It's the Best Time for Bonds in More Than a Decade, Gundlach's Deputy CIO Says

As stormy as the markets are today, the sun’ll come out tomorrow — as the song goes — though when that tomorrow comes is pretty uncertain.

Nevertheless, there are pieces of sunny news, as suggested in a ThinkAdvisor interview with Jeffrey Sherman, deputy chief investment officer at DoubleLine, of which Jeffrey Gundlach is CEO.

For one: “On a go-forward basis, we believe that the fixed income market is the most attractive it’s been since 2011,” Sherman argues.

He maintains that the U.S. isn’t in a recession now but believes “it’s increasingly likely that we’ll have some form of recession in 2023.”

The concern is that it won’t be “narrowly contained” but will “bleed over into” other sectors of the economy.

Sherman insists, however, that “there’s not a lot of evidence that a broad-based recession is on the horizon.”

It’s smart to keep in mind that the stock market “usually bottoms in the middle of a recession,” according to Sherman.

On the brighter side of the interest-rate increase scenario, “We’re getting closer to the end of the Fed’s hiking cycle,” he says, “and [it’s] talking about a glide path” for getting there rather than “wait[ing] for inflation to come down.”

“The market has about another 1.5% of rate hikes priced in between now and February,” he notes.

When it comes to investments, in the interview Sherman discusses some additional parts of the credit market that “look more attractive” today than “putting more money into equities.”

Formerly a portfolio manager and quantitative analyst at TCW, he is a chartered financial analyst overseeing DoubleLine’s investment management subcommittee and is lead portfolio manager for multi-sector and derivative-based strategies.

His hit interview podcast, “The Sherman Show,” just released its 126th episode.

ThinkAdvisor interviewed Sherman by phone on Oct. 18. Speaking from his Los Angeles office, he allows that DoubleLine has been adding to the Treasurys in its portfolio, a move that indicates the firm is “taking more interest-rate risk,” he says.

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: What’s your forecast for the bond market?

JEFFREY SHERMAN: On a go-forward basis, we believe that the fixed income market is the most attractive it’s been since 2011.

People shouldn’t look at their statements to see what’s happened with their bond portfolios. They need to think forward.

Over a two- to four-year horizon, the best predictor of return in the bond market is the yield you start with.

If you believe, as we do, that inflation doesn’t stay elevated in multiple years going forward, that it gets on some path back to the Fed’s objective, the inflation rate will run at about 2% to 3% over the next few years.

If that’s the case and you’re earning 5% on a high-quality [portfolio], that means your purchasing power is preserved.

What sorts of bonds would be best?

You don’t have to buy junk bonds and get a 10% yield. You can buy corporate bonds that yield almost 6% today. You can pair these with Treasurys.

In our view, balancing out the credit risk and the interest rate risk is giving you one of the better opportunities on a forward-looking basis — a more risk-managed portfolio.

No one really knows how deep the recession will be. So we’ve been adding to the Treasurys in our portfolios — taking more interest rate risk.

Some say the U.S. is already in a recession. What do you think?

I don’t see us being in a recession [now] because the consumer has stayed resilient.

But the 90-trillion-dollar question is: Can we stave off a recession?

It’s becoming increasingly likely that we’ll have some form of recession in 2023. But what is the depth and breadth of it?

Is it going to be a recession focused on, let’s say, the real estate market [since] we know that housing is [slow] and mortgage rates are extremely high.

It’s pretty easy to see there’s going to be a meaningful slowdown in that part of the market.

But the question becomes: Does it bleed over into other things? The concern is that the recession is not just narrowly contained.

So far, there’s not a lot of evidence that a broad-based recession is on the horizon. It seems that it’s going to be more narrowly focused.

To what extent is there inflation in health care, where prices are usually rising?

The health sector will actually have a drag on inflation, making it a negative contributor. Health care is a bigger piece of the index [that the Federal Reserve] use[s]. That component is expected to be a detractor from the overall inflationary picture.

What are the implications to investors?

We’ll have to watch that because a lot of people didn’t expect the spike we saw in housing. That’s part of what was a surprise to the market.