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August 11, 2020 at 08:58 PM
DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach delivered his thoughts on the markets and more Tuesday, just as the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, revealed his partner on the ticket.
Asked during the webcast whether Biden would win the November election, Gundlach didn’t hesitate: “I don’t think so. I’d bet against that.”
In 2016, Gundlach also was bullish on Trump.
“I think polls are very, very squishy right now, because of the highly toxic political environment in which we live,” he said.
A large number of conservatives reportedly “have lied about their support for Donald Trump, either directly or by omission, which kind of says that maybe people aren’t really getting the right read from polls.”
Gundlach added, “One thing about Joe Biden is he can’t seem to get above 50%.”
A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found 51% of voters supported Biden, while 41% supported Trump. The survey also found 4% of voters support third-party candidates and 4% are undecided.
“I just think that there’s a lot … of time here [before Nov. 3], and there’s going to be a lot of twists and turns,” the DoubleLine executive said — including some for the markets.
‘Too Charismatic’
“I expect significant market volatility, which is usually the case in and around a presidential election,” he said. “I think that this go-round, I would expect to see much, much greater volatility.”
Specifically, concerns about “progressive policies, the so-called tremendous increase of deficit spending for basically wealth manipulation [mean] that [things] could get pretty heated,” Gundlach said.
As for Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate, “I don’t think it’s a good pick. I think she’s a little too charismatic … a little bit dominant with her personality.”
He added, “I’m not surprised that she’s the pick. I mean, he certainly promised to pick a woman. And it seemed quite obvious that it would be a person of color and apparently he’s fulfilled that. We’ll see how they find a way of working together.”
Market ‘Reversal’
“Most markets right now are at a reversal stage. I’m not surprised to see gold drop $100-plus [an ounce] today,” Gundlach said.
Turning to fixed income, he said yields “have started to drift higher at the long end.”
Gundlach is “not interested in long-term Treasury bonds at all” or “short-term Treasury bonds really at all,” because of the size of the U.S. budget deficit.
The 12-month deficit was $3 trillion as of June 30. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the annual deficit could hit $3.7 trillion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
