After surveying a softening S&P 500 on weaker tech (0:26) for the week ended Aug. 21, DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Eric Dhall and Analyst Mark Kimbrough scrutinize bond pricing (1:53) that appeared less than impressed with Treasury Secretary Scott Besssent’s interventionism. Treasury’s limited buying at the long end, Eric Dhall remarks, stirred up volatility at that long end of the curve; nonetheless, term premia on government debt ended the week higher from shorter to longer tenors. That market verdict, coinciding with the national debt topping $40 trillion, he notes, left some investors spooked. Commodities (4:57) rose, led by energy, while gold and bitcoin rallied and the dollar weakened, moves which Eric attributes to the federal debt news and the worrisome Treasury intervention.
Scrutinizing the week’s macro tea leaves (7:36), Mark Kimbrough sifts out an unusually strong “select-tech” contribution to industrial production, a positive but still-to-be-confirmed gain in services and manufacturing hiring, and signs in the FOMC minutes that members are continuing to “sit on their hands” with respect to the federal funds target rate. For Aug. 24-28, Eric and Mark will be especially on the lookout for PCE and personal income prints on Wednesday and whether Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh serves up something concrete or “gibberish” at his Jackson Hole speech scheduled 10 am ET Friday.
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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. Kimbrough joined DoubleLine in 2012, working primarily on Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities and the Fixed Income Asset Allocation process as a member of the Risk Analyst team. He transitioned in 2019 to his current role as an Analyst on the Macro Asset Allocation team. Mr. Kimbrough also co-hosts DoubleLine’s weekly “Minutes” podcast (X @DLineMinutes, Minutes@Doubleline.com). Prior to DoubleLine, Mr. Kimbrough was at WAMCO, working on systems monitoring and development within the Risk Department. He holds a B.S. 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.
