During the macroeconomic segment of Round Table Prime’s 2025 edition (0:06), participants, among other issues, deliberate the future path of inflation, premature Trump administration assumptions at the Federal Reserve, the hidden but deepening distress of the U.S. consumer, the transformational unknowns of artificial intelligence and an awakening among Americans to their political class having abandoned them. Coming together for Round Table Prime are DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach and moderator DoubleLine Deputy Chief Investment Officer Jeffrey Sherman with their “returning champions” James Bianco, President and Macro Strategist at Bianco Research; Danielle DiMartino Booth, Founder and Strategist of Quill Intelligence; Charles Payne, CEO-Founder of Wall Street Strategies and Fox Business Anchor; and David Rosenberg, Founder and President of economic consultancy Rosenberg Research & Associates. Round Table Prime 2025 was held Jan. 9 at DoubleLine’s downtown L.A. office.
Topics include:
(1:29) James Bianco’s outlook for an environment of higher structural inflation of 3% to 4%, a secular change from 40 years of disinflation that means “a 4% or 5% interest rate world being fairly normal.”
(3:58) Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in Jeffrey Gundlach’s view, is back to “oversteering,” as evidenced in “probably his worst press conference ever” on Dec. 18. due to his hyper focus on short-term inflation prints.”
(6:14) The Fed’s dilemma, Mr. Gundlach summarizes: unemployment, above-target inflation and only one policy tool to implement the Fed’s dual mandate. “Jay Powell now has one foot on the dock and one foot in the canoe. And you know what happens when they drift apart. You’re going to get wet.”
(9:56) A resumption in disinflation, David Rosenberg forecasts, is in the cards for 2025, notwithstanding the bottoming out of recent inflation prints. Service prices have been “the frustrating piece of this pie,” and are set to ease thanks to disinflation in housing and auto insurance premiums. Other disinflationary factors are tame commodities, “China exporting its deflation to the rest of the world” and the “productivity game changer” of artificial intelligence.
(18:36) In Powell’s Dec. 18 news conference, Danielle DiMartino Booth spots a major shift in the Fed’s focus: “Super core inflation’s out the window. What Powell is focused on right now is market-based core PCE.”
(27:37) The inflationary/disinflationary impact of deportation of illegal immigrants and layoffs of federal workers under President-elect Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
(29:24) The prospect of artificial intelligence, as Charles Payne notes, rendering hundreds of millions of jobs obsolete. AI means a “productivity miracle” but also the end of “60% of today’s jobs. In “the gulf between here and there, what do human beings do? That’s what Andrew Wang ran on, right? Universal basic income.”
(35:42) In the wake of his statements on Panama, Canada and Greenland, how to interpret the President-elect’s rhetoric. “Trump speaks in metaphors,” Jeffrey Gundlach says. “Panama is probably a 10. As for a Greenland, we’ve been here before. Immense tariffs on Denmark? I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
(38:15) An awakening among Americans to the idea that the political class has abandoned them.
Mr. Gundlach is CEO of DoubleLine. In 2011, he appeared on the cover of Barron's as "The New Bond King." In 2013, Institutional Investor named him "Money Manager of the Year." In 2012, 2015 and 2016, he was named one of "The Fifty Most Influential" in Bloomberg Markets. In 2017, he was inducted into the FIASI Fixed Income Hall of Fame. Mr. Gundlach is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, with degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy.
As DoubleLine’s Deputy Chief Investment Officer, Jeffrey Sherman oversees and administers DoubleLine’s Investment Management sub-committee coordinating and implementing policies and processes across the investment teams. He also serves as lead portfolio manager for multi-sector and derivative-based strategies. Mr. Sherman is a member of DoubleLine’s Executive Management and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Committees. He can be heard regularly on his podcast “The Sherman Show” (Twitter @ShermanShowPod, ShermanShow@Doubleline.com) where he interviews distinguished guests, giving listeners insight into DoubleLine’s current views. In 2018, Money Management Executive named Jeffrey Sherman as one of “10 Fund Managers to Watch” in its yearly special report. Prior to joining DoubleLine in 2009, Mr. Sherman was a Senior Vice President at TCW where he worked as a portfolio manager and quantitative analyst focused on fixed income and real-asset portfolios. He was a statistics and mathematics instructor at both the University of the Pacific and Florida State University. Mr. Sherman taught Quantitative Methods for Level I candidates in the CFA LA/USC Review Program for many years. He holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of the Pacific and an M.S. in Financial Engineering from the Claremont Graduate University. Mr. Sherman is a CFA® charterholder.
