Finance
DoubleLine’s Gundlach says his base case is one rate cut this year, two max
Jeffrey Gundlach speaking at the 2019 SOHN Conference in New York on May 6, 2019.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said Wednesday he expects only one rate cut for 2025 — two reductions at most — as the Federal Reserve patiently awaits incoming data to assess the state of the labor market and inflation.
“Maximum two cuts this year. And I mean maximum, I’m not predicting two cuts. I just think that’s the most you can possibly think about,” Gundlach said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “At the present moment, if you had made me pick a number, I would say now one cut would be the base case and maximum two.”
The central bank kept interest rates unchanged Wednesday after three consecutive cuts to end 2024. Fed Chair Jerome Powell emphasized that the central bank is in no hurry to adjust its policy stance, particularly as the economy remains strong.
“It’s going to be a slow process to get to a hurdle to cut rates again. … I don’t think you’re going to see a cut at the next Fed meeting,” Gundlach said. “He’s obviously focused on the stability in the unemployment rate right now in terms of not feeling a need to cut rates.”
The notable fixed income investor thinks long-duration Treasury yields have more room to rise. He noted that the benchmark 10-year rate has increased about 85 basis points since the Fed cut rates for the first time last year.
“I think that rates have not peaked on the long end,” he said. “I think rates will have another move up on the long end.”
Gundlach cautioned against owning high-risk assets right now because of his view on long-term interest rates and his observation that valuations are high.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks next to SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt Room in the White House in Washington on Jan. 21, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
OpenAI is in talks to raise up to $40 billion in a funding round that would lift the artificial intelligence company’s valuation to as high as $340 billion, CNBC has confirmed.
Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank would lead the round, contributing between $15 billion and 25 billion, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be named because the talks are ongoing. SoftBank would surpass Microsoft as OpenAI’s top backer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the talks.
Part of the funding may be used for OpenAI’s commitment to Stargate, a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle that was introduced by President Donald Trump last week, the sources said. The plan calls for billions of dollars to be invested in U.S. AI infrastructure.
OpenAI was last valued at $157 billion by private investors. In late 2022, the company launched its ChatGPT chatbot and kicked off the boom in generative AI. OpenAI closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October, gearing up to aggressively compete with Elon Musk’s xAI, as well as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Anthropic.
Meanwhile, Chinese startup lab DeepSeek is blowing up in the U.S, presenting fresh competition to OpenAI. DeepSeek saw its app soar to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings this week and roiled U.S. markets on reports that its powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of U.S. competitors.
At an event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday hosted by OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman said DeepSeek is “clearly a great model.”
“This is a reminder of the level of competition and the need for democratic Al to win,” he said. He said it also points to the “level of interest in reasoning, the level of interest in open source.”
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