shocks, private credit losses and labor weakness in February. Equities (0:31) sold off across the board with energy the only positive sector for the week with a mere 1% gain. Fixed income (2:52) saw Treasury yields rise across the curve with the exception of a rally in the 3-month T-bill. Bank loans (4:32) were a lone positive note in the spread sectors. Commodity indexes (6:04) surged higher, led by a 25% gain in the energy complex with...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Fixed Income Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review February performance during the final market week of the month ended Feb. 27. The S&P 500 finished the month down only 1% despite all the negative headlines and volatility. While tech and financials struggled, equities experienced wide dispersion, with the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index marking its biggest outperformance versus its market-weighted sibling since the GFC era. Also of note, a Cetrini paper on a dark AI future for the economy stoked tech sector concerns. Over in fixed income (6:21), the Agg turned in a nice month while a...

DoubleLine Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel and Analyst Mark Kimbrough note a rotation (0:05) in favor of communications services and financials as well as industrials in the stock market for the week ended Feb. 20. The previous week’s winners – Old Economy sectors: utilities, materials, consumer staples and real estate – were down this week. In fixed income (4:09), investment grade sectors faced the headwind of a slight rise in yields across the Treasury curve while high yield and bank loans had positive returns. The long bond led yield-curve steepening Friday on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Presiden...

Under the hood of broad stock indexes (00:19) for the week ended Feb. 13, Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel and Analyst Mark Kimbrough see ongoing rotation from knowledge-economy sectors such as financials, communication services and tech as well as consumer discretionary into old-economy sectors such as utilities, materials, real estate, consumer staples and energy. These money flows largely continued the stock-market leadership of the prior week. Ryan and Mark also note a change of the guard, year-to-date, in investment styles with equal-weighted large caps outperforming market-weighted large caps and value outperforming growth. In fixed income (4:06), bull curve-flattening lifted the Bloomberg...

For the week ended Feb. 6, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey big industry and investment-style dispersions in the stock market (0:43), including winners and losers within tech; more underlying volatility in bonds than meets the eye (5:26); and commodities roiled by volatility as well as dispersion (8:31). They also take note of a massive ongoing decoupling of gold and the “purported digital gold,” bitcoin, that Eric says is putting both mid-tier bitcoin miners and crypto believers to the test.

On the macro front (12:41), the brief government shutdown delayed the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ January payroll and unempl...

DoubleLine Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel and Analyst Mark Kimbrough review changing industry leadership in the stock market (0:18) for the week ended Jan. 30. The Bloomberg Aggregate squeaked through with gains (3:39) despite higher rates while risky fixed income sectors turned negative. Commodities (6:50) moved higher, driven almost entirely by energy. The forex markets (9:30) witnessed coordinated intervention by the U.S. and Japan to stave off more yen weakness. The week’s macro news (10:58) was dominated by the Federal Open Market Committee, which Wednesday stayed on hold, followed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference, and President Trump’s nomina...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Fixed Income Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review the week ended Jan. 23. They survey a mixed bag for stocks (0:31), with the S&P 500 lower on tech and energy and materials the winners; fixed income (2:06) slightly negative on spillover effects from the selloff in Japanese government bonds and rates up across the Treasury curve; and commodities (3:40) surging higher on energy and precious metals. The macro front (5:43) brought the shutdown-delayed release of benign readings, to be taken “with a big grain of salt,” on the PCE Deflator for October and November; and a weakening in personal inco...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey the market week ended Jan. 16. They observe dispersion among stock-market sectors (0:50), with Real Estate climbing on President Trump pressuring the Government Sponsored Enterprises to buy more mortgage securities in an effort to lower mortgage rates. A mixed bag also prevailed in fixed income (5:00), with Treasury yields in the belly of the curve moving out 5-6 basis points while non-traditional credit sectors still provided positive returns. Commodities (6:52) tacked on gains as crude oil responded to risks of U.S. military strikes and Iranian threats of retaliation. Interestingly, both the dollar (8:46...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Fixed Income Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review a positive 2025 for stocks, bonds and commodities (1:22), with outperformance in European and emerging market equities. After scanning the first YTD returns for the New Year (5:46), they dive into a data-heavy macro week (9:02) ended Jan. 9. Topping the week’s prints are mixed December labor readings and trade-deficit narrowing that sufficed to raise the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow annualized estimate for 4Q2025 to 5.4% from 2.9%. A review of fed fund futures pricing (17:06) indicates a Fed standing pat until odds for a rate cut reach to a coin flip on Apri...

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Fixed Income Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review markets for the week ended Dec. 19 and close a year that saw gains across equities and fixed income as well as stellar precious metals. Stocks (0:52) registered a meager return for the week but gained nearly 18% YTD. In fixed income (3:11), Treasury yields fell across the curve on the week. The Bloomberg Aggregate has returned more than 7% YTD. Broad commodities (4:32) are up almost 15% for the year and flattish for the week. Silver and gold continued to surge to new all-time highs and platinum to its highest level since 2008.<...