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.”
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Mr. Dhall joined DoubleLine in 2013. He is a Portfolio Manager on the Macro-Asset Allocation team where he works with portfolio management performing analysis and trading for derivatives-based and multi-asset strategies. Mr. Dhall’s research and analysis has contributed to the team’s development of DoubleLine’s smart-beta suite of strategies. Prior to DoubleLine, he worked at Capital Group performing quantitative analysis in fixed income. Prior to Capital Group, Mr. Dhall was an instructor in finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a research instructor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Previous to that, he worked in International Finance at Gulf Machinery Company. Mr. Dhall holds a B.S. in Physics with a secondary emphasis in Business from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.S. in Financial Engineering from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Mr. Kimmel joined DoubleLine in 2013. He is a Strategist on the Macro Asset Allocation team and Fixed Income Asset Allocation (FIAA) and Global Asset Allocation Committees. He also co-hosts DoubleLine’s weekly Minutes (Twitter @DLineMinutes, Minutes@Doubleline.com) podcast. Prior to DoubleLine, Mr. Kimmel was a Proprietary Trader at Gelber Group, trading currencies for the Foreign Currency Group. Prior to that, he was an Investment Banking Analyst in Morgan Stanley’s Mergers and Acquisitions Group. Mr. Kimmel holds a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and holds an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.
