Guggenheim’s Minerd says Fed tightening plan looks like ‘overkill,’ sees ‘season of pain’ ahead

Published Wed, May 18 20225:54 PM EDTUpdated Wed, May 18 20226:09 PM EDT

Kevin Stankiewicz @in/kevinstankiewicz @kevin_stank

The stock market has more room to fall if the Federal Reserve continues on the hawkish policy path it's recently embarked on, Guggenheim's Scott Minerd said Wednesday, suggesting the U.S. central bank is headed toward "overkill." "Given the aggressive posture of the Federal Reserve, we're going to be meaningful lower this year in stocks before we find a bottom because the Fed has made it clear they do not have a 'put' on the stock market," Minerd said in an interview on "Closing Bell: Overtime." "Unless we get something that is threatening to financial stability, they seem quite comfortable to watch the stock market go down as long as, in their mind, it's an orderly decline," he added. Minerd's comments Wednesday reflect a stark change in outlook since April , when he told CNBC he thought equities could rally over the next year before a recession hits the U.S. economy. The chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners said new data and information has prompted a change in his view. The core of Minerd's argument is the Fed is overestimating the so-called neutral rate — basically, the level where short-term interest rates would neither restrict growth nor fuel it — at a time when the U.S. economy is showing signs that it's cooling off. "We would expect the neutral rate to be coming down pretty aggressively over the course of the summer. By the time we get to the mid part of the year, maybe into the third quarter, you would think the appropriate policy rate would be somewhere in the area of 1.75%," Minerd said. The Fed's benchmark interest rate is expected to reach a target rate of 1.75% to 2% in late July, according to the CME Group's FedWatch . That implies 50-basis point hikes at the Fed's next two policy meetings, as it tries to stamp out the hottest inflation since the early 1980s. "I think at that point, the Fed will be in overkill. The weakness in the economy will dominate, and we could be setting ourselves up for a season of pain here, especially going into September and October," said Minerd, who added he believes the U.S. economy will not enter a recession this year. Minerd said he thinks the Fed should be learning from the years after World War II, when supply shortages and manufacturing disruptions related to the war contributed to hot inflation. "Rather than taking my advice on policy — which is look, let's repeat the 1940s. Stop expanding the balance sheet, hold the balance sheet stable, and let the … inflation slowly burn itself out and let the market stabilize — they've taken a much more aggressive posture," Minerd said. "They're saying, 'Nope. We're going to shrink the balance sheet, raise rates, and we're going to crush inflation,' and that's the formula for a market accident, and I think if they play this game long enough, we will end up there." — Watch CNBC's full interview with Guggenheim's Scott Minerd above.