More Turbulence Post “Liberation” or “Obliteration” Day (E210)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel April 11, 2025, look into the extraordinary intra-week turbulence (0:48) behind a moderate weekly gain in the S&P 500, an almost no-place-to-hide week for bonds (4:41) and commodities (9:57) showing weakening demand in industrial inputs as WTI crude pierced intraweek below $56/barrel.

 

Overwhelmed by tariff-driven sentiment in the wake of Liberation or Obliteration Day, the markets paid little attention to the week’s backward-looking macro prints (11:24), including constructive March reports for the consumer and producer price indexes. For their review of the week’s Fed Speak (20:23), Jeff and Ryan single out comments on Thursday by Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee. In a fireside chat hosted by the Economic Club of New York, Goolsbee said tariffs risk “a stagflationary shock.” This complicates the Fed’s achievement of both its full employment and price stability mandates. “There’s not a generic playbook,” Goolsbee said, “for how a central bank should respond to a stagflationary shock.”

 

The abbreviated April 14-17 market week (22:44) appears to be relatively quiet in terms of scheduled macro news. Jeff and Ryan will be on the lookout for import prices (Tuesday) and retail sales and industrial production (Wednesday).