Inflationary pressures in the global economy are temporary and won’t be long-term problems, according to hedge fund investor Anthony Scaramucci.
The founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital said he believes rising prices are related to supply chain constraints and will ease once the bottlenecks are resolved.
“I don’t see the inflation being long term. I think this is a transitory aftermath of the crisis,” he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Wednesday.
In October, consumer prices in the U.S. surged by 6.2%, the biggest jump in more than 30 years.
Market experts are split on whether inflation is temporary or not. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, told CNBC last month that the Fed is losing credibility over its view that rising prices are transitory.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last week said the central bank uses the term to mean that the current increase in prices won’t leave a permanent mark on the economy.
“I think it’s probably a good time to retire that word and try to explain more clearly what we mean,” he said.
Scaramucci also said the Fed is likely to move slowly with regard to reducing the pace of its monthly bond purchases.
That’s in part because there are still uncertainties about additional Covid variants, he said, noting that many in the U.S. remain unvaccinated and that could lead to an “elongation” of the pandemic.
Additionally, there are deflationary forces in the form of technology and oil prices, he added.
Asked what trades he recommends, Scaramucci named cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and software company MicroStrategy.
“Those are two trades I don’t think we can live without,” he said.
He also said the “sluggishness” in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum are to do with profit taking, and that both are “set up nicely for the beginning of the year” when he expects more institutional investors to buy the coins.
