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.
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Mr. Mayberry joined DoubleLine in 2009. He is a Portfolio Manager on DoubleLine’s strategic commodity strategy while working in portfolio management and trading for derivatives‐based and multi‐asset strategies. Mr. Mayberry is a Strategist on the Fixed Income Asset Allocation Committee and a contributing member on our Global Asset Allocation and Macro committees. He also co-hosts DoubleLine’s weekly Monday Morning Minutes (Twitter @DLineMinutes, Minutes@Doubleline.com) podcast. Prior to DoubleLine, Mr. Mayberry was a Senior Vice President at TCW for nine years within the Mortgage Group, where he specialized in portfolio and fund monitoring and analytics. He holds a B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College and an M.S. in Financial Engineering from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.
Mr. Kimbrough joined DoubleLine in 2012, where he worked primarily on Agency Mortgage Backed Securities and the Fixed Income Asset Allocation process as a member of the Risk Analyst team. He transitioned to his current role in 2019 where he serves as an Analyst on the Macro Asset Allocation team. Prior to DoubleLine, Mr. Kimbrough was at Western Asset Management working on systems monitoring and development within the Risk Department. He holds a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Real Estate Finance and a minor in Economics from the University of Southern California. Mr. Kimbrough is a CFA® charterholder.
