DoubleLine Minutes

Return of the Bond Vigilantes (E262)

“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 from two-year to 30-year tenors across the curve. The Bloomberg Commodity Index (9:21) edged higher, amid wide dispersion, as energy rallied, copper was flat and precious metals were sold.
Macro news (11:21) began with a consensus-matching April CPI on Tuesday but was dominated by an April PPI on Wednesday showing broad signs of inflation. Eric Dhall suggests Friday’s fixed income vigilantism amounted to a “delayed reaction” to the week’s earlier inflation news. Eric and Mark note fed funds futures are pricing in a Fed standing pat until July 2027. The May 18-22 week will be a light one for the statistical mills, with the most notable items being an FOMC minutes release, jobs claims and S&P Global manufacturing and services reports.

Tech Dominates Stocks, Treasuries Trade on Oil (E261)

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 front, he points out a trend of higher prices paid within the ISM services report for April. Consumer prices, Ryan adds, appear to be outpacing income, as registered in May by the lowest reading on the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index since its inception in January 1978.
For the May 11-15 week, the April CPI report (due Tuesday) and PPI report (due Wednesday) will land on the top of Jeff and Ryan’s desks. They also will be on the lookout for Thursday’s jobless claims report and for retail sales, in particular, the inputs into the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

April: Rebound in Stocks, Carry in Bonds (E260)

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 stays put atop his Fed governor’s perch, was characterized by a single dovish dissent from the committee’s decision to leave rates unchanged and three hawkish dissents over the faint signal of easing bias left in its policy guidance. That behavior was enough, Mark notes, for fed funds futures to reprice from a 25% probability of a single rate cut in 2026 to just about nil “as far as the eye can see.” Looking ahead (18:39) to May 4-8, Jeff and Mark will have their eyes on unemployment and payrolls prints for April as well as JOLTS, ISM services and import-export reports.

Double Embargo? Stocks, Consumers Dance in the End Zone (E259)

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 between two-year Treasury yields and WTI prices.
Macro news (8:16) was light for the week. Eric points out that retail sales and S&P Global manufacturing signal a U.S. economy “humming along” notwithstanding the wartime shock to energy prices. With Kevin Warsh having “dodged any flak” during his Tuesday congressional testimony and the Justice Department Friday dropping its investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, “the path is pretty much clear” for Warsh’s succession to the chairmanship, Eric says. For the week ahead (15:05), with Wednesday’s FOMC likely promising a nothing burger for Powell’s last session presiding over the rate-setting body, Eric and Ryan will be on the watch for the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller house price indices, durable goods order, personal income & spending, the PCE Price Index.

Fogs Lift a Bit, Animal Spirits a Lot (E258)

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 the belly of the yield curve, with minimal easing in the long bond reflecting growing apprehension over America’s deficit and debt benders. Commodities (6:08) were lower on the week, led by energy, but beneath the broad indexes Eric points out areas of appreciation, including in precious and industrial metals as well as agricultural products.
Surveying market moves over the breadth of the U.S.-Iran conflict, Ryan highlights that U.S. rates “are still quite a bit away” from their levels “at the start of conflict.” Inflation is still running higher than Federal Reserve targets, crude oil and distillate prices remain higher than before the conflict, and “one-year inflation swaps are 50 basis point higher. I think the market is pricing in a Fed on hold.”

Drawdowns & Rallies: Seeing through a Fog Darkly (E257)

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 war on Feb. 28 and the ferocious rally after the ceasefire announcement.
Fixed income (6:56) likewise witnessed a selloff in rates, sending the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate down about 1 1/2% after the bombs started dropping, but “April to date it’s up 29 basis points,” Eric says. “These competing forces on interest rates are duking it out: the short-term inflationary impulse and the longer-term inflationary impulse from the fiscal overhang because the war costs money and potentially increases deficits.” Commodities (11:24) were no exception to the split-personality markets, surging 34% from Feb. 27 but giving up about 5% in April month-to-date.
Mark Kimbrough, while warning “economic data are being dwarfed by the impact of the headlines,” covers the macro reports (15:58) for the past two weeks. These include expected war-related spikes in energy prices and a drop in the U-3 unemployment rate to 4.3%. Mark cautions that the drop in joblessness was largely due to jobseekers dropping out the labor pool.
Surveying the release of the March 18 FOMC meeting minutes, Mark sees “more support for the Fed to sit on their hands,” notwithstanding rising hopes among traders for fed funds cuts this year.
“The fog of war is the state of ignorance in which commanders find themselves … not only of their enemies, but also of their friends.” Sir Lonsdale Augustus Hale, The Fog of War (1896)
“we now see through a glass darkly” Paul of Tarsus, I Corinthians 13:12 (circa 53-55 C.E.)

Correction Territory (E256)

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.
With the caveat that most macro reports (12:42) still have yet to catch up with reality post Iran war, Ryan looks beneath the relatively benign aggregate readings of S&P Global PMI goods and services reports for March and sees higher costs being passed along to consumers. Looking ahead to the Good Friday-abbreviated week of March 30-April 3, Eric is keen to see the March BLS payroll and unemployment reports (due Friday), “the first report that will take into account all the disruption we’ve seen” since the outbreak of Iran conflict.

Weakness Across Stocks, Bonds, Commodities (E255)

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 all the volatility we’ve been experiencing the last couple of weeks,”

Market Swings Trading amid the Fog of War (E254)

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 and January PCE Price Deflator, while cautioning against taking too much stock such rearview readings while the transience or permanence of the present energy shock remains a big unknown. Fed funds futures earlier in the week had priced in zero rate cuts for the remainder of 2026 before ending the week forecasting a single cut. Ryan fields a listener’s question on the revision-plagued nonfarm payrolls series.
Looking to the week ahead, macro prints such as the February PPI remain subject to the same potential obsolescence affecting previous releases. Topping Eric and Ryan’s radar screen will be the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and Jerome Powell news conference on Wednesday. “There’s naturally not going to be a cut,” Eric notes. “But there’s going to be a lot of parsing of the language to see the setup for the new Fed chair” after Powell’s term in that seat ends in May and Kevin Warsh presumably takes over as his Senate-confirmed successor.

Stocks Sell Off, Yields Rise, Energy Surges on War in Middle East (E253)

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 spikes in oil distillates, notably a 50% surge in diesel for delivery to Europe.
 
On the macro front (11:16), albeit reflecting activity prior to global economy-roiling events in Iran and the Persian Gulf, ISM goods and services reports were solidly expansionary for February. Import prices ex-petroleum accelerated higher in January. Nonfarm payrolls suffered significant losses in February, even after adjusting for a strike affecting healthcare workers that has since been resolved. The week ahead will include the February CPI (Wednesday) and personal income & spending and PCE for January (Friday).