Stanley Druckenmiller
Anjali Sundaram
Billionaire hedge fund pioneer Stanley Druckenmiller believes the Federal Reserve’s continued easy money measures have distorted asset prices and lulled investors into a false sense of security.
“The market is not speaking right now,” Druckenmiller told CNBC’s Joe Kernen in an email Thursday, shortly after stock futures shot up despite stronger-then-expected numbers on May consumer prices. The S&P 500 reached an all-time high shortly after the opening bell.
Markets participants will continue to ignore risks “until the Fed stops canceling market signals,” the Duquesne Family Office CEO added.
The Fed’s repeatedly said any spike inflation will be transitory as the economy recovers from the depths the pandemic, suggesting monetary accommodation put place during the early days of Covid will remain for the foreseeable future. With the Fed at bay, Druckenmiller believes investors will continue to disregard looming signs of inflation and other market risks.
Druckenmiller has been critical of the Fed’s approach recently, telling CNBC last month he believes the long-term health of the U.S. dollar was at stake. While indicating support for the Fed’s emergency actions in 2020 as the pandemic took hold, he said adjustments are now needed due to the strength of the recovery.
“I can’t find any period in history where monetary and fiscal policy were this out of step with the economic circumstances, not one,” Druckenmiller said May 11 on “Squawk Box.” In the same interview, he said there was currently “a raging mania in all assets.”
“I will be surprised if we’re not out of the stock market by the end of the year, just because these bubbles can’t last that long,” Druckenmiller said at the time.
— CNBC’s Maxwell Meyers contributed to this report.
