By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach's DoubleLine Funds, an investment firm that has been a major rival of bond fund giant Pimco, reported its ninth consecutive month of inflows in October, totaling $2.38 billion, a record for monthly inflows so far this year.
DoubleLine Capital, based in Los Angeles, said on Monday its flagship DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fundended October with net inflows of $1.82 billion, compared with $1.32 billion in September. That brought the fund's net inflows to $5.60 billion so far this year.
DoubleLine's overall $2.38 billion net inflows in October compared with net inflows of $1.65 billion in September, DoubleLine said, and brought DoubleLine's total net inflows to $7.45 billion so far this year.
Total Return Bond is posting returns of 5.94 percent year to date, beating 87 percent of the peers in its category, according to Morningstar data.
Total Return Bond, with assets of $38 billion, is an intermediate-term open-end mutual fund that invests primarily in mortgage-backed securities.
"The fear of rising rates continues to dissipate and along with the outflows from Pimco, DoubleLine seems to be in a great position to capitalize on fund inflows," said David Schawel, vice president and fixed-income portfolio manager of Square 1 Financial. "There's positive overall flows to bonds, and their performance has been consistently strong."
Gundlach, who helps oversee $56 billion in assets as co-founder and chief investment officer at DoubleLine, is widely followed for his investment calls, including a bet earlier this year that Treasuries were undervalued relative to other sectors and that the selling pressure on the dollar was likely over.
Bill Gross, who managed the Pimco Total Return Fund and co-founded the firm over 40 years ago, resigned on Sept. 26 to join rival Janus Capital Group Inc.
Investors pulled a massive $25.5 billion from Pimco's U.S. open-end funds in September, according to Morningstar.
(Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Jeffrey Benkoe)
