Duquesne Family Office founder and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller said if you were to put a gun to his head, his guess is that former President Donald Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in the election next month.
“Thank God there’s not [a gun] to my head so this really doesn’t matter; I would have to guess Trump is the favorite to win the election,” said the billionaire macro-investor during an interview with Bloomberg’s Sonali Basak this week. “It’s an evolving situation and if you had asked me this 12 days ago, I would have said, ‘I don’t have a clue, it’s still a total toss up and I don’t have any conviction who is going to win the election.’”
Now, however, the market appears very convinced that Trump is going to win, he said. Industries that are deregulated are likely to benefit from Trump or outperform other companies, he noted.
Druckenmiller’s investment career spans three decades, with average annual returns of around 30%, including during the 2008 financial crisis. He’s known for his analysis of economic trends and monetary policy as the basis for investment strategies and his ability to navigate various market conditions. He makes large, calculated bets based on this thinking, even when his theories are contrary to market momentum.
If Trump wins the presidential election, said Druckenmiller, it’s likely there will be a cascading “red sweep.”
“Personally I think anybody that votes for Trump is probably not going to change their ballot for a Democrat in Congress,” he added. If that scenario plays out, the economy might be stronger for about three to six months, he said, and he’s planning his investment strategy accordingly. It’s like the Fed will be far more hawkish than it would be under a Harris administration, he noted.
For Druckenmiller, however, he’s not voting for either candidate. He says he believes their industrial policies to be equally bad for free market capitalism, and Harris’ policies to be “worse” for business and regulation.
“But, frankly, I grew up in America with a certain model of a president—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan was one in my lifetime where there was a certain dignity and behavior in the office,” he said. “And I don’t judge anyone who wants to vote for Trump, but for me, it’s just a red line so I’ll probably write in someone when I get to the polls.”
