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Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones remains optimistic about the U.S.’s ability to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic but offered a warning about the economic prospects for America if the viral outbreak cannot be slowed a year from now.
“ ‘If a year from now, we are still in the same situation, we would be called a second depression. Just depends on whether unfortunately this goes to a year with this kind of a lockdown.’ ”
The 65-year old hedge-fund manager, founder of Tudor Investment Group, during an emotional interview on CNBC Monday morning said that he wanted to be able to do his part to help the U.S. recover from the deadly pandemic that could usher in an economic downturn that could only be compared against the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Read: Great Depression 2020? The unofficial U.S. jobless rate is at least 20%—or worse
“I want to be able to say in 20 years to my grandchildren when they ask me what did I do during the second depression, I would look them in the eye,” he said “and I want to tell them I did more than I ever thought I could do,” the prominent investor, who helped found the Robin Hood Foundation, an philanthropic organization he helped create to fight poverty in New York.
This is my chance “to serve,” Jones told CNBC.
The comments from the wealthy investor come as the stock market has the stock market has mostly shaken off the economic carnage that has been wrought by the worst public health crisis in more than a century.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.81% last week logged a 2.6%, while the S&P SPX, -0.48% advanced 3.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.13% has outpaced other major indexes, erasing its 2020 loss (up 1.7% year to date as of Friday) in the past week as it rose 6%. Stocks were trading lower to start Monday action.
Jones is widely credited with predicting, and profiting, from the stock-market crash on Oct. 19, 1987, which saw the Dow lose nearly 23% of its value, marking the largest one-day percentage decline for the blue-chip benchmark in its history.
Jones became known for trading everything from currencies to commodities. His record has featured middling returns and an exodus of billions of dollars from his hedge fund in more recent years. According to a Forbes list of billionaires, Jones boasts a net worth of $5.1 billion.
