Hard to Outrun this Bear (E206)

DoubleLine Portfolio Manager Jeff Mayberry and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Strategist Ryan Kimmel survey the markets, including a week (March 10-14) that pushed the stock market (0:40) into one of its fastest corrections on record. Jeff notes (3:10) bonds turned in a flattish to slightly positive week after five days of volatility. Commodities (4:46) were up slightly, with energy diverging into the red. Surveying macro news (7:40), Ryan covers softer-than-expected consumer price and producer price readings for February while cautioning about the hotter price inputs into the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index favored by the Federal Reserve for inflation tracking. The Job Openings Labor Turnover Survey (13:54) for January came in higher than expectations, with 7.74 million job openings and an improvement to 2.1% in the quits rate, a nine-month high. “I take this as a sign that employee confidence has improved a bit, but this is lagged data before we saw the sell-off in equities, which can impact sentiment,” Ryan notes. More germane, he says, is possibly the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, whose preliminary numbers for March show a marked rise in inflation expectations. Looking ahead (18:59) to the week of March 17-21, while the Fed is expected to stand pat on interest rates on Wednesday, Jeff and Ryan will be on the lookout for any changes in guidance by the Federal Open Market Committee or from Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell’s news conference. They also will be watching for February retail sales (Monday), import prices (Tuesday), and jobless claims and the Leading Economic Index (Thursday).