Gundlach: Warsh Won't Be the 'Easy Money' Fed Chair Markets Hoped For

DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh struck a more hawkish tone than many investors expected, signaling less appetite for easy monetary policy.

"He is absolutely telling you that he plans on delivering on price stability. So that means... we're not going to have such easy money policy as everybody thought maybe Chairman Warsh would do back in the first quarter of this year, when everyone was counting on rate cuts," Gundlach said on CNBC's "Closing Bell." "He doesn't sound like that today at all."

The comments came after the Fed's policy statement declared that "the Committee will deliver price stability," language that echoed a theme Warsh repeatedly returned to during his press conference. He reiterated that the Fed is committed to bringing inflation back down to 2%, a level it hasn't been at for a half decade, a fact he lamented.

"The commitment to deliver is strong, unanimous, and unambiguous, and that's I think an important message we've missed for five years, and we're going to fix that," Warsh said.

The tone was perhaps stiffer on inflation than investors and economists hoped for from President Donald Trump's handpicked nominee for the role. The previous chair, Jerome Powell, faced a barrage of attacks from Trump for keeping rates too high.