Market Watch: "There's No Way the Stock Market Goes Up This Year - it Probably Goes Down Aggressively," Says Kyle Bass

Article by Mark DeCambre in Market Watch

Don’t expect stock-market gains in 2022 if the Federal Reserve sticks to its guns on rate hikes and tightening overall financial conditions, says Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management.

“With interest rates concurrently with quantitative tightening, there’s no way the stock market goes up this year — it probably goes down pretty aggressively, if they stick to that plan,” said Bass, during an interview with CNBC on Thursday late afternoon.

“I think,” the hedge-fund manager said, “they are going to have to back away from that plan, once they start hiking.”

Bass’s comment come as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite Index came under late-day pressure.

On Thursday, a reading of wholesale inflation — the producer-price index — receded but still held around 9.7% year-over-year annualized rate compared with a nearly 40-year high of 9.8% in the prior month. The PPI report came a day after the consumer-price index for December showed the headline, year-over-year inflation rate also up by a 40-year high at 7%.

During a confirmation hearing in front of a Senate finance panel, Fed governor Lael Brainard, tapped by President Joe Biden for the No. 2 post at the Fed, said the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee “has projected several hikes over the course of the year.”

“We will be in a position to do that as soon as asset purchases are terminated. And we will simply have to see what the data requires over the course of the year,” Brainard told the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

All that is expected to serve as a headwind to swaths of speculative assets because higher rates translate to higher borrowing costs and can erode the future earnings of companies, such as those in technology.

For his part, Bass sees the market facing significant challenges and doubts that the central bank will have the conviction to raise rates substantially without push back from the markets.

Bass is widely known as a hedge-fund manager who won big during ......

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