Free Republic

Fears that Britain may be heading for its first sovereign debt crisis since the 1970s hit a new intensity after Pimco, the world's biggest bond house, declared that it is starting to sell off its holdings of gilts.The American investment group said it will be a net seller of UK Government bonds this year, at the very point when the Bank of England brings its £200bn programme of purchases to and end and the Treasury attempts to raise unprecedented sums through the capital markets. The move is doubly embarrassing for the Government because the head of Pimco's European investment team...

In a new 2010 outlook, via Bloomberg, PIMCO's Paul A. McCulley reveals his firm's uber-cautious stance towards bonds, amid the massive borrowing underway in the UK and the US. ----- PIMCO Managing Director Paul McCulley leads the firm’s quarterly Cyclical Economic Forums, in which investment professionals from around the world gather to discuss the outlook for the global economy and financial markets over the next six to 12 months. In the following interview, Mr. McCulley discusses the results of the December Forum and its implications for PIMCO’s investment strategy in 2010. Q: PIMCO recently developed its outlook for 2010. What...

Hmmmm.... Someone smelled a bit of smoke yesterday, but the real fire sale was this morning..... To put this in perspective that issue traded nearly 8 million shares today, against a normal volume of 1/10th that. PHK is a closed-end PIMCO fund. What's in there? As of September 30th, Pimco disclosed the holdings - have a look.... There's a pretty good mix of "stuff", including a fair bit of mortgage-related exposure. What would prompt "someone" to unload nearly $80 million bucks worth of this issue more-or-less "all at once" earlier today - and with what looks like a market order...

Pimco's Gross calls top of rally in risky assets Almost all assets appear overvalued, bond investment giant warns By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Bill Gross, managing director at fixed-income giant Pimco, called the top of the recent rally in stocks and other risky assets on Tuesday. "The six-month rally in risk assets -- while still continuously supported by Fed and Treasury policymakers -- is likely at its pinnacle," Gross wrote in his monthly market commentary. The U.S. economy and most other developed economies became too reliant on rising asset prices, rather than the production of goods and...

PIMCO's Gross: U.S. at risk of losing top AAA rating By Jennifer Ablan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund, warned on Thursday the United States will eventually lose its top AAA credit rating, a fear that had already spooked financial markets on Thursday and could keep the dollar, stocks and bonds under heavy selling pressure. The United States will face a downgrade in "at least three to four years, if that, but the market will recognize the problems before the rating services -- just like it did today," Gross told Reuters. Gross, the...

Geithner's Heist America Plan is receiving words of self-serving praise from Pimco's Bill Gross. Indeed, Geithner’s Non-Recourse Gift Keeps on Giving to Bill Gross. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan to rid banks and markets of devalued assets may be a boon for Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross. The plan may reward investors with 20 percent annual returns on “really toxic” mortgages bought at 45 cents on the dollar by allowing them to borrow six times their money with “non-recourse” government-backed debt, New York-based Credit Suisse Group AG analysts Carl Lantz and Dominic Konstam wrote in a March 27 report....

Bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co said the Federal Reserve needs to double its balance sheet up to $6 trillion to replace the amount of wealth destroyed in the United States, an executive said on Thursday. Liabilities on the Fed's balance sheet should rise to between $5 trillion and $6 trillion later this year amid the financial crisis that roiled global markets, said Brian Baker, chief executive Pimco Asia Ltd. "Right now, the Fed has spent about $3 trillion. We believe there has to be further stimulus policies put in place," Baker told Reuters. The central bank's aggressive unconventional policy...

He might be on the Forbes list of billionaires with a net worth of $1.3 billion and he may appear frequently in the financial media, but Pimco's Bill Gross doesn't have a grasp of how much "trillions" are. Gross recently called for a massive government intervention or face certain catastrophe. "This economy requires support from the government, a check from the government in some form or fashion in the trillions as opposed to the hundreds of billions," Gross said to Bloomberg TV on February 5. "And I think President Obama was right - there is a potential catastrophe if Washington...

2008 was the year when the United States led the charge of bailout nations, lending and literally guaranteeing trillions of dollars of private liabilities in an effort to avoid the advent of another Great Depression. Nothing, with the possible exception of George Bush’s IQ was the subject of greater debate. To begin with, the rescue plan itself was controversial even amongst its implementers: Congress voted against it, then a week later voted for it; Treasury Secretary Paulson designated it “TARP” (short for “Troubled Asset Relief Program”), then a month later did a 180°, refusing to buy subprime mortgages and asserting...

The world's biggest bond fund manager anticipates that Barack Obama will be the next U.S. president, and warns that he will face stern economic circumstances. Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co, or PIMCO, manages the $130 billion PIMCO Total Return Fund. In his monthly "Investment Outlook" letter for July, he says the next president will inherit a swelling budget deficit that's likely to hit $1 trillion during his administration... Gross's July investment outlook letter was addressed to Obama, as if he had been elected. "Dear President Obama," the letter began. "You have inherited a mess. Your...

LIKE Noah building his ark as thunderheads gathered, Bill Gross has spent the last two years anticipating the flood that swamped Bear Stearns about 10 days ago. As manager of the world’s biggest bond fund and custodian of nearly a trillion dollars in assets, Mr. Gross amassed a cash hoard of $50 billion in case trading partners suddenly demanded payment from his firm, Pimco. And every day for the last three weeks he has convened meetings in a war room in Pimco’s headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., “to make sure the ark doesn’t have any leaks,” Mr. Gross said. “We...

Gross-subprime mortgage mkt a "$1 trillion problem" Mon Nov 5, 2007 9:06 AM ET NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will have to cut its federal funds target rate to prevent a dramatic fall in housing prices in the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown, the manager of the world's biggest bond fund said on Monday. The turmoil in the risky subprime mortgage-market is a "$1 trillion problem ... There are $1 trillion worth of subprimes and Alt-As and basically garbage loans," said Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. or Pimco, on CNBC...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Falling home prices will dominate Federal Reserve policy for the next several years, despite "false hopes" of a bottom in housing, "faux economic strength" or worries about the dollar, says Bill Gross, managing director of Pacific Investment Management Co. The Fed will probably cut the federal funds rate from 4.75% to 3.75% within the next six to 12 months, Gross wrote in his monthly outlook. Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pimco is one of the largest managers of fixed-income assets in the world, with more than $650 billion in assets under management. Read Gross' outlook. Policymakers will have to...

"The rich are different from you and me," wrote Fitzgerald and I suppose they are, but the differences – they wax and wane with the economic tides. Gilded ages come, go, and are reborn on the monsoon cloudbursts of seemingly intangible forces such as globalization, innovation, and favorable tax policy. For the rich to be truly rich and multiply their numbers, they need help. Adept surfers they may be, but like all riders, the wealthy need a seventh wave that allows them to preen their skills and declare themselves masters of their own universe, if only for a moment in...

Investment Outlook Bill Gross | April 2007 Grim Reality Download PDF E-Mail Alerts Download Audio Subscribe to Podcast Podcast Instructions Problems Downloading? Life, it seems, has become one giant reality show – or is it vice versa? Which is truth and which is the illusion or have both simply morphed into a uni-consciousness that feeds off information from different computers – one the living kind with two arms and two legs, the other more stationary with a plasma and keyboard. My Apple screensaver for instance features a stunning series of pictures of our galaxy and beyond, from detailed midnight...

Tom Barrack is hardly the only investment pro anxious about the U.S. housing market. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concerns, as have many Wall Street prognosticators who scan key stats like housing starts for signs of trouble. Pimco, the big California bond specialist, isn’t sitting around waiting for official numbers; it’s digging up its own. “We felt that [a housing slowdown] was going to have a major, economywide impact,” says mortgage chief Scott Simon, who is predicting that the overall residential market will cool noticeably next year. “Being able to tell when it occurred was really important.”For that...

Home   |   Site Map   |   Contact Us US Europe Australia Singapore     Products & Services     Company Overview     Press Center     Bond Resources     Career Information     Content Archive     PIMCO Foundation    Download PDF E-Mail Alerts Investment Outlook Bill Gross | May/June 2004 Circus Game I’m up on a tightwireOne side’s ice and one is fireIt’s a circus game with you and me“Tight Rope” by Leon Russell  Investing’s a circus you know. Messrs. Barnum & Bailey probably wouldn’t have had a clue as to what I’m talking about but the metaphor is more than apt. Every big top, you see, has a...

Long California fund probe expectedAttorney general vows to review brokerages, hedge funds By Jonathan Burton, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 6:45 PM ET Jan. 7, 2004 SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- California's fraud investigation of three leading U.S. mutual fund companies is likely to implicate more investment firms based on collaboration with other states, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Wednesday. "We're starting here," Lockyer said in an interview with CBS MarketWatch. "But it's quite likely that it could broaden not only to mutual funds but to investment banking and other financial services, hedge funds and others." In the interview, Lockyer acknowledged that...

=DJ PIMCO Warns On Global Risks Facing Corporate Bond Market . By Christine Richard Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Changes in global capital flows, rules-based investing and higher balance sheet leverage have increased the risk of investing in corporate bonds, but these risks are being vastly underestimated by investors, according to recent research published by PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund with $304 billion in assets under management. Key among those risks is the $500 billion U.S. current account deficit which is being offset by foreign investors lending $2 billion a day to U.S. borrowers, PIMCO managing director...

Looking ahead, we think the Bush Administration proposal to reduce or eliminate the tax investors pay on dividend income would have a positive effect on the stock market. There are several important reasons why… 1. It would result in a revaluation of the stock market, as the after-tax value of dividends would increase. Many economists and analysts use a dividend discount model and, as corporations are encouraged to increase their payout ratio, the valuation of the overall market could be significantly enhanced. 2. It would encourage more companies to pay dividends, which would in turn increase the popularity of their...