Stan Druckenmiller trades and invests very differently to the way I do. But I’ve never come across an interview of the man where I didn’t learn something or have some lazy assumption tested.
It’s been a good week for Druck followers. Firstly, a bootleg copy of a presentation he made in January made it onto the internet:
Stan Druckenmiller Lost Tree Club speech
And then he sat down with BloombergBusiness for a 40-minute interview:
Stan Druckenmiuller Bloomberg interview (video)
If you don't have a spare hour, here's the CliffsNotes summary:
– US rates have been kept too low, too long. The current situation reminds him of 2004, that doesn’t mean an implosion is certain or imminent, but the risks are there. He’d rather the central bank raise a little early than a day too late. The financial crisis should have taught us something.
– He thinks oil will probably rise from here – as always, the cure for low prices is low prices. The oil market is responding to the lower price and removing future supply.
– The Euro is likely to continue to weaken against the US dollar. He’s never seen a major currency trend last less than 2 years, this one is 10 months old. He's still betting on it.
– Greece will ‘probably’ leave the Eurozone. It’s unlikely to cause contagion. ECB has the tools to deal with it. Would be sad for humanitarian reasons, but from a financial perspective it’s ‘way overanalysed and way overrated’.
– One potential trend he’s watching is China. The stockmarket is up 100%+ in a short period of time. Such sharp moves in stockmarkets tend to be predicative of major economic growth 6-9 months later. He’s not as certain in the case of China as he might be in a western market equivalent, but he thinks China could surprise to the upside. Every analysts’ forecast is currently pointing the other way.
– He likes some European stocks, particularly those benefiting from the lower Euro and those that might benefit if China does surprise to the upside. He mentioned Volkswagen, BMW and Airbus.