Ken Shinoda: Are You Long Tech Twice? | Bloomberg TV

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Ken Shinoda joins Bloomberg’s The Close to break down the Federal Reserve’s unanimous decision to hike. Mr. Shinoda notes markets had already priced in a hike with better than 90% confidence, so the real story is how quickly the bond market gave back its initial rally. He points out that a good chunk of the tightening work is really being done by the two-year U.S. Treasury rather than the Fed, and with the markets implying up to three additional hikes into 2027, he continues to favor the front end of the Treasury curve. On the long end, Mr. Shinoda thinks 5% on the 10-year might be the middle of a new higher trading range rather than a ceiling, pointing to hyperscaler capital expenditures and conflict in the Middle East as reasons inflation could stay elevated for longer.

On positioning, he says the boring trade keeps winning: shorter-duration, high-quality credit that clips a steady coupon without chasing duration risk further out the curve. He likes new-production Agency mortgages picking up roughly 120 basis points over Treasuries and is blunt about DoubleLine’s philosophy: “We’re just trying not to lose you money.” On the broader credit picture, growth and earnings remain solid and investment grade spreads sit near historic tights, but Mr. Shinoda flags a growing structural concern as more corporate bond issuance concentrates around tech, AI and data centers: Credit portfolios are quietly becoming just as correlated to equities as the stock portfolios investors already hold. “You’re long all this tech in your equity portfolio, do you want to be long that in your credit portfolio as well?”