Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital, used the Sohn Conference in New York to tout the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF and to recommend shorting Facebook Inc. as a relative-value trade.
“Some people think inflation should not rise going into a recession, but actually the opposite is true,” Gundlach said. “One should expect that as the next recession approaches, commodities should have a big gain.”
As Facebook comes under growing scrutiny, there’s been increasing talk of regulating social media companies. Equity bubbles are often popped by regulation, according to the fund manager, who is also chief executive officer at DoubleLine. The Los Angeles-based firm oversaw about $119 billion as of March 31.
“There’s good and bad going on in the world,” Gundlach said in discussing social media and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s apology over the recent controversy surrounding users’ personal data. “Interpretations matter.”
Gundlach has been touting commodities as one of his favorite investments this year, because they historically rally late in economic cycles. He recommended against using leverage for the latest paired trade, which he called fairly risky.