Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson said that he’ll pull his money out of the stock market if Kamala Harris wins the election in shocking remarks made during an interview on Fox Business.
Predicting that a Harris presidency with its corporate tax hikes and going after unrealized capital gains would spook the markets, the Paulson & Co. founder who is backing former President Donald J. Trump warned of market chaos if the left-wing Democrat is put into a position to implement her radical policies.
Paulson sat down with Liz Claman on Tuesday’s edition of “The Claman Countdown,” telling the host that if Harris wins, he’ll seek safer investment alternatives in anticipation of a market bloodbath. He famously bet against the subprime mortgage market in 2007, becoming a financial legend for the savvy move.
(Video Credit: Fox Business)
“You’re known for a big bet against subprime mortgages that really paid off, what is the next big bet that you see that’s similar to that?” Claman asked.
“Well, I would say it very much depends on who’s in the White House and who controls Congress,” Paulson responded. “I’d be very concerned if Harris is elected and pursues the tax plans and other economic plans that she articulated.”
“You alluded to the tax on unrealized gains,” he continued. “If they do implement a 25 percent tax on unrealized gains, that would cause mass sellings of almost everything, stocks, bonds, homes, art. I think it would result in a crash in the markets and an immediate, pretty quick recession.”
The host noted that some investors were also “very concerned” when Democrat Barack Obama was elected but that things turned out all right, that money was also pulled out after Trump won, and that it turned out to be a “big mistake” because the market rose during their presidencies.
“Would you pull your money?” Claman asked.
“It depends on the policy,” Paulson responded. “I think if Harris was elected, I would pull my money from the market. I’d go into cash, and I’d go into gold because I think the uncertainty regarding the plans they outlined would create a lot of uncertainty in the markets and likely lower markets.”
Claman again asked, “You would sell the equities you own?”
“The ones that are liquid, yes,” he said.
Paulson, who is worth nearly $4 billion, also predicted a market crash during an appearance on CNBC last week.
“They want to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent, they want to raise the capital gains tax from 20 percent to 39 percent and then they want to add a tax on unrealized capital gains of 25 percent,” Paulson told “Money Movers” host Sara Eisen on Friday. “I think if they implement those policies, we’ll see a crash in the markets, no question about it.”
The Harris plan to tax unrealized gains is such a recipe for disaster that even “Shark Tank” leftist Mark Cuban has warned her team against it.
“What I told them is if you tax unrealized gains, you’re going to kill the stock market, and it’s going to be the ultimate employment plan for private equity because companies are not going to go public because you can get whipsawed,” Cuban said during a recent CNBC appearance.
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