Guggenheim's global chief investment officer, Scott Minerd, believes the media and telecommunications industry could start to feel financial pain in the coming year between rising rates and lopsided balance sheets.

"If I'm correct, we can't withstand this kind of pressure," Minerd told CNBC's "Squawk Box" at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Our work shows that once you get short-term rates to a level of 2.75 percent to 3 percent, the debt service cost for corporate America — which has become so highly levered — will become so great that it will start to impinge on free cash flow for a large percentage of corporations."

Minerd, who expects the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy further in 2019, said the rising cost of borrowing could afflict media and telecommunications companies in a disproportionate way.