Bill Gross

Recent speculation that PIMCO enjoys trading by piggybacking on what the Fed will do in the future has hopefully not escaped our readers. As we highlighted in Pimco Offloads $40 Billion In Treasurys, As Frontrunning Fed Creates Billions Of Profits; Gross Does Not Expect QE 2 On Sept. 21; Pimco's "Fed Frontrunning" Tell Exposed, Mr. Gross has a knack of buying up on margin either MBS (ahead of QE1) or USTs (ahead of QE Lite), precisely before the points when there is a big marginal push in prevailing prices higher. The fact that he did not do so in the last month confirmed to us at least that the Fed was not going to engage in QE2 on September 21 (which turned out to be the case). Yet it is one thing to speculate based on indirect evidence, and something totally different to hear Mr. Gross on primetime TV essentially validating that he just may have an inside line to the Federal Reserve Board. In all the commotion over yesterday's FOMC announcement, some may have missed the following line uttered by the Newportbeachian: "What is important going into November is the staff forecast for economic growth for the next 12-18 months. Our understanding is that the Fed is about to downgrade their forecast from 3% down to 2%." At which point the CNBC anchors conveniently confirm that Mr. Gross just disclosed something which is completely non-public: "We don't have that forecast yet, right Steve?.. We won't get that for 3 weeks Erin that's when it comes out with the minutes of this meeting." Well, we won't, but Mr. Gross, who manages $1.2 trillion in debt, almost as much as the entire Federal Reserve, sure seems to already have access to it.

In his latest letter, Pimco's Bill Gross explains why neither he, nor his fund, are some bloodthirsty vampire squid, monopolizing the bond market: all he wants is the greater social good, which can only be perpetuated by endless government subsidizes of the housing ponzi. What follows is truly entertaining: "Having grown accustomed to a housing market aided and abetted by Uncle Sam, the habit cannot be broken by going cold turkey into the camp of private lending. The cost would be enormous in terms of yields – 300–400 basis points higher than currently offered, crippling any hopes of a housing-led revival to the economy. And why do I and PIMCO support this view? Is it some self-interested, money-making plot to allow us to dominate the bond market? Hardly. Any investor would recognize that it’s better to have a 6 or 7% yield instead of 3–4%, so it would be better for PIMCO to let the Administration flood the private market with non-guaranteed, private mortgage product and let us vultures feast on the pickins. No, the self interest rests on “Que” Street. If the housing market continues to be government dominated, then the points from originations and the fees for private insurance would all of a sudden disappear. The vested interest lies on Wall Street, not Newport Beach or Main Street." Of course, should the government go cold turkey on the housing ponzi, we leave it up to our readers to conclude what would happen to Pimco's over $1 trillion in rate exposure: here's a hint - a 300-400 bps drop in prevailing spreads will mean game over for the magnanimous Mr. Gross overnight. So yes, what's good for everyone (even as nobody really cares about rates with pretty much everyone paying down, not raising debt), just happens to be very, very, very, very good for Pimco. q.e.d.

During the live hearing, Bill Gross stated the obvious: private players in the MBS space will never participate as long as long as the government accepts zero down payments. Of course, he is absolutely correct - the only entity stupid enough to gamble with its seemingly endless resources in such a manner is the US government. And in doing so, it continues to widen the schism between public and private interests, and makes the return of private businesses in this most important segment of US credit markets an impossibility. In fact, Gross urged a move one step further, with the full nationalization of the GSEs - as the GSEs are nationalized now in all but writing, this would be logical. Alas, the fact that US Debt to GDP would jump from 90% to 140% may make this proposal a little difficult to implement.

In an interview with the FT, Pimco's Bill Gross flatly warned the government, in advance the housing finance conference that will begin deciding the fate of the GSEs next Tuesday, that unless Fannie and Freddie bonds retain their government guarantees, he would cease purchasing GSE debt. On the other hand, Gross may have overplayed his card: he already took the government for the proverbial ride, loading up the flagship TRS fund with GSE debt in early 2009 and riding the surge higher for the entire year, then selling virtually everything: TRS has just 16% of its $234 billion in AUM in mortgage securities as per the latest Pimco Fund update. Nonetheless, the Newport Beach bond pundit's warning is a clear shot across the bow indicating just who is the primary force in GSE decision-making, right after the Treserve.

After entertaining some potty humor for a page or two in his latest brief, Bill Gross conducts an interesting thought experiment in which he presents an anti-Malthusian economic hypothesis, which states that predicated by declining global population growth, the global economy will be unable to grow into its full potential, regardless of size (or usage) of any new trillions of stimulus. "This is not the Malthusian thesis, which maintained that at some point the world would run out of food to satisfy a growing population; it is an assertion that capitalism depends upon final demand and that if there ever comes a time when population growth slows, then the world’s most efficient economic system will be tested. If anything, my thesis is anti-Malthusian in its assertion that there will always be enough production to satisfy a growing population, but perhaps not enough new people to sustain growing production." Looks like all the Ph.D.'s from reputable universities just got a new challenge: look for many papers in peer reviewed publications (and we were wondering for a second why Gross used so much toilet humor initially) trying to refute this major kink supporting the new normal, and refuting a "special case" of Keynesianism, which of course was not relevant when the economist was alive, but is becoming the reality all too quickly. Could something as simple as a condom be the cog in the wheel that dethrones the religion of John Maynard Keynes?

The master book talker, does what he is a master in - talks his book. In other news, as BP has about $24.9 billion left in debt, could all American Pension funds purchase it post haste, so that a collapse of BP would not only cause widespread pension destruction, but yet another US taxpayer funded bailout. One thing that is (virtually) certain- the Chicago TRS is selling each and very BP CDS, just cause, you know, they like to live dangerously.

How much debt is too much? How little growth is too little? No one knows for sure. Economic historians such as Kenneth Rogoff point out that at debt levels of 80-90% of GDP, a country’s real growth becomes stunted, and the sixteen tons become more and more difficult to bear. Greece is well past that standard, which is one of the reasons why lenders are balking at extending a private-market helping hand. When not only government but corporate and household debt is included, the waters become murkier, because historical statistics are less available, and corporations are more multinational than ever before. Common sense observation tells you, though, that the debt super cycle trend in the U.S. shown in the following chart is reaching unsustainable proportions and that the “growth” required to service it if real interest rates were ever to go up instead of down would be insufficient. That is why lenders balked 18 months ago during events surrounding the Lehman liquidity crisis and why they’re beginning to balk once again. Too much debt/too little growth makes for a “three will get you two” moment, and they refuse to extend credit under those circumstances. - Bill Gross

In case you needed confirmation of the wipe out you are seeing on your monitors, here comes Bill Gross. Just headlines for now via Reuters:

• GROSS: FINANCIAL MARKETS EXHIBITING "MINI RELAPSE" OF FLIGHT TO LIQUIDITY
• GROSS: HEDGE FUNDS AND OTHER LEVERAGED POSITIONS NOW LIQUIDATING TO PRESERVE CAPITAL

So you mean Prime Brokers allowing 5x leverage for 130/30s was actually a bad idea?

There’s a surfeit of instructionals on the secret to investing, ranging from Investing for Dummies to The Intelligent Investor. My bookshelves at home are full of them, and I’ve learned or at least absorbed something from many. Experience is a great teacher, but the foundation of civilization, and too investing, is also dependent upon the capsulization of the experiences of others and that is where books have played a formative part in my own career. Still, there’s never been a book called “Common Sense for Dummies,” which would be required reading in my investment class if either existed. That’s an oxymoron to begin with, though, which points to the obvious – that common sense cannot be taught. It’s like sex appeal – you either have it or you don’t, although both are subject to relative judgments of the observer. What is commonsensical to one investor may seem ludicrous to someone else. And even in cases where history has validated the irrationality of one investment idea or another – the subprime frenzy being perhaps the most recent – there are questions of timing. Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short is not only a tale of the validation of common sense, but of its delicate shelf life. Most of Lewis’s heroes were almost all closed out by their own clients before their logic blossomed and their profits multiplied. - Bill Gross

They gave us the “Minsky Moment.” Its sequel was “Shaking Hands with the Government,” followed by “the New Normal.” As you may know, these are Pimco’s pithy phrases used to describe the investing world as they view it. The first two were notably accurate narratives of what was occurring and how investors should respond. The jury remains out on “The New Normal” since it is a longer term prognostication. Why are we focusing on the etymology employed at Pimco? Unbeknownst to us, in his March commentary, Bill Gross unveiled the latest catch phrase, “Unicredit Bond Market.” Gross explained that “If core sovereigns such as the U.S., Germany, U.K., and Japan ’absorb’ more and more credit risk, then the credit spreads and yields of these sovereigns should look more and more like the markets that they guarantee.” Anyone who has been paying attention in any financial market the past two days will recognize that this trend, which has been developing around the globe over the past several months, has come home to roost in the United States as the 10 year swap spread has inverted. - Mike O'Rourke, BTIG

PIMCO's boss says the world's biggest bond fund remains underweight on Gilts, and to avoid the UK as the "bed of nitroglycerin must be delicately handled." Bill's three conditions for whether a country will be attacked by bond vigilantes:

1) Can a country issue its own currency and is it acceptable in global commerce?

2) Are a country's initial conditions (outstanding debt, structural deficit, growth rate, demographic balance) moderate and can it issue future public debt as a substitute for private credit?

3) Can a country's central bank be allowed to reflate via low or negative real interest rates without creating a currency crisis.

The conclusion is not pleasant for Greece. And some very troubling observations for the US, and how the just passed healthcare reform is one big deficit-reducing lie.

Shaking hands with the government was a brilliant strategy in 2009 when it was assumed that governments had an infinite capacity to leverage themselves. But what if they didn’t? What if, as Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have pointed out in their book, “This Time is Different,” our modern era was similar to history over the past several centuries when financial crises led to sovereign defaults or at least uncomfortable economic growth environments where real GDP was subpar based on onerous debt levels – sovereign and private market alike. What if – to put it simply – you couldn’t get out of a debt crisis by creating more debt? - Bill Gross

In a pathological example of nearly clinical hypocrisy, PIMCO's Bill Gross yesterday dedicated 4 meandering essay pages full of polemical ramblings to the characterization of America's sad political and financial hybrid reality. Yet the billionaire's saddest message is precisely the self-deluded aggrandizement that Gross decries yet willfully takes advantage of every single day. Because after bemoaning the fate of America's broken political system, and ridiculing the Federal Reserve's kleptocratic-friendly ways, it is precisely people like the PIMCO chairman that are most guilty of taking advantage of every single loophole presented to them, even as they criticize just this activity. This, beyond all the petty trivialities that Gross discusses, is precisely what is most wrong with America - at this point everyone, and especially Mr. Gross, knows too well that the wealth transfer from the middle class to the elite 1% of society will not end until such time as America itself defaults. Yet having the very people that benefit the most from this, write non-apologetic letters in which they criticize the very system that lets them walk home every day with an extra zero in their bank account simply due to their special connections within this very broken system, is beyond reproach.

"Rage, rage, against this conclusion if you wish, but the six-month rally in risk assets- while still continuously supported by Fed and Treasury policymakers - is likely at its pinnacle. Out, out, brief candle." - Bill Gross, PIMCO

"What is critical to recognize is that both California and the U.S., as well as numerous global lookalikes such as the U.K., Spain, and Eastern European invalids, are in a poor position to compete in a global economy where capitalism is morphing from its decades-long emphasis on finance and levered risk taking to a more conservative, regulated, production-oriented system advantaged by countries focusing on thrift and deferred gratification. The term “capitalism” itself speaks to “capital”—the accumulation of it and the eventual efficient employment of it—for growth in profits and real wages alike." - Bill Gross