Gundlach's DoubleLine Capital posts 25th straight monthly inflow

By Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - DoubleLine Capital, overseen by widely followed investor Jeffrey Gundlach, said on Tuesday it posted a net inflow of $2.24 billion in February, marking the firm's 25th consecutive month of inflows.

The DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, the firm's largest fund by total assets, had a net inflow of $2.01 billion in February. The fund, which invests primarily in mortgage-backed securities (MBS), has $56 billion in assets.

The DoubleLine Core Fixed Income Fund, which invests in different sectors of the fixed income universe, including corporate securities, bank debt, collateralized loan obligations, emerging market debt, municipal bonds and Treasuries as well as MBS, had a net inflow of $158.31 million in February.

"Both DoubleLine Total Return and DoubleLine Core Fixed Income have outperformed their respective Lipper peer groups year-to-date, adding to their strong risk-adjusted records," said Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"As investors have sought income portfolios in a more volatile market, they continue to seek out DoubleLine," Rosenbluth said.

Additionally, the SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF attracted $145 million of net inflows last month.

In both 2015 and 2014, Gundlach made correct predictions on market events. In 2015, he forecast that oil prices would plunge, junk bonds would live up to their name and China's slowing economy would pressure emerging markets. In 2014, he forecast that U.S. Treasury yields would fall, rather than rise as many others had expected.

Gundlach, who oversees $90 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital, recently made headlines when he said his firm purchased some U.S. stocks in mid-February after their rocky start in January and early February.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday after DoubleLine's inflow figures were released, Gundlach said the firm is now considering closing out some of its long positions in the stocks that they purchased three weeks ago.

The S&P 500 Index has jumped 8 percent in that period.

"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."

Gundlach said on Tuesday: "I am bearish. There are just wiggles and jiggles" in the markets.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Paul Simao, Bernard Orr)

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