- DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach is flagging risks in the rising U.S. deficit.
- “People are starting to realize that the deficit and debt are totally out of control,” Gundlach says on CNBC’s “Halftime Report” Tuesday.
- Gundlach also flagged trouble in the corporate bond market, which “is so much worse today than it was in 2006.”
U.S. debt has climbed to an alarming level, according to DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach.
“People are starting to realize that the deficit and debt are totally out of control,” Gundlach said on CNBC’s “Halftime Report” Tuesday.
Gundlach said the “main reason” the yield curve between 3-year and 5-year Treasury notes is steepening is the ballooning deficit. Last year, U.S. national debt increased by more than 6% of GDP, he said. An even bigger deficit could mean trouble in a recession, said Gundlach, whose DoubleLine has $130 billion in assets under management.
Gundlach — sometimes known as the “bond king” — also flagged trouble in the corporate bond market, which got “dragged down” in the “economic mess that we’re in.”
“The corporate bond market is so much worse today than it was in 2006,” he said.
Among Gundlach’s concerns: a corporate bond market that has tripled in size, and a BBB-rated bond market that is now bigger than the junk-bond market. Using leverage ratios alone, “45%, not just of the BBB but the entire corporate bond market would be junk right now,” he said, citing figures from Morgan Stanley.