Gundlach

DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach appeared on CNBC earlier, and among other things, the muni market was discussed.It appears that the fund manager whom many consider to be roughly in the same ballpark as Howard Marks when it comes to fixed income investing is very much in Meredith Whitney's camp when it comes to his outlook on muni market prospects. Asked by Faber if he believes that munis are ultimately going the way subprime securities did, Gundlach responds "If by that you mean lower, the answer is yes. If you mean crashing, I am agnostic on that." And for all those who love taking out their actuarial tables and their historical default data to refute what is simply common sense, Gundlach has a few words as well: "I don't think you need to know what the default rates are going to be, or need to know how low low is, munis are going to go down. There are going to be other shoes to drop. There might be so many it looks like Imelda Marcos' closet when all the shoes drop because all the states have to deal with this stuff.... Between here and the endgame lies the valley and the valley is full of fear. And I think the muni market is going to go down by at least 15 to 20%. At least." As for Kaminsky relentless advocacy of munis, this time coming out with the always disingenuous "hold to maturity" defense, Gundlach simply made a mockery of that whole spiel: "You know what the definition of an investor? It is a trader who is underwater. People say they hold to maturity until they get scared and sell. It gets scary when the prices start to drop. The fear factor here is going to be palpable." This is probably the single smartest statement ever made on CNBC, where for once a guest actually replied with what is elsewhere known as common sense, instead of ivory tower economic theories that work everywhere but in the market (yes, stocks just like housing can only go up, until they can't). Aside from that cue the congressional subpoena.

Now that Jeff Gundlach is out there making big residual waves (with Barron's as usual just 3-6 months behind the curve), here is, once again for those who missed it the first time around, Gundlach's latest presentation. The next update from Gundlach will be on March 15. We will present it to readers as soon as it hits.

Any billionaire who continues borrowing slides from Zero Hedge, surely knows what he/she (although in this case most certainly he) is talking about (especially one that expects a double digit drop in equities in 2011). This goes double for any billionaire who actually has a James Bond fetish to impart to his investor presentation. Attached are 89 pages of shaken and stirred data, that you wouldn't really find at any other "institutional" asset manager.

... in which a familiar chart appears on page 8.

By now the apocalypse scenario for MBS has been made all too clear: there is a possibility that quite soon all MBS securities may be found worthless due to technicalities, as assignments of securities without due underwritier diligence (there is a reason why underwriter counsel exists in the first place) could easily render the entire stack worthless (the same goes for CMBS) and puttable to the issuer. Yet one person who believes that the fraudclosure's impact on MBS will be "negligible" is DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach. While we wish we could share's Jeff enthusiasm, we are concerned that his entire argument is premised on the assumption that if an autopilot has worked so far, it is certain to work for the (un)foreseeable future: "The Great Unknown notwithstanding, the risk du jour should come as no great surprise. Since the advent of the credit crisis, a number of states have made fitful attempts at foreclosure moratoria. Even more  obvious, a growing part of the mortgage sector has entered quasi-moratorium since 2007. For years, remittance data have shown thebuilding of overhang of non-payers relative to the tardy liquidation of delinquent loans. So tell us something new." While from a technical standpoint Gundlach (whose livelihood depends on the ongoing stability in the multi-trillion MBS arena) is spot on, never before has the very core of the judicial process been not only questioned, but found to be replete with fraud. Which is why now, for the first time, there is a political element. And Jeff knows all too well, that politics is what happens (and impacts the ROI) when one is busy putting together DCF's. Should this scandal continue to escalate to the very top, as it seems set on doing, we would be far less sanguine about the optimistic outlook for the MBS space.

Jeff Gundlach who has been spot on with timing his calls for Treasury inflection points, did a quick Q&A with Morningstar summarizing his outlook on the economy. In a nutshell while the DoubleLine manager is still skeptical that inflation may strike, he is convinced deflation is pervasive. To wit: "markets and the economy to date have offered scant evidence to support
the inflation case. Stocks are down over the past 10 years. Real estate
is down hard over the last five years. Commodities are down sharply over
the last two years. Instead of spiking to double digits, bond yields
are hugging the ground. M3, which is now calculated only by private
economists, is down nicely over the past year. And of course money
velocity is moribund: Society has looked into the debt abyss and decided
enough is enough with the debt-based consumer economy. So, deflationary
forces still prevail. What could shift the balance of forces in favor
of inflation? A well-meaning movement to cut the deficit has at long
last arrived, maybe. But cutting the deficit that is supporting the
consumer economy will directly depress gross domestic product. If that
causes not just a look but a step or two into the deflationary abyss,
then maybe the inflation case will move to center stage." Sure, let's not forget the collapse in the shadow economy. But let's also not forget that the economy is in a vacuum, and were the Fed not in the picture, we would totally agree. But because the most irrational human being in the world is in charge of said world via his control of the US reserve currency (and irrational because he promotes exclusively policies that benefit the vast minority over the majority), we will have to disagree. And so would the price of gold.

DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach will hold a webcast discussing the performance of his new DoubleLine Core and Total Return Funds (which as we pointed out recently had presciently started selling bonds ahead of the recent move lower), but more importantly will share his general outlook on the market. As this is the man who a few months ago warned that the US will likely end up defaulting (and very much correctly, contrary to those drinking the perpetual monetization Kool Aid, believing in the ultimate power of the Fed, which will be the last buyer long after all other marginal buyers of US debt are long gone), this webcast will be a very informative and interesting one. DoubleLine has opened up the webcast to readers of Zero Hedge. Mark your calendars - details inside.

Former TCW Total Return Bond Fund maven Jeff Gundlach, who since December has been running his own money at OakStreet-blessed DoubleLine, has just moved from "overweight" to "small underweight" on Treasurys. The gradual shift out of USTs is in line with the bond manager's forecast made in June when the 10 Year was 3.1% that yields would drop another 60 bps to 2.5%. Yet the main catalyst for the selling is driven by the inability of the 10 Year to make a new record low, unlike both the 2 and 5 Years, both of which are trading at historical tights, no doubt facilitated by the Fed's gradual encroachment of ever to the right of the entire yield curve. As Bloomberg reports: "this “divergence in behavior across the yield curve is very significant,” said Gundlach, who oversees $4.8 billion in assets in Los Angeles as chief executive officer of DoubleLine. “So while the fundamentals for low rates remain compelling, the message of the market action suggests that much of these now widely recognized fundamentals are reflected in Treasury bond prices." We are confident that given enough time, and enough fiat linen printed, the entire curve will eventually be one flat line as the Fed (and Pimco) are now the marginal buyers of any resort in their attempt to make homeownership with zero money down, an interest-free endeavor. After all, you can't have growth unless the animal spirits are rekindled, and this kind of direct intervention is the only thing the Keynesian acolytes at the Marriner Eccles building know how to do well. So where is Gundlach investing next:"We moved the proceeds from the Treasury sales into a mix of corporate bonds, including our first allocation to below investment grade corporate bonds." Of course, with even traditional MBS and UST investors now actively gobbling up HY, we are very concerned that when the inevitable flush in the B2/B space occurs, and it always eventually does, there will be no marginal buyers of anything less than IG. But with a market as broken, technically driven and centrally planned as ours, who even pretends to think about what tomorrow may bring...

In this brief interview with Morningstar, Doubleline's star MBS analyst, and the bane of TCW's existence, Jeff Gundlach, points out the glaringly obvious: i.e., that "if Citigroup was too big to fail, then so much greater is the risk for asset managers at a multiple of that market cap." Obviously the mortgage expert here is contemplating asset manager behemoths such as PIMCO and BlackRock, which have quietly become even more institutionalized within the fabric of the financial markets, than some of the TBTF banks. And without access to the Fed's discount window, liquidity threats to firms like PIMCO are exponentially greater than even for a bankrupt POS like Citigroup. No wonder Gross was offloading European sovereign debt with gusto as of last check. With total assets of over $1 trillion, saying that a failure by PIMCO, and by extension its Fed-unmoderatable counterparty risk, would have huge implications on the US financial system, is so obvious, that it is completely understandable that there is not one single provision in the Senator from Countrywide and the Congressman from Fannie's FinReg proposals on how to tackle this most recent threat to capital markets.

Update: The LA Times adds that according to the suit, on the day TCW fired him, the firm found “inappropriate contraband” in his offices, “consisting of marijuana, drug paraphernalia . . . and a collection of 12 sexual devices, 34 hardcore pornographic magazines and 36 hardcore sexually explicit DVDs and videocassettes.”

Dear Valued Clients,

I am writing to inform you that today TCW filed a lawsuit against certain former members of its previous fixed income portfolio management team, as well as their new company, DoubleLine Capital Group LLC.

The charges in the complaint are serious, disturbing and specific, and confirm TCW's reasons for relieving Jeffrey Gundlach, and his colleagues Cris Santa Ana, Barbara VanEvery and Jeffrey Mayberry of their duties. There is no reason to recount these charges here, but they clearly support TCW's conclusion that members of TCW's previous fixed income portfolio management team engaged in a pattern of breaches of fiduciary duty and other unlawful activity, which threatened TCW¹s business and reputation. Specifically, and among other things, TCW learned that persons close to Mr. Gundlach, now involved with DoubleLine, systematically downloaded very large volumes of TCW proprietary information over a period of weeks before Mr.Gundlach's termination.

One of the cushiest and least risky assignments over the past year for the big bond funds has been their agency assignments on various Treasury-mandated security purchasing programs to bail out the market: these have been the definition of free money. The PPIP program has been a good case in point, which in recent months has been somewhat dormant ever since the administration realized it could generate a much greater IRR by purchasing index futures than toying around with AAA-rated CMBS, in which bond fund TCW was a key partner of the Treasury. Yet in a striking example of rational thought, the government has demonstrated it knows what "key man" provisions are. And after TCW fired Gundlach for having "too lofty" an aspiration, the Treasury has decided to fire TCW as a PPIP manager for the Treasury in turn. Poetic justice.

The big guns in LA are out swinging, with news emerging that Jeff Gundlach will get funding and a minority investment from of bond giant and other major TCW defector, Oaktree. Howard Marks' firm is now set to eat TCW's municipal lunch. And all the disciples of Robert Day had to do was promote the guy. Also, futures in the "Battle of the Attanasios"(Paul and Mark) just surged majorly in favor of the House creator.

"Over the weekend, key MetWest professionals assumed portfolio management responsibilities for all of TCW’s high-grade fixed income client accounts. This transition has been orderly and seamless, a testament to the professionalism and enthusiasm of both MetWest and TCW employees.

Attached please find a complete list of our high-grade fixed income products and the respective portfolio managers, effective today. We expect you will notice a more collaborative, team-based approach to portfolio management. We believe this culture of cooperation will facilitate a quick, effective integration of our fixed income teams into a single unit.

We anticipated possible resignations as a result of this announcement. However, as of today, we have retained 70% of our mortgage-backed securities team." - TCW

"TCW separately announced that Jeffrey E. Gundlach has been relieved of his duties as TCW's Chief Investment Officer and lead portfolio manager of TCW's high-grade fixed income funds and accounts and removed from the Board of Directors of TCW Group, Inc. The firm deeply regrets the need to take this action. Mr. Gundlach threatened to take certain actions that could have jeopardized the firm's ability to manage clients' fixed income assets. The firm had no alternative but to take the necessary steps to ensure the continuity and stability of its high-grade fixed income business and the highest standard of attention to client's interests." - TCW

Zero Hedge has come across what could well be Jeff Gundlach's swan song as TCW. While we are still investigating the curious circumstances surrounding Gundlach's unceremonious firing, and subsequent departure of his closest lieutenants, we leave readers with this last masterpiece from the mortgage bond expert while still a TCW employee.