Stanley Druckenmiller Dire Inflation Warning – What It Means for Investors

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연준이 너무 이르게 인플레이션 승리를 선언하고 금리를 인하하는 것을 우려. 1970년대처럼 인플레이션이 재상승할 위험을 걱정하며 과거 경제 부진 우려는 틀렸다고 인정. 트럼프 당선 시 규제완화·관세·이민 축소 등으로 인플레 재점화 가능성 언급. 연준의 선제적 가이던스가 정책 유연성을 제약한다고 비판.

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01. ironically, ever since the Fed cut, the dollar has rallied, and interest rates have obviously gone up, but they're still quite above normal. So that's pretty much the data we're looking at.

02. The other thing I'm focused on, and I've been obsessed with it, is whether we're in the 70s. Really, since 2021, when this whole inflationary episode started. Two years ago, or a year and a half ago, I was very confident that inflation was going to come down, which I was right about. But I was worried about the economy, which I was completely wrong about. More recently, and you can take this with a grain of salt since I had one right and one wrong, I've switched to being more worried about inflation going forward than about the economy itself.

03. Why do I say that? If we go back to the 70s, there was an episode with OPEC that set off inflation. You had a recession, and inflation came down, I think from about 8% to 3%, and then went back up again. Yes. And what's bothered me, and what I've wanted to see, is... you're exactly right, it went back up again. And the number of months it took would correlate to the bottom being right about now. So my confidence a year and a half ago was that we were going to have a period where it came down again, and then we'd see. I'm a little worried that the Fed has declared victory too early. I don't have the conviction I had in '21 that inflation was going to go up. That's when the money supply was growing 40% and all sorts of things were happening. But I also don't have conviction that they've snuffed this thing out and won the battle.

04. With 50 basis points of cuts, credit spreads tight, gold at new highs, equities roaring, and no sign of material weakness in the economy, of course there are some spots, but that just makes me nervous that this thing could turn up again.

05. What would make it turn up again? What would be the factors? I think what I just said: easing financial conditions, let's say. Trump wins. If Trump wins, you could have animal spirits from the business community, who are dying for deregulation. You could have tariffs, which are marginally inflationary. Immigration has been a great boon to this country, maybe not the way it was done, but it certainly enabled us to have growth without inflation and labor materially the last two or three years. So the combination of animal spirits and a recovery doing better than expected, I'm just open-minded to it.

06. Why is it so urgent for the central bank to cut, given this? Honestly, I don't take the nefarious view that Powell is doing it for, quote unquote, political reasons. I do think he's obsessed with the soft landing, and I think he's obsessed with his legacy and having made the mistake he made in '21. And he's being egged on by other economists in the press. To me, the Fed's job is to avoid the big mistakes, like the 70s, like the Great Financial Crisis, like the big inflation we just had. All this fine-tuning and worrying about a soft landing is not, in my opinion, the job of the Fed. Its job is to maximize employment over the long term, not over the next three or four months. I think the Fed's obsession with nailing this so-called soft landing is something everybody should remember: the reason we're having a landing at all is that they let inflation go from 2% to 9%. So there was no need for a landing for 20 years. But I think that's what they're obsessed with.

07. I don't really know how much of a problem the forward guidance is. It's a huge problem. My friend Dremmwerx, I mean, Grant, says they're forward-guidance dependent, not data dependent. It's a problem because once you do forward guidance, you eliminate your optionality. And I think Nikolai, you and I, being in this business, know we have to change our minds when we're wrong. This Fed has shown over and over again that they think if they change their minds, they're losing credibility. So forward guidance ties their hands behind their backs. I'm wrong all the time. I think my record is mainly good because when I'm wrong, I change my mind, not because I'm always right. Forward guidance seems to tie them into positions where they eliminate the flexibility they need.