Paul Tudor Jones says Fed rate cuts are coming and this is what investors should do
- Hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones thinks the Federal Reserve will be cutting rates this year.
- He recommends bets on rates, gold and stocks and against the U.S. dollar.
- Markets expect the Fed to ease two or three times this year.
Investors should start adjusting their playbook to get ready for a looming Federal Reserve interest rate cut, billionaire hedge fund magnate Paul Tudor Jones said Wednesday.
The recommended strategy will entail a bet on falling rates and rising gold, as well as against the U.S. dollar and "at some point" stocks "at least initially," the Tudor Investment founder told Bloomberg News before an event sponsored by his nonprofit JUST Capital.
"I didn't think we'd have a first cut in 2019," Jones said. "I don't think we would have had that had we not gotten into this tariff battle, and so it has accelerated everything."
Indeed, markets are betting that the Fed enacts multiple rate cuts this year, with the first one likely in July, another in September and possibly a third as soon as December, according to futures pricing tracked by CME. That comes after a 2018 that saw the central bank hike its benchmark interest rate four times to a target range of 2.25%-2.5%.
Uncertainty over tariffs remains a key driver in the push for policy loosening, along with worries that the global economic slowdown will begin to have spillover effects in the U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed hard for a cut, telling CNBC earlier in the week that the Fed has been keeping monetary policy too tight.
Trump already has levied tariffs on Chinese goods and has threatened to tax all the country's imports. The president also engaged in some saber rattling over Mexico tariffs before backing off, saying the two sides had reached an agreement over stemming illegal immigration.
"The tariffs are a very material event," Jones said. "We haven't had any experience in modern times with them. So you have to readjust the entire outlook."
Jones sees an aggressive but short period of rate cuts. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy for the central bank, meets next week and could signal then its anticipated steps ahead.
Tudor Investment's main hedge fund gained about 3.8% year to date through May, according to Bloomberg. The fund's benchmark, the HFRI Macro Total asst-weighted index, is up 0.4% after falling 1.3% in May.