比尔·格罗斯与债券牛市的终结

周五宣布比尔·格罗斯离开固定收益巨头Pacific Investment Management Co.to join Janus Capital Group has roiled the markets and angered investors. Janus is a growth equity investor that made its name during the dot-com era (and has needed a couple of turnarounds since) and is virtually unknown in bond investing. Institutional investors and financial advisers are livid that Gross is leaving them with captainless funds at PIMCO that are sure to lose value amid the volatility that he himself is causing. Indeed, there could be almost no worse time for investors to lose their chief: Interest rates are at historic lows and the market can only get more volatile from here. In a note to clients today, research firm Sanford C. Bernstein forecasted that PIMCO could lose 10 to 30 percent of its $1.9 trillion in assets as investors race to the exits to avoid being the last shareholders standing in its funds. A number of fixed-income managers confirmed that investors are asking for urgent meetings to discuss if they have capacity and other issues. PIMCO Total Return alone has $222 billion, down from $293 billion in 2013.

The past year hasn’t been easy for Gross, who co-founded PIMCO in 1971. Investors have taken a microscope to his fight with former PIMCO CEO and co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian over succession at the firm, his volatile personality and management style, and his rants in his shareholder letters, which were once eagerly awaited as financial scripture. They have also been trying to figure out if their trust in Gross — the ultimate star manager — was always misplaced or if he just ran out of steam and ideas as the 30-year bull market in bonds is coming to an end. Gross, after all, was called the “hot hands” in bond management in 1980 just about the time Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker was declaring his war on double-digit interest rates. The star power and seeming infallibility of Gross’s bond prognostication rose just as rates declined steadily, increasing the value of his assets. Investors loved his mania. And he was candid about his idiosyncracies. In an interview in 2011 when亚博赞助欧冠授予格罗斯终身成就奖, he said, “I’m obsessively game oriented, and that’s my — it’s not a problem, it’s just a driver. It’s the same thing that drove me to Vegas to prove that I could play blackjack and beat the house.”

然而，随着格罗斯的错误成堆——2013年对美国国债的错误呼吁以及同年美联储缩减债券购买规模的时机错误——投资者没有耐心，开始从他的基金中撤出数十亿美元。现在，他的离开让投资者开始思考谁在为自己的基金做决定，以及他们对少数人的束缚程度。管理者的明星力量是有感染力的——除非不是。

Gross’s abrupt departure from PIMCO is another sign that the bull market in bonds has run its course. He’s not joining Janus to manage a benchmark-oriented strategy, a move that worked for 30 years. Instead, he’ll be running money for a fledgling unconstrained bond fund and similar investments at Janus. Like their names imply, unconstrained funds allow their managers to invest in securities around the globe, use short positions and forget benchmarks like the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index, which are now dominated by interest rate risk.Unconstrained fundshave been the industry’s answer — at least so far — to changes in the bond markets that pose huge risks to investors in fixed-income securities. Since the financial crisis, central banks around the globe have used a variety of policies to keep rates at historic lows. As a result, tools learned during the long bull market are no longer working. Some market pundits have gone as far as to say that this generation of fixed-income managers should retire.

Gross does have some experience in unconstrained investing. He took over PIMCO’s Unconstrained Bond Fund at the end of 2013. According to Summit, New Jersey–basedMarkov Processes International然而，太平洋投资管理公司（PIMCO）无约束债券基金的业绩与该公司总回报基金的相关性高于过去一年中与非传统类别中一些最大同行的相关性。事实上，格罗斯在美联储缩减这两家基金的量化宽松政策上也发出了同样的错误呼吁。

Any thought that Gross might retire has been dispelled with the move to Janus. Investors, for their part, think he’s got plenty of energy. Janus’s stock rose more than 40 percent on the news today.

“年龄越大，你就越快，你必须保持划船，”他说II在2011年。“在某种程度上你先w your arms are going to give out. So yeah, one day I’ll pack it in, but it will be my body, not my mind.”

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