David Rogal, Managing Director, Global Fixed Income, Head of Total Return and Inflation Portfolios, BlackRock

With a penchant for math and a degree in biology from Cornell, Dave Rogal landed at BlackRock in 2006. With the housing bubble in full sway, he was part of a group that provided asset liability management advice to large institutions. Three years later, as the dust settled from the financial crisis, he joined the fixed income division, mentored by industry experts, and quickly exposed to the world of pricing dislocations that populated the system well into 2009. Now the head of Total Return and Inflation Portfolios, Dave shares some of the lessons learned on risk management through crisis periods. Reflecting on vol events like the Covid market shock, he asserts that simplification of exposures is critical as correlations can become unstable and unreliable. We spend most of our time learning about Dave’s framework for thinking about inflation, a variable he suggests must be approached with humility. On a forward-looking basis, he sees disinflation in autos, a component that was hot, but is now starting to feel the impact of higher rates. We also discuss rents, and here Dave is generally sanguine as well. All in all, there is scope to return to month-on-month CPI readings of 0.2 and 0.3, welcome developments. On the risk front, he sees some potential that the Fed overtightens, based on comments that appear to focus more on the strength of labor market and activity data rather than embracing the progress on inflation. Lastly, we talk about the back-end of the yield curve and what Dave suggests are “daunting” supply dynamics set against the Fed’s QT program and less capacity for banks to absorb new paper. I hope you enjoy this episode of the Alpha Exchange, my conversation with Dave Rogal.