With a new record high for any combination of the three major U.S. market indexes hitting nearly every day, some might expect an incoming pullback — but not hedge fund legends Stanley Druckenmiller and David Tepper.
“I love riding a horse that’s running. We have been long and continue that way,” Tepper said in an email exchange with CNBC “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen before adding, “At some point, the market will get to a level that I will slow down that horse and eventually get off.”
Tepper, the founder of Apaloosa Management, didn’t say when he expects to get off the train, and a source close to him told CNBC that Tepper actually got more involved in the market in December. The reason, the source said, is because Tepper believes the Federal Reserve will keep printing money for the repo market and that trade tensions between the U.S. and China were finally starting to ease.
Tepper is famous for what’s known as the “Tepper Rally,” a 2010 market call he made on CNBC. The prediction was that persistently low Fed interest rates along with the central bank’s bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing, would continue pushing stocks up — and the prices are still going up today amid the record long bull market run.
Druckenmiller, the Duquesne Capital founder, told Kernen in another email exchange that he agrees with Tepper and he’s also ready to keep riding the bull.
“I revealed a very bullish posture intermediate-term since October when Powell guaranteed he would not rescind the insurance (rate) cuts unless inflation was persistently above target,” Druckenmiller said. “Since then, both have worked out, and the Fed is still whining about inflation being below target.”
President Donald Trump’s “election prospects have increased with two trade agreements and big win in Iran, which the Democrats have responded poorly to,” Druckenmiller told CNBC. “So I am still ‘riding the horse’ and bullish (for the) immediate term.”