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PIMCO Sells $37 Billion In Treasuries, Adds Bunds, MBS And Cash As Total Return Fund Hits Record In December

Tyler Durden's picture




Congratulations Bill Gross: PIMCO's flagship Total Return Fund closed December at $202 Billion, representing $70 billion in net inflows, more than the combined inflows of the prior three years. December also saw a curious reshuffling of TRS' portfolio: Gross sold a whopping $34 billion in Treasuries, bringing the total to $64.6 billion from $101.7 billion in November. And while the bond manager surprisngly added $10 billion in MBS (now accounting for 17% of holdings) after selling $95 billion in MBS to the Fed in the previous 10 months, for the first time (probably ever) PIMCO's holdings of Treasuries and MBS accounted for less than half of total holdings.

As was previously noted, Bill Gross notably increased his non-US Developed country bond holdings by $22 billion to $32.3 billion, which is a direct result of his recent purchases of German Bunds.

PIMCO continues to add to cash, and with a cash balance of $16 billion ($2 billion more than November), the firm has the most dry powder since the beginning of the crisis in August of 2008.

Lastly, the firm's high yield holdings jumped by 100% to a record $4 billion in December. Is PIMCO slowly becoming a hedge fund?

A market value weighted analysis of PIMCO's maturity profile indicates that the firm's holdings in sub-1  year maturing securities jumped from 0% to 7%. At least we know one of the window dressers who bought $14 billion in Bills for the EOY effect. Intuitively, the bills will likely be promptly (or not so promptly) converted back into another security form, implying that Pimco's real cash position at the end of 2009 was likely in the $30 billion ballpark, accounting for 15% of assets (obviously this is merely speculation). Just what is Gross waiting for?

Notably, the largest increase in holdings from a maturity perspective occurred in the 5-10 year bucket, where PIMCO added $23 billion in new securities to close the year with holdings of $54.5 billion. The largest holdings continues to be the 1-3 maturity bucket with $84.7 billion, a $37 billion decline from November.




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Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:10 | Link to Comment dark pools of soros
dark pools of soros's picture

everytime i shuffle my 401k i end up stuffing moreand more into pimco

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:24 | Link to Comment Carl Marks
Carl Marks's picture

DITTO. Capital preservation beats playing the slots in Casino Loco every time.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:14 | Link to Comment buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

It sounds like, having shaken hands with the gubbermint, and having shaken down the fedres, he now intends to do battle with both.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:25 | Link to Comment Joe Sixpack
Joe Sixpack's picture

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer...

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:40 | Link to Comment buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

He likes benny b. because he puts out, that is to say that bb is promiscuous, sleazy, and available anytime. Pimpco calls up the fed chairman at 2 a.m., drunk, hey, you want to meet up at the bus station men's room for a quickie? [/grossness]

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:23 | Link to Comment Biff Malibu
Biff Malibu's picture

Hey what's that website where you can see the odds of certain things happening and bet on them?  One of them is Israel attacking Iran before such and such a date, etc?  I'd be curious to see what the odds are of Scott Brown victory...Thanks in advance.

Biff

 

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:27 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

not looking good for cockley.

http://www.intrade.com/

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:40 | Link to Comment Biff Malibu
Biff Malibu's picture

That's it!  Thank you my friend.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 22:56 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 20:21 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 17:32 | Link to Comment huntergvl
huntergvl's picture

israel gave the US one year from 12/31/09 to resolve IRAN....meanwhile, Israel is practicing air drills nationwide, weekly. They have numerous US warships with anti-missile, missile systems mored in their ports, they are practicing long range bombing runs and have 'the Kingdom's permission (sunnis of course) for unprecedented fly overs, they are still wrangling with Turkey, but they don't really need 'em. Netanyahu has already been to Moscow trying to get the Kremlin NOT to send new SAM systems to their boys in Iran, but I think he came back empty handed.

From the US, I'm not sure of the exact numbers but I believe we have about 60-70 thousand troops in Iraq (to the west) and when the extra 30k show up, we'll have about 60-70 thousand troops in Afganistan (to the west) and the 5th fleet carrier group near the Hormez Straight (to the south) Probably another two carrier groups nearby.

100% chance of Israel striking Iran and Black Gold, Texas Tea, Bloody Tar will be a double before you know it. I will be heavy in RIG prior to this catalyst. I am begging for the dollar to explode and oil and gold to tank.....I want both commodities bad, but I wanna 'em cheap.

Scott Brown was a done deal the day Kennedy gave up his seat.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:31 | Link to Comment Rainman
Rainman's picture

Pimco did a full press last fall. Large Brokers, knowing they were brimming over with busted out boomers hunkering down in cash, let Pimco in to present to their bigger number clients. Some brokers underwrote the Pimco managed fund fees for a year just to keep their crushed upper end clients happy.

Gotta' hand it to Gross on his timing. Looks like it worked.  Cash position is indeed interesting.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:45 | Link to Comment Zippyin Annapolis
Zippyin Annapolis's picture

LTCM was a powerhouse until they were so big in certain discreet markets (Russian bonds) that they Became the market and in turn the Prey not the Hunter--PIMCO must have the same potential nightmare waiting in the wings and they are dealing with it intelligently.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 20:30 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:45 | Link to Comment jm
jm's picture

Thank you.  This is why I love this site.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 22:09 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 08:59 | Link to Comment jm
jm's picture

Saw that.  I'm trying to figure out MBS as time allows re: pricing.

MBS securities are a series of bundled cashflow (with discounting) processes and the job is to determine present value of a series of cashflows at C1, C2, ...

There are so many complications, top of list is that they aren't Independent nor identically distributed. 

I'll stop here. Hats off to the guys that price these things.

Wed, 01/20/2010 - 11:00 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 09:07 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:59 | Link to Comment MarketTruth
MarketTruth's picture

REMEMBER: PimpCo hired ex-Fed (?possible manipulator and con man?) Kashkari, who at that time was living like the Unabomber in a small shack-like home way out in the boonies. This newfound lifestyle may have been in an effort to escape the mayhem reality of congressional questioning months earlier as a member of the Federal Reserve and then jumping ship from being part of the Fed.

As such, perhaps PimpCo now has some good inside info of the TBTF and both on and off books plan of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, one might want to take what PimpCo is doing with a higher regard to their possible inside info due to their recent hiring of Kashkari.

These are indeed interesting times.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:15 | Link to Comment Rainman
Rainman's picture

Yes. Bill is trying to one-up Lloyd with more paychecks to the inside guys.

Who says gubmint service doesn't have its rewards....??

Earnings be damned. It's all about getting further up into Uncle Sugar's ass before he gets diarrea...ha-ha-ha.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:02 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:04 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:14 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:32 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 19:36 | Link to Comment Rainman
Rainman's picture

I'd like to check the ingredients in those " Private Label " jumbos. Then throw out all written in Orange County, CA. No doubt a big chunk of it.

The really tasty well-priced jumbo MBS ain't going in an issue like this, no matter what they name it.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:58 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 20:10 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 20:10 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:10 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 01:51 | Link to Comment MarketTruth
MarketTruth's picture

OK, CORRECTION:

Being tired of helping doing G-d's Work, Mr. Kashkari left vampire squid Goldman Sachs to become a senior adviser to Hanky Panky Paulson in June 2006. Mr. Kashkari in October 2008 was tapped by Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the Treasury secretary, to run the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for banksters and thus with hundreds of billions of taxpayer's money to waste was nicknamed Mr. Kash n' Kari.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 20:16 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:29 | Link to Comment Rainman
Rainman's picture

Thanks 198847...this make sense.

The full faith and credit theme is a consistent one for the Pimco boyz.

Having ffandc in Timmy, Ben, Barney and Barack is a stretch......but it's all that's left now.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 21:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 03:07 | Link to Comment phaesed
phaesed's picture

great series of posts, thanks for the insight

Wed, 01/20/2010 - 11:37 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 22:29 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 08:55 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 23:36 | Link to Comment Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

PIMPco.

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 23:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 05:42 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 01/20/2010 - 11:59 | Link to Comment Anonymous
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