(Bloomberg) -- A sweep by Democrats in next week's U.S. election and the specter of higher taxes and inflation will weigh on equities in coming years, said billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller.
“We have borrowed so much that I'm skeptical that three to five years out that equities will give us any kind of return,” Druckenmiller said Tuesday at the Robin Hood Investors Conference, held virtually. Some stocks will perform better in the short term if there's effective Covid-19 vaccine and massive fiscal stimulus, he said.
Druckenmiller, 67, said beaten-down companies in the travel industry, including airlines and cruise lines, will be bought up by retail investors in the first quarter, while technology stocks pare some of their recent gains. In four years, he predicts inflation will top 4%, gold prices and bond yields will be higher, and the U.S. unemployment rate will be about 7%.
Read more: Druckenmiller Says Inflation Could Reach as High as 10%
There's growing sentiment among investors that Democrats will sweep to power after the Nov. 3 election, with former Vice President Joe Biden taking the White House and his party flipping the Senate. Biden's chances of winning the Electoral College stood at 88% on Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight's election forecasting model.
Druckenmiller, who has said previously that he profits the most during times of policy mistakes and distortions, also predicted that the next decade will mark a resurgence for macro managers. He said, for example, that he expects the Federal Reserve will be late in raising interest rates as inflation rises.
Dollar Short
After delivering his remarks, Druckeniller told some audience members that he was shorting the U.S. dollar, noting that foreign investors have been selling Treasuries over the past several months, according to people familiar with his comments.
A former chief strategist for billionaire philanthropist George Soros, Druckenmiller converted his hedge fund into Duquesne Family Office in 2010. His long-term returns of about 30% a year over three decades established him as one of the world's top money managers.
Druckenmiller's estimated net worth is $5.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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