David Tepper Trashes Both Presidential Candidates

Head honcho at Miami based, $19 billion Appaloosa Management, David Tepper, trashes both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

From Forbes by Nathan Vardi

 

Billionaire David Tepper, arguably the top hedge fund manager and investor of his generation, said on Monday that the presidential election represented “a fairly bad choice at the top.”

A blunt speaker who generally likes to limit his appearances in the media spotlight, Tepper was candid in his assessment of the contenders for president, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in remarks to CNBC on Monday.

“You have one person with questionable judgment and the other person may be demented, narcissistic and a scumbag,” Tepper said. “Not saying which one is which, you can make your decision on that. So it makes it a very difficult choice.”

Tepper runs Appaloosa Management, a $19 billion hedge fund firm based in Miami. He has delivered fantastic returns to his investors over his career, particularly in the years since the financial crisis, a period that has been exceptionally difficult for most hedge funds managers and active investors like mutual funds.

david-teppersSpeaking on a telephone call shown on CNBC on Monday, Tepper said he is pretty cautious on the stock market right now, partly because of uncertainty over the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Tepper said financial markets would probably not react well to a Democratic sweep of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, since investors would fear a highly regulatory, anti-bank and anti-pharmaceutical agenda. Either way, Tepper said the ability of the stock market to move much higher is limited. Tepper is not supporting a presidential candidate, but said he plans to vote in his newly adopted home in Florida.

Tepper also said he is listening closely to the statements of monetary policy makers both in the U.S. and around the world, suggesting that they want to see steeper yield curves, or an increase in the gap between short term and long term bonds. Tepper added that his hedge fund does have a meaningful cash position and that he is currently more active in the bond market than the stock market.