it was just last Friday, when roughly at the same time that Dennis Gartman flipflopped to bullish (just as the rally stalled, and just before turning bearish again ahead of today's torrid rally) we reported that in what came as a surprise to us, that just as Jeff Gundlach was warning about the impending failure of central banks, the lack of a "bullish case for oil", about a bear market for stocks, and about an imminent surge in gold in early February, the DoubleLine manager was buying stocks.
As Reuters first reported, Jeffrey Gundlach "said on Friday that his firm purchased some U.S. stocks two weeks ago after their rocky start in January."
His reasoning was simple: buy the bear market rally.
"I thought it was a good buy point two weeks ago Wednesday and so we bought some," Gundlach told Reuters. Gundlach, who oversees $90 billion in assets for the Los Angeles-based DoubleLine, said the firm was at "maximum underweight" since last August.
Two days later, and following the biggest rally to start the month of March in history, Gundlach is happy to count his profits and once again cash out.
In an interview with Reuters Jennifer Ablan after DoubleLine Capital's February flow figures were released (it was a $2.2 billion inflow) , Gundlach said the firm is now considering closing out some of its long positions in the stocks that they purchased three weeks ago.
Is the bond trader now just a closet equities daytrader? We wond't know, but since the S&P 500 has jumped 8% in that period, why not takes some profits.
"That's what we're talking about," Gundlach said about booking some gains after their short-term rally.
Gundlach still maintains that the U.S. stock market is in a bear market but had made those equity purchases because the conditions in the second week of February with "wickedly negative equity sentiment were such that risk/reward favored a potential tradable rally and also made such a low allocation less advisable."
The time to buy the dip, however, has passed: "I am bearish. There are just wiggles and jiggles in the markets."