The secret diary of Bill Gross
Macaskill on markets, October 2014
Jon Macaskill imagines how the star fund manager might have recorded the reasons behind his shock move from Pimco to Janus Capital. Item one: update his enemy list.
Pimco – the Tom and Jerry show
Abigail with attitude, October 2014
The announcement in late September that Bill Gross himself was leaving the firm caused uproar. Remember that in January, after El-Erian did a runner, Gross had tweeted defiantly: "Pimco’s fully engaged. Batteries 110 % charged. I’m ready to go for another 40 years!" A mere nine months later Gross had gone.
Corporate bond buyers loom larger
Macaskill on markets, May 2014
If Pimco did manage to score a $375 million profit by securing an allocation of $8 billion of the Verizon $49 billion bond that delivered roughly $2.5 billion of paper gains to investors after it was launched last September, then it was a rare bright spot in a tough year.
| Gross: Not braggin’ but what did we tell you. Today marks the beginning of the #Yellen #Fed. Frontend friendly for a long time. PIMCO (@PIMCO) Tweet, September 18, 2013 |
Bill Gross and Jeff Gundlach – The Bill and Jeff show
Sideways, July 2013
As Captain Bill Gross lashed himself to the wheel of the good ship Pimco, his counterpart Jeff Gundlach at DoubleLine took the opportunity to remind investors that he is normally right.
Can anything cut the power of the rating agencies?
September 2012
As Bill Gross wrote in one of his investment outlooks: "A certain portion of the investment world will always need [rating agencies] to ‘justify’ the quality of their portfolios. Governments and regulatory bodies say so – it’s the law. Firms such as Pimco with large credit staffs of their own can bypass, anticipate and front run all three, benefiting from their timidity and lack of common sense."
Gross concludes with classic flare: "Don’t bury them however; like vampires in the dead of the night they will outlast us all."
June 2012
Bill Gross of Pimco at times seems to be meandering from one major sovereign debt market to the next with warnings of impending doom that fail to translate into viable dealing opportunities.
Merk Investments plans to enter FX ETF market
March 2012
The move from Merk follows the launch of the Pimco Total Return ETF earlier this month, a development many believe might be a game changer for the actively managed ETF market.
Citi’s head of NA capital markets expects record May in investment grade
May 2011
Bill Gross, founder of Pimco, stated boldly this week that Treasuries were overvalued and would remain so for “years, if not decades”.
Banks take big risks in government bonds
March 2011
When Pimco’s Bill Gross declared that the UK gilts market was resting on a bed of nitroglycerine last February, dealers paid little attention because, even before the UK’s new coalition government brought forward its deficit reduction plans, they could already see Asian central banks diversifying into gilts as they moved away from peripheral European sovereigns.
"It’s not something we went into lightly. We can’t wake up and say: ‘We’ve been trading bonds and now we’re going to do equities’ Joe McDevitt, Pimco |
Pimco diversifies business lines
August 2010
Moves into active equities, risk management; Not bearish on fixed income, insist executives
FICC bonanza could soon be but a fond memory
Macaskill on markets, December 2009
Mohamed El-Erian and Bill Gross of bond fund Pimco have spent this year relentlessly promoting the idea of a New Normal era in the wake of the crisis of 2008. The defining features of their New Normal are lower growth, deleveraging and re-regulation.
Corporate financing: Too big to survive?
August 2009
Getting hundreds of different parties to agree on anything is fiendishly difficult and time-consuming. But in some cases company and lenders alike need to recognize earlier rather than later that their attempts are futile. When Pimco reneged on a debt swap agreement for GMAC last December, chief investment officer Bill Gross simply stated: "We are not good committee members. We have the interests of our clients more at heart than the interests of particular corporations or even the government." Struggling companies would do well to remember this.
| AAA? You were wooed, Mr Moody’s and Mr Poor’s, by the makeup, those six-inch hooker heels and a ‘tramp stamp’. Many of these good looking girls are not high-class assets worth 100 cents on the dollar Bill Gross of Pimco’s Total Return Fund gently questions the rating agencies approach to evaluating sub-prime mortgage-backed CDOs |
Credit outlook: Analysts turn their clocks back
February 2007
In January 2006, in reference to his investment outlook from the previous month, Bill Gross of Pimco wrote: “It seemed clear to me that 2006 would be a year of slower growth, perhaps 2%.” In the event, US growth was about 3%, and to give credit where it is due, it should be noted that some analysts, such as Blackrock’s Bob Doll, had forecast this correctly.
Pimco's Mohamed El-Erian: The emerging markets heavyweight
September 2003
"More than anybody else here, Mohamed's an ambassador," says Bill Gross. "It's not our function to be a banker, but he's more of a banker than anybody here."
April 2003
Fixed-income investing isn't an area normally associated with soul searching. can still wrongfoot us all, though. The Pimco managing director's March Investment Outlook takes a moment out from analysis of the bond markets to conduct a pensive and very personal meditation on religion, war and the author's mortality, with the help of a few carefully chosen quotations.
February 2003
Last year it came under attack, notably from key debt investors such as Pimco managing director Bill Gross, about its over-reliance on short-term funding to accumulate acquisitions and subsequently bolster annual earnings growth.
August 2002
Forget about bulls and bears. What you need to look out for are zebras and lions. More specifically, any zebra in its right mind should watch out for preying lions around the next corner. This is Bill Gross of Pimco's latest thesis on the role of hedge funds in the corporate bond markets.
Navigating the credit minefield
August 2002
Bill Gross of Pimco argues that rating agencies are now using corporate spreads to assess whether a company's debt should be downgraded. This, he says, plays into the hands of hedge funds, who deliberately short the bonds of companies on the verge of junk status, making the growing corporate downgrade rate a self-fulfilling prophesy.
August 2000
In the autumn of 1999 Allianz successfully completed its acquisition of Pimco, the leading US fixed income house, for $4.7 billion, thereby making waves across the industry, not least in the US. Pimco, under the leadership of star bond manager Bill Gross, was considered one of the leading lights of US fund management in a country which prides itself on pioneering the industry.