PIMCO

The confirmation of George Soros ETF gold sale has again garnered much media comment. Soros’ $28 billion fund decreased its holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust, the exchange traded fund. Soros had bought gold to protect against possible deflation, though his fund now believes there is a reduced chance of such a condition, the Wall Street Journal recently said, “citing people close to the matter”. Should Soros and his fund think that inflation is now a greater risk than deflation then it is curious that they would sell all their ETF holdings. It is also curious as Soros is on record regarding having serious concerns regarding the outlook for the euro and the dollar and the dollar as reserve currency of the world. There is of course the precedent of other hedge fund managers , such as David Einhorn, who have also sold their gold ETF holdings but bought physical bullion in allocated accounts due to a concern about counter party and systemic risk. This would allow Soros to discreetly accumulate bullion away from the public and media spotlight that result from SEC filings. Paulson & Co., the $36 billion hedge fund founded by John Paulson kept its largest holding - $4.41 billion in the SPDR Gold Trust. Paulson’s belief in gold is seen in the fact that those who buy his fund can have their stakes denominated in gold rather than in dollars, meaning the value of their investment rises and falls with the price of bullion – lessening exposure to the dollar. Paulson, unlike Soros, is on record as having purchased gold to protect against inflation. PIMCO, the largest bond fund in the world, are also increasingly allocating funds to gold in their global equities portfolio. “The largest position in [our] fund is gold, which we think is a very good form of protection against what can go wrong,” said Anne Gudefin, PIMCO’s global equities portfolio manager, told Fortune magazine May 12.

And now a little follow up into Pimco's TRF holdings and real risk exposure. In addition to the previously noted Pimco holdings in Euro$ position (delayed, as the fund does not disclose actual holdings on a monthly basis), below we present the fund's positions that contribute to a substantial negative dollar duration position, primarily contained in various swaps and swaptions. Whereas the fund's euro$ positions are primarily to hedge rate bets in the future, they do add to the fund's dollar duration, and for practical purposes would not lead to a negative DWE number in the TRF. The contributors to negative duration can actually be found in PIMCOs various synthetic holdings, primarily of the swap and swaption variety as seen on the chart below, which however is as of June 30. Since then the dollar duration equivalent of the TRF has plunged which certainly means that PIMCO, while perfectly allowed to do as it wishes with cash, has loaded the boat on swaps and swaptions. Lastly, since PIMCO is likely betting on a massive curve steepening move, this alone means that whether expressed in a DV01 or carry neutral basis, the firm may have a positive MW exposure while being substantially negative duration and thus risk exposure. One can think of it as two massive offsetting synthetic hedges: the euro$ leg on one side adding duration and the swaption/swap leg on the other, both of which are the true determinants of PIMCO's risk exposure and rate bet. What happens in the cash side is irrelevant: PIMCO can parade that it does not have one cash Treasury short, which would be technically correct, yet be massively short bonds. A comparison could be made to Goldman's declaration to clients that John Paulson was long teh equity tranche of Abacus. Yes, but he was also massively short everything above the equity. And the firm's misrepresentation of this nuance is what the entire legal case against it was based on. We doubt PIMCO will suffer a comparable indignity, however (perhaps at most one or two LPs pulling their capital).

Many have been wondering why Bill Gross, with his atavistic aversion to holding US paper, has not yet branched out into precious metals which are the natural hedge to surging rates (not to mention sovereign default). Probably the primary reason for this is that the firm's flagship credit funds do not have the mandate, nor permission, to invest in such asset classes. As such, the firm's $200+ billion TRF flagship fund, at least, is limited to fixed income securities. However, the same limitation does not apply to the firm's other funds, especially the recently launched $1.2 billion equity fund, the Pimco EqS Pathfinder. The fund was launched in 2009 under the stewardship of Anne Gudefin and Charles Lahr, who jointly ran the $16 billion Mutual Global Discover mutual fund. So in an interview recently granted to Fortune by Gudefin, we were not very surprised to hear her response on what her largest investment position is in: "The largest position in the fund is gold, which we think is a very good form of protection against what can go wrong. We were encouraged by the fact that a lot of the central banks, especially in Asia, are big buyers. We think that's an underlying trend that's very favorable for gold." So to all those asking why Gross does not invest in the yellow metal, here is your answer.Should the EqS Pathfinder fund grow in AUM, one can assume that an increasingly bigger pro rata portion will be allocated to precious metals.

So much for all the conspiracy theories that Bill Gross was capitulating in his short position against US debt even as he continued to bash US fiscal and monetary policy. According to just released April data for the flagship Pimco $240 billion Total Return Fund (which saw a $4.2 billion increase in AUM in the month), Bill Gross actually added to his short position against US government debt, bringing total market value exposure to 4% of AUM or ($10) billion. More amazing is that on a Duration Weighted Exposure basis, the firm's Treasury short is 23%, read that again, 23%! So much for that change in outlook. Additionally, Gross also sold another $8.3 billion in mortgage securities, bringing the April total to a nominal $57.8 billion. Spring cleaning at casa de Bill continued across all fixed corporate income as well, dropping the firm's exposure to IG by $1.6 billion and to HY by $2.1 billion. The only two securities which saw a token increase was in Non-US developed markets and Emerging Markets, to $14.4 billion and $26.5 billion, respectively. Yet the biggest shocker of all, is that Gross has now brought his cash position to an all time unprecedented high of $89.1 billion! That's right, PIMCO is charging a substantial asset management fee when 37% of all assets are in cash. One would think the mattress would cost far less. Either Gross is expecting a huge collapse in the bond market (so contrary to prevailing though), or this could well be the bet that buries the Allianz subsidiary.

For months Bill Gross has been very vocally antagonizing the US Treasury by telling anyone who cared to listen that US debt is nothing short of the world's biggest ponzi and that Ben Bernanke is satan. For the longest time Tim Geithner took this effrontery peacefully, always willing to offer the other cheek. Until last night. In what is quite possibly a direct warning shot fired straight at Pimco's primary revenue driver, the Treasury has made it clear Bill may want to focus on unicorns and rainbows in his next monthly letter.

Once again, it is the world's biggest bond manager which either is really tempting fate by telling the truth in an increasingly more aggressive manner day after day, or is engaging in the most acute case of reverse psychology ever seen, coming out with the most critical opinion of the Fed's actions on the verge of the Fed's historic first press conference. And this one is truly a stunner, far more real than anything even Bill Gross has said in the past: "Just as Charles Ponzi needed donuts to turn back a suspicious crowd
of investors, the Fed needs “donuts” in order to fill the bellies of
the literally millions of investors worldwide who worry about the
alarmingly large U.S. budget deficit and the impact that the U.S. debt
dilemma could have on their Treasury holdings...Their
collective buying has created what we believe to be a profit illusion
with many investors mistakenly believing they can continuously reap
profits from perpetually falling bond yields and rising bond prices,
just as they have had opportunity to do over the past 30 years, amid the
great secular bull market for Treasuries and the bond market more
generally...For many reasons, this “duration tailwind” for Treasuries can’t
last, particularly because the United States has reached the Keynesian
Endpoint, where the last balance sheet has been tapped." Must read.

And some more odd news out of Pimco, in which we learn that PIMCO which now has about $74 billion in excess cash, has decided to go ahead and take more investor cash without any direct investment ideas and launch an ETF. From Bloomberg: "Pacific Investment Management Co. plans to offer an exchange-traded fund managed by Bill Gross that will invest primarily in fixed-income securities. Pimco Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund will buy a combination of U.S. and non-U.S. public and corporate debt, the Newport Beach, California-based firm said in filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund may hold as much as 10 percent of its assets in high-yield securities." According to preliminary data Pimco will hold up to 65% in government and corporate bonds. The biggest question: how big this ETF will be is still unanswered. As was first disclosed previously here, however, with the bigger fund negative Gov't debt right now, we wonder if the new ETF will merely whether replicate the larger fund's strategy or serve as a buyer of holdings from the larger fund when there is no other buyer in the market. Lastly, the whole point of having an ETF when anyone who wishes can buy the closed end fund, is just a little suspicious.

Just to set the record straight following various spurious and less than credible reports floated in the peripheral media this morning, El-Erian sets the record straight on a Bloomberg radio interview.

• Pimco's El-Erian says Pimco not buying US treasuries

So simple pretty much a caveman can understand it.

The public comment period for the CFTC's proposed position limit rule has come and gone. It should come as no surprise to anyone (and particularly those transfixed by the massive surges in various commodities, among them most certainly gold and silver) that what is at stake here is not some actual position limit definition and subsequent regulation and enforcement (although that most certainly is), but yet another challenge to the klepocratic status quo which naturally prefers the status quo to remain as is, and public interests, which seeing 100% moves in the price of grain, cotton, corn, and other commodities, would obviously prefer to reign in speculative fervor. At the end of the day, Wall Street will find loopholes in whatever the end rule is as it always does, but the polemic on the way there is quite interesting. Which is why having combed through some of the last minute public comment submissions (of which there were 5,561 in total at last check), we present some of the most indicative ones: one the one hand that of Carl "Shitty Deal" Levin, Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, who obviously is for the most prompt implementation of position limits as envisioned in Dodd Frank, and on the other hand institutional money managers and traders such as PIMCO, Morgan Stanley, the World Gold Council, and, naturally, Goldman Sachs (oddly, we have yet to track down the response by one JP Morgan). We present these for our readers' perusal below.

As was first disclosed by Zero Hedge, PIMCO trimmed its Treasury holdings in February to zero. While many speculated that the reason is concern for global inflation, we now have the confirmation courtesy of a rhetorical Q&A with Saumil Parikh released by the Newport asset management giant. In a nutshell: "Setting aside immediate oil shocks, we believe global inflation has cyclically troughed and we see a secular upswing in inflation, which naturally will put upward pressure on interest rates. We see three key global factors as potentially adding to inflation over a long horizon: (i) The degradation of sovereign balance sheets and the structural inflexibility of fiscal deficits. (ii) Emerging markets used to export disinflation to the developed world, but over the secular horizon we see them as exporting inflation. (iii) As populations age, they tend to save less and consume more. Demographics may thus become an inflationary force globally, though possibly this risk will be balanced somewhat by demographics in emerging nations. In the near term, we anticipate most, though not all, global central banks are likely to err on the side of allowing inflation to rise above stated or implied targets during 2011. In the U.S., if the economic recovery sputters, the Fed could expand quantitative easing. But further deficit accommodation would pose inflation risks. Obviously nothing new here, and just a confirmation that in order to preserve the Wealth Effect, Bernanke will be forced to put the global Genocide (And Printing)Effect into overdrive.

Goldman appears to be in full freak out mode today. After the bank had been positioned for a smooth, low-vol economic reflation mode, complete with long stock and short bond exposure, the recent volatility has blown up Goldman's trades right in its face. Earlier we noted that the FX desk advised on a long EURUSD trade with a 1.50 target following the surge in FX vole. And while it is unclear if the jump in vol across all risk assets is enough to cripple the bank like it did in May 2010 when Goldman disclosed massive trading losses on its variance swap trade, the bank appears to have suffered some major damage on its treasury curve exposure following the recent tightening. As a result Francesco Garzarelli has just released a trade update, advising clients to go short the 5 Year at 1.936% with a 2.30% target and a stop at 1.80%. As usual, since that would mean Goldman is now accumulating 5 Year inventory, it appears we will soon have a rather dramatic duel between the two biggest Wall Street titans: PIMCO and Goldman, at least as pertains to their outlook on rates.

The damage control comes earlier. In an Op-Ed just posted at the FT, Pimco executive Mohamed El-Erian has presented his thoughts on why the Japanese devastation, while disrputive, will eventually lead to another GDP surge: "Japan’s economic growth rate will fall in the immediate aftermath of the natural disasters before rising sharply due to reconstruction activities." Yet even by Pimco standards it is not all good news and the immediate effect will likely be a jump in inflation per the former Harvdardite: "Disruptions to supply chains and the loss of inventories will cause shortages and inflation to spike temporarily from very low levels. The fiscal deficit and public debt will rise meaningfully due to lost revenues and, more importantly, emergency spending. The central bank will ease monetary policy which, given policy interest rates floored at the zero bound, will involve the provision of extraordinary credit and liquidity facilities. Last, the country will receive transfers from abroad, including the repatriation of funds held outside the country by Japanese residents." What however received no mention is Pimco's lamentation that the firm will no longer be able to frontrun Japanese buying of Spanish (and Eurozone in general) bonds: a plan that is certainly put on indefinite hold.

Having worked at PIMCO for 4.5 years, I can tell you that this kind of a major allocation decision was not reached overnight nor was it reached without considerable debate by every senior member of the firm. In other words, the decision to lower total US Treasuries to 0% was discussed by senior portfolio managers, senior account managers and many prominent outside consultants for days and perhaps even weeks before it was finally implemented. They never do anything over there without vigorous debate and discussion. For example, Alan Greenspan is a paid consultant to the firm and often participates in their quarterly Secular Outlook meetings. I don’t know if Mr. Greenspan participated in the debate about this decision but I wouldn’t be surprised if he or others of his stature did. By this move PIMCO is clearly indicating, almost by putting their reputation on the line because imagine the underperformance they face if they are wrong, that bond yields in the US will be rising soon, US Treasury prices falling and liquidity drying up to some degree.

Perhaps it is time for JP Morgan to revise its estimate for putback liability claims. As a reminder back in October, it was none other than JP Morgan which said: "We estimate putback risk to be approximately $23-$35bn for agency mortgages, $40-80bn in non-agency and roughly $20-30bn for second liens and HELOCs. However, there are a number of reasons why these estimates are on the high end, including losses already taken and loss reserves established." Well, there appear to be a number of reasons of why these estimates may have been on the very low end as well, the first one being that the bank itself just announced "it faces up to $4.5 billion in legal losses, in excess of its established litigation reserves, should its worst-case legal scenario occur." And if JP Morgan is seeing billion more in putback exposure, then what should Bank of Countrywide Lynch say, which just reported that the amount of debt which is being put against the firm for fraud of various types has just doubled from $46 billion to $84 billion. Luckily, according to a DebtWire report, PIMCO and BlackRock are actively doing the Fed's bidding in attempting to form a splinter group within the putback litigants and to settle with BofA for a nominal charge. Will the Fed be once again successful at subverting justice?

Did Larry Meyer (the one man Fed "expert network") lose Bill Gross as a client? Because looking at PIMCO's latest holdings shows a dramatic shift in strategy and leaves one wondering just what PIMCO is doing. After the firm had been buying MBS on margin like it was going out of style, peaking in June when the company's cash margin balances hit a local record of 15%, resulting in MBS holdings surging to 51% of the company's flagship Total Return Fund, ever since then it seems Gross' bet on MBS as benefiting from either massive putbacks to the banks, or QE3 being focused on mortgage backed securities has fizzled. Most notable in the January update is the huge change in Treasury holdings, which have plunged from 22% in December to 12% in January, a $24 billion drop. This is the lowest relative holding of government securities by PIMCO since January of 2009 when it was a 2% short exposure. The other result: cash has surged from a 7% short position to a 5% positive: the firm no longer is utilizing margin for the first time since August 2010. The other issue: the company's holdings of Muni securities continues to be a black eye, resulting in a continued decling in total TRF AUM: in January it hit the lowest since June 2010 of $238.5 billion (it peaked at $255.9 billion in October). Bill Gross can not be too happy about these various developments.