By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach's DoubleLine posted a net inflow of $444.4 million into its open-end mutual funds in September, marking the Los Angeles-based firm's 32nd consecutive month of inflows.
The $61.8 billion DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, the largest fund by total assets of the DoubleLine Funds, had a net inflow of $190.9 million in September, for a year-to-date net inflow of $8.3 billion.
The DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund - managed by Gundlach, chief executive and chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital, and Philip Barach - is an open-end intermediate-term bond fund that invests primarily in mortgage-backed securities.
The $7.6 billion DoubleLine Core Fixed Income Fund had a net inflow of $87.5 million in September, bringing its year-to-date net inflow to $2 billion.
The DoubleLine Core Fixed Income Fund is an open-end intermediate-term bond fund that invests in different sectors of the fixed income universe, including corporate securities, bank debt, collateralized loan obligations, emerging markets debt, non-U.S. sovereign issues, municipal bonds and Treasuries as well as MBS.
Gundlach and Jeffrey Sherman, deputy chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital, are portfolio managers of the fund.
Gundlach, speaking at Grant's fall 2016 conference told an audience on Tuesday that for the first time in years, he favored Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, which he has in the CORE fund, over nominal Treasuries.
"For the first time in years, I am long TIPS," he said.
In a separate interview with Reuters, Gundlach added: "Implied future inflation priced into TIPs is low, too low for the environment likely to unfold over the next decade. Nominal Treasuries are likely to underperform TIPs over an institutional investment horizon."
DoubleLine's largest equities mutual fund, the $1.4 billion DoubleLine Shiller Enhanced CAPE fund, had a net inflow of $55.3 million in September, bringing its year-to-date net inflow to $594.6 million.
The DoubleLine Shiller Enhanced CAPE fund has two sources of return: an actively managed fixed income portfolio and a rules-based exposure to the U.S. stock market.
DoubleLine's investment team actively invests in a diversified fixed income portfolio. The fixed income portfolio collateralizes derivatives contracts tracking the Shiller Barclays (LON:BARC) CAPE US Sector Total Return Index (the Shiller Barclays index). The fund launched on Oct. 31, 2013.
Gundlach and Sherman are portfolio managers of the fund.
Overall, DoubleLine oversees more than $100 billion in assets.