DoubleLine's Gundlach says Fed won't hike rates in 2015

By Sam Forgione

NEW YORK (Reuters) - DoubleLine Capital Chief Executive Jeffrey Gundlach reiterated Wednesday that he did not believe the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates this year, shrugging off comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen signaling a hike was likely by year-end.

Gundlach, speaking at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha Conference in New York, also said that while homebuilding "will never go back to where it was," he was not negative on homebuilder stocks.

Gundlach also said that he liked U.S. dollar-denominated emerging market debt, along with high-yield bonds in the short-term, and Indian stocks.

"I can see why they want to get off of zero, but the economy just hasn’t really been able to corroborate," Gundlach said in reference to the Fed.

Gundlach's comments came in the wake of Yellen's reinforcement of market expectations for a U.S. interest rate hike, possibly as soon as September.

On Wednesday, the top U.S. central banker said in testimony prepared for Congress that the Fed remains poised to raise interest rates this year, with labor markets expected to steadily improve and turmoil abroad unlikely to knock the U.S. economy off track.

Bill Miller, chairman and chief investment officer of LMM LLC, said at the New York conference that the bear market in bonds would be "benign."

(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jennifer Ablan)

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