On the last trading day of May, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel review a month that saw a few tech giants (0:41) drive the S&P 500 to new highs while bond yields eased (5:56) albeit to still elevated levels versus the start of the month. Commodities (10:53) declined, led by energy. These moves came amid a ping pong of headlines fueling both hopes for a détente in the Persian Gulf and fears over the precarity of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. “The U.S. is negotiating with some more moderate people in Iran, but the guys with the guns don’t necessarily agree with those moderates,” Eric Dhall notes. “It’s tough to believe that this situation is going to blow over until we start seeing ships transiting through Strait of Hormuz.”
On the macro front for the week (13:27), Ryan Kimmel notes that despite softer-than-expected readings on the PCE Deflator for April, inflation still “is not moving in the right direction and remains well above the Fed’s targets.” Looking inside the personal income report for April, he notes real wages and salary growth turned negative. For the week ahead, the biggest item will be the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ payroll and unemployment reports for May.
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. His research and analysis has contributed to the team’s development of DoubleLine’s smart-beta suite of strategies. Mr. Dhall also co-hosts DoubleLine’s weekly “Minutes” podcast (X @DLineMinutes, Minutes@Doubleline.com). 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. Prior to that, he worked in International Finance at Gulf Machinery Co. 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, the Fixed Income Asset Allocation (FIAA) Committee and a contributing member on our Global Asset Allocation Committee. Mr. Kimmel also co-hosts DoubleLine’s weekly “Minutes” podcast (X @DLineMinutes, Minutes@Doubleline.com). Prior to DoubleLine, he was a Proprietary Trader at Gelber Group. Prior to that, he was an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Kimmel holds a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.
