Gundlach says stocks surge on investors' belief Trump better for economy

By Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said U.S. stock markets rebounded strongly from overnight losses because investors believe U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's policies are better for economic growth in the short-term than Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's would have been.

Gundlach, known on Wall Street as the 'Bond King', told Reuters by telephone: "Many foreigners wanted Trump to lose, so you saw huge selling overnight. But U.S. investors think Trump is better for growth than Hillary, in the short-term."

Gundlach, who oversees more than $106 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital, said Treasury yields, particularly the long end of the curve, are soaring because Trump's policies are "bond unfriendly."

Yields on benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasuries rose above 2 percent on Wednesday to their highest since January.

Gundlach, who in January had predicted a Trump victory, said Trump will look to boost growth and inflationary pressures and that is a negative for government bonds. "He loves debt and he said in May that 'I am comfortable with debt'," Gundlach said about Trump. "His policies are not supportive of long-term interest rates."

Gundlach has been warning investors to avoid Treasuries this year because bonds have been "sniffing out a new bond-market unfriendly environment, which likely includes a fiscal-policy pivot."

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 256.95 points, or 1.40 percent, to 18,589.69, the S&P 500 gained 23.70 points, or 1.11 percent, to 2,163.26 and the Nasdaq Composite added 57.58 points, or 1.11 percent, to 5,251.07.

Gundlach, who voted for Trump, said he never believed the national polls, and thought they understated Trump's support by 6 percentage points.

"It is Brexit. Don't you see what is going on? The Clinton machine and the Bush machine have been defeated," Gundlach said. "People are tired of the corruption that they had been reading about during this election campaign."

Asked about whether Trump's win casts doubt on the Federal Reserve's plan to hike interest rates, Gundlach said: "I think they'll go." He noted that Bloomberg's World Interest Rate Probability (WIRP) function, which is based on futures trading data, sees an over 80 percent probability for December.

Gundlach said Fed chair Janet Yellen, whom Trump said would "most likely" be replaced if elected, would not be reappointed in 2018 under a Trump administration.

All told, Gundlach added: "No one is trash talking me today."

(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft)

You May Also Be Interested In

• Donald Trump Has Indicated to Economic Advisers he is Interested in a New Middle-class Tax Cut - Reuters
• CSX Corp. (CSX) Shares Trade Lower Ahead of Results, Down 2.2%
• Alcoa (AA) Climbs on Report Biden to Call for Higher Tariffs on Chinese Steel, Aluminum