Virtus Capital partner Steven Gidumal thinks there are a lot of socialists running in the Democratic primary in 2020, and he warns that if someone like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg wins the presidency it will lead to the stock market crashing somewhere between 30% and 50%.
“If a Socialist is Elected, the Market will sell off BIG,” said one of Gidumal’s slides during a recent presentation at the annual Distressed Investing Conference in Manhattan. “Pick a Socialist — Bernie, Liz, Pete. etc. and the Market would sell off.”
Sanders has called himself a Democratic socialist in the past, but Warren and Buttigieg have both denied the title. A look at Warren’s laundry list of plans and soak-the-rich policies tells a different story, though.
And as far as who Gidumal is predicting to win the 2020 presidency?
Gidumal likes Trump’s chances but what he may like even more is his track record of attacking the Federal Reserve and Chairman Jerome Powell for not enacting enough monetary easing policy (of course, anyone running an asset management business is happy to have cheaper interest rates so this isn’t revelatory).
“I think Trump is absolutely right to bash the Fed and to do it publicly because a lot of what they do is irrational and has been for the past century,” Gidumal said to the audience of investors, restructuring professionals and lenders, according to CNBC.
“One of the best things the administration has done across all the parties is jawboning the Fed to keep interest rates down.”
He also thinks that despite slowing global and U.S. economic growth, the Fed will move to raise rates in 2020 before the election.
“We continue to view the Fed as a political operation, not a market-based, growth oriented, pro-US rational body,” another slide read.
Gidumal’s hedge fund Virtus specializes in restructurings and distressed securities, and his outlook for 2020 stocks was distressed as well. He claims a lot of factors can drag the markets down, but he isn’t predicting a recession — yet.
“It will probably hit in the first quarter of 2021,” Gilduman warns.