DoubleLine Minutes

A Quiet Week as Markets Await August Labor Data (E229)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough review a mostly quiet week ended Aug. 29 and the month of August. On the week, equities (0:40) proved a mixed bag, with energy leading upside sectors, and utilities and tech heading lower. Tech pressured by news Chinese artificial-intelligence startup DeepSeek will rely on Chinese chip manufacturers. Common stocks also witnessed outperformance in small-cap and equal-weighted indexes. Fixed income (2:43) hosted further steepening of the Treasury yield curve. Commodities gained (4:18), led by precious metals, with the dollar ending the week flat.
 
Amid the week’s mostly benign macro news (5:15) such as a bounce-back in capital goods orders decent personal income and spending, Mark Kimbrough notes, a positive second-quarter GDP report notwithstanding, a weak 1Q-2Q growth rate for private domestic final purchases. Turning to Fed watch (11:46), Jeff Mayberry reports the futures markets on Aug. 29 are pricing in an 88% probability of a federal funds rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee meets Sept. 17 and 2.7 quarter-point cuts total in 2025. Looking ahead to macro news (12:29) in the abbreviated week of Sept. 2-5, Jeff and Mark will be especially focused on the August nonfarm payrolls and unemployment reports due on Friday.

Slow Roll Until Jackson Hole (E228)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review the market week of Aug. 18-22, which started out as a little bit of a down run for equities before being boosted by Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell’s dovish speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Friday. Chair Powell’s comments seemed to raise prospects for a Fed rate cut at the September FOMC meeting. In addition to the stock bounce, fixed income (3:20) and commodities (4:50) had positive weeks. Eric and Ryan conclude the market recap with a review of Chair Powell’s speech and the market reaction to what had been expected to be a more hawkish stance (5:40).
Over in Macro Land (10:35), topics covered include housing data; labor numbers; and strong S&P Global PMI prints, which notably contrast with ISM’s weaker prints. Next week’s releases will include durable goods data and the latest PCE number.

Aug. 11-15: Stocks Disperse, Rates Reverse (E227)

 DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough dissect a market week ended Aug. 15 marked by positive stocks, with an interesting dispersion within the asset class (0:46); bonds troubled by inflation readings (3:14); and flat commodities (4:45). The week’s macro calendar (7:38) was packed with inflation news. After a noncommittal July CPI, a hawkish July PPI prompted a selloff in rates and moderated Fed rate-cut probabilities for the remainder of 2025, with the futures market pricing in two cuts by year-end. On Friday, a 4% import-prices jump for July exceeded expectations, albeit the year-over-year change was -0.2%. Looking ahead to the week of Aug. 18-22, Eric and Mark will have on their radar (19:59), among other news, the FOMC July 30 meeting minutes (Wednesday) and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech (Friday) at the Kansas City Fed’s annual central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

A Mixed Bag for Markets and the Fed Signals a Dovish Tilt (E226)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel break down market moves of the week ended Aug. 8, 2025, following a volatile stretch driven by geopolitical headlines and shifting interest-rate expectations. They discuss a rebound in equities (00:56), a modest pullback in fixed income after last weeks’ rally (2:48), a mixed picture for commodities (4:04) and currency dynamics (7:08). Over in Macro Land (9:35), Eric and Ryan review a quiet data week, highlighting durable goods revisions, ISM services softness and jobless claim trends. They also explore the implications of a potential Federal Reserve rate cut in September and the nomination of a dovish Fed governor. Next week’s prints will include possibly impactful CPI and PPI reports (18:26).

A Week of Vol on Hawkish Powell and Weak Labor (E225)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey the stock, bond and commodity markets for the month of July (0:37) and the “week of volatility” ended Aug. 1 (3:39). The latter, they note, was driven by a week packed with macro news (7:41). That environment included a more hawkish-than-expected Fed chairman amid rare public dissents on the FOMC on Wednesday and Friday’s overwhelmingly negative payroll and unemployment reports. Mark Kimbrough also singled out the U.S. Treasury’s quarterly funding announcement (9:16). With elevated deficits locked in under Trump’s budget legislation, Mark notes there was “a sigh of relief” in the T-bill market after the government announced “nominal-coupon and floating-rate auction sizes are expected to remain stable for the next several quarters.” Jeff Mayberry, watching fed funds rate expectations (21:33), says the futures market, on Powell’s guidance, Wednesday had priced in 1.3 quarter-point cuts by the end of 2025. Those market odds surged to 2.3 cuts on Friday’s labor reports.

Pain on Bears Amid Meme Stock Mania (E224)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeffrey Mayberry and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel recap the week ended June 25, featuring a run of daily highs for the S&P 500 Index buoyed by resurgent retail speculation, a pretty good week for bonds (3:58) and more struggles for commodities (6:00). Over in Macro Land (7:15), it was a light week of prints, including a dip in the LEI, some soft home sales data and a mixed picture for PMI manufacturing and services. Next week (14:20) will bring the FOMC meeting and the possibility for rate-cut dissent drama and potential Fed chair auditions as well as labor, inflation and GDP numbers.

Benign Markets Amid Tame Inflation, Resilient Consumers (E223)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough survey the week ended July 18, including tech-driven new highs in equities (0:46), a bond market shaped by a steepening yield curve (2:28) and gains in the broad commodity market (4:42). The week’s macro news (6:52) was led by tame reports on the consumer and producer price front. Core CPI for June posted its fifth consecutive monthly surprise to the downside versus consensus expectations. Notwithstanding a short-lived media trial balloon from the Trump administration about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the markets (16:09) are pricing in no action on the fed funds rate at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on July 30, and only two cuts in the second half of 2025.

Stocks and Copper Take the Tariffs’ Measure (E222)

For the week ended July 11, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel first sort through a pause in the stock rally (0:47), bonds (2:34) giving back a bit on higher rates and higher commodity prices (4:34) amid U.S. tariffs announced on copper. While “copper got hit with a 50% tariff in the U.S.,” Eric Dhall notes July 11 that copper prices fell on the London Metal Exchange over the week while rising 9% in the U.S. “A bit of a mismatch there depending on where you’re delivering copper.” The impact of the tariff remains an open question. “It depends on how the tariff applies. Does it apply to raw copper ore? To finished copper? It’s a complicated beast. That’s why you didn’t see the U.S. price surge more than that 9%.”
 
Ryan Kimmel (6:19) notes that stocks seem to be interpreting tariff drama as negotiating tactics rather than a serious threat to growth. Meanwhile, in the wake of passage of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” he sees “higher term premium baked into the long end” of the Treasury yield curve. Surveying macro news for the past two weeks (7:42), Eric Dhall and Ryan see more weakness in labor markets than would suggest a superficial read of headline household and establishment survey numbers, with the prospects of a diminishing labor force given an expected ramp-up of illegal immigrant deportations.
 
Turning to Fed watch (13:52), Eric and Ryan note increasing odds of a cut in the federal funds target rate at the Sept. 17 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. They ponder the prospect of an “Apprentice-style battle” among candidates to succeed Chairman Jerome Powell. All eyes during the July 14-18 week (15:20) will be on Tuesday’s release of the June CPI report, especially any indications of tariff impacts, and Wednesday’s release of the PPI.

Bulls in Control as AI Animal Spirits Alive and Well (E221)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough recap market performance for the week of June 23-27 as well as the month and second quarter, which was a pretty good run for asset holders. They review the healthy performances for stocks (00:18) and bonds (2:48), recap a rough period for commodities (4:04), check in on the safe-haven assets of gold and Bitcoin (5:02) and discuss the economic bellwether of copper and the U.S. dollar (5:42). Over in Macro Land (7:01), prints include prelim U.S. PMI numbers for June that reflect a decent expansion period; home prices in April experiencing their second month of contraction (9:31); a new Q1 GDP estimate (11:19), which prompts Eric and Mark to note the importance of waiting for the merged data for trade-flow-impacted Q1 and Q2; and PCE numbers that are moving in the Fed’s direction (17:53).
 
There will be no episode next week with Friday’s holiday, but the show will return July 11.
Have a Happy Fourth of July!

Lots of Geopolitical Vol, Little Market Vol (E220)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough recap a relatively flat market week shortened by Thursday’s Juneteenth federal holiday. In their rundown of stocks (1:00), fixed income (2:20) and commodities (4:30), Eric and Mark note there was little market volatility despite ongoing trade policy uncertainty and the Israel-Iran conflict. Gold, a safe-haven asset, was actually down on the week. Over in Macro Land (7:01), the week’s prints included retail sales, import prices and jobless claims, with the market seeming to shrug in response to each release. The big news event of the week was Wednesday’s FOMC meeting (11:38), with the Fed keeping rates steady. Eric and Mark discuss the details of the FOMC officials’ decision to sit on their hands and the prospects for cuts this year. Next week’s prints (17:19) will include PMI manufacturing and services, housing prices, consumer confidence, durable goods and inflation. This episode was recorded June 20, 2025, before market close.