Star investor Jeff Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, predicted this week that the Federal Reserve won't raise interest rates anytime soon, as Fed Chair Janet Yellen opposes an increase.
Those who believe Yellen is signaling an aggressive posture on boosting rates have it wrong, he told
CNBC. "I don't really hear Janet Yellen saying that. I hear a lot of her associates saying that," Gundlach said.
"She seems to be more concocting excuses why not to raise interest rates. I don't think Janet Yellen wants to raise interest rates anytime soon, and I don't think there much of a reason to raise interest rates."
Editor’s Note: Dow Predicted Will Hit 60,000 — Buy These 4 Stocks Now
And why doesn't Yellen want to lift rates? Because of her focus on the labor market, Gundlach argued.
While non-farm payrolls have risen more than 200,000 for six of the last seven months, wage gains are paltry. Average hourly earnings rose only 2.1 percent in the 12 months through August. Wages and salaries totaled 43 percent of GDP in the second quarter, down from 51.7 percent in 1970.
"This is why Janet Yellen doesn't want to raise rates," Gundlach said in a webcast Tuesday,
Business Insider reported.
"It seems tough that with so many workers losing purchasing power on a year-over-year basis, you could raise short-term interest rates."
Meanwhile, two prominent professors argue that the Fed is too beholden to the financial institutions it oversees.
"While the Fed is largely independent of politicians, it is intimately connected, and even answerable, to the financial institutions that it is supposed to regulate," Stephen Haber, a political science professor at Stanford, and Ross Levine, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in
The Wall Street Journal.
Editor’s Note: Dow Predicted Will Hit 60,000 — Buy These 4 Stocks Now
© 2025 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.