Jeffrey Gundlach: Beware the Ides of June | CNBC

DoubleLine CEO-CIO Jeffrey Gundlach joins CNBC’s Scott Wapner following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell’s final FOMC press conference. Mr. Gundlach describes the event’s tone as notably hawkish and calls the bond market’s resultant sell-off entirely justified. With oil prices elevated and tariff effects unlikely to fade quickly, he sees headline CPI reaching a 4 handle in the near term, making Fed rate cuts essentially impossible. More provocatively, he argues, “the odds of a hike between now and year end are better than the odds of a cut.”

Mr. Gundlach offers a balanced take on Chair Powell’s legacy, criticizing the lag in hiking rates in 2021, but he is genuinely complimentary of the broader economic stewardship: “The economy has been robust, frankly more robust than virtually everybody, including myself, thought it had any right to be.” He also praises Chair Powell’s parting defense of Fed independence, agreeing that removing Fed officials for political reasons “would be the beginning of the end.”

Mr. Gundlach closes with a warning on private credit interval funds, drawing a parallel to Silicon Valley Bank and predicting a wave of redemption requests around June 23 — what he cryptically calls the “Ides of June” — as a likely catalyst for stress in that market.