Bill Gross’ September outlook for investors in Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC was picked up by BusinessInsider today, and it turns out the well known investor isn’t averse to a little cheating. In a letter dominated by baseball metaphors, Gross addressed, among other things, the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in the sport.
Bill Gross isn’t a fan of baseball, calling it “the most boring game in the world next to cricket.” But that doesn’t stop him opining on the use of drugs to enhance player performance. “Steroids, HGH and juicin’? I say, why not. They can’t be cheating if they’re all cheating together.” The fund manager did take some time in his letter to address investments.
Bill Gross looking for safety in an unsafe world
According to Bill Gross the most logical thing for an investor to do in a world economy that is still immensely unstable is to seek out the most stable assets. Bill Gross identifies cash as the safest bet out there, but cash offers little to no yield making it a poor bet for investors of all kinds.
Bill Gross doesn’t think the stock market is a good bet either. Though the market has performed extremely well this year, he thinks yield in equities is likely to dry up as soon as the Federal Reserve quantitative easing program does:
“Without Big Government deficits and Big Bank check writing and with the advancing risks posed by Big Regulation and the technical whimsy of Big Investor, the safest pitch to swing at may not be stocks but the asset that will soon be the nearly sole focus of central banks.”
New policy at the Federal Reserve
Bill Gross is talking about the new wave of policy that will come out of the Federal Reserve after the quantitative easing program is finished, “Forward Guidance.” That program is supposed to predict inflation and unemployment numbers accurately for investors. If it works out, Gross thinks there’s one place investors should go looking for return.
Front-end yields, the kind offered by the first couple of years of long term bonds. With Big Investor unsure or perhaps unable to catch stock, long bond or currency fly balls in today’s afternoon sun, it’s perhaps best to field boring slow-rolling grounders based on policy rate stability for “an extended period of time.”
Along with frond end yield, Bill Gross reckons investors should try to get into longer dated TIPS as a good hedge against inflation.
