For the week ended July 17, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Macro Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel delve into rotating stock leadership amid a route in chipmakers (0:45), a clip-the-coupon bond world (4:47) and stronger commodities (5:55) as war drums spiked energy prices. Notwithstanding losses in erstwhile tech leadership, Ryan Kimmel sees positive signals for the U.S. economy in the form of broadening gains in equities, stellar bank earnings and robust corporate lending. Copper, an economic bellwether, while weak on the week, still is holding up for the month.
Topping the week’s macro news (10:23) was outright month-over-month deflation in the June headline CPI and even 2 basis points of deflation in Core CPI. “Generally speaking, it was a positive for the Fed and abated inflation fears from the prior months,” Ryan notes. “Heading into this print, the market was expecting almost a 50% probability of a July 29 rate hike. Following the report, we saw that number drop to 10%.”
Fed funds futures are still pricing in a single 25-basis point rate hike by year end. “In my opinion, that’s hedging,” Eric Dhall opines. “It’s tough to see the Fed hiking based on the last CPI, but you just don’t know. If WTI prices were driven again to the $100 level, hawks could be emboldened, but Chairman Warsh might throw cold water on that. I don’t think he thinks raising rates in an energy-shock inflation cycle makes sense.”
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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. 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.
