• 10 Dec 2008 at 1:46 PM

Does PIMCO Surprise You?

Buying up FDIC backed bonds as quickly as possible along with the senior tiers of bank debt, might just be PIMCOs bottom call. Or looming disaster. Take your pick.

Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief of the powerful money manager Pacific Investment Management Co, on Wednesday said his firm has been buying bonds backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and senior debt of banks, at a time of near-zero yields on short-term U.S. Treasuries.
Speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York, El-Erian said Pimco has been finding better return potential on securities that carry the same high credit ratings as ultra-safe government debt, but said it remains premature to buy high-yield debt or U.S. equities.

You will, of course, barely discern the sound of our snickering at phrases like “ultra-safe government debt.”
Pimco buying FDIC-backed debt, senior bank debt [Reuters]

Comments (14)

  1. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 1:48 PM

    Bottom

  2. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 1:54 PM

    Bottom after one of the Big 3 goes bankrupt.

  3. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 2:02 PM

    Shills.

  4. Posted by Seaman Bodine | December 10, 2008 at 2:15 PM

    yeah – this dude annihilated harvard and now he’s going to cherry that ice cream with a big meltdown in newport beach

  5. Posted by Seaman Bodine | December 10, 2008 at 2:16 PM

    related – why do indian dudes go for the hitler mustache?
    and don’t say i’m racist – i just got back from mumbai and they all sling that shit down there

  6. Posted by RonBurgundy | December 10, 2008 at 2:24 PM

    El-Erain used to run Harvard Investments. We see how well his stewardship worked there. PIMPCO is a has-been – washed up old whore

  7. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 2:26 PM

    EP cynical much?

  8. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 3:15 PM

    because hitler thought indians were the ultimate aryans.

  9. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 3:44 PM

    Still waiting for the bond braniacs to notice the muni/treasury spread.

  10. Posted by RonBurgundy | December 10, 2008 at 6:51 PM

    is El-Erian a washed up Hitler surrogate or a dune coon?

  11. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 8:57 PM

    actually, el erian left harvard last year, and they were up pretty significantly when he left. hell, they were even up 4 months ago, because jane mendillo (the person who took over from him) went heavy into commodities. of course, that didn’t work out so well…

  12. Posted by RonBurgundy | December 10, 2008 at 9:16 PM

    #11 – ya everyone and their mother who was invested in illiquid shit was up last year. How honest were the price marks they were using? He’s the guy who plugged them in the ass with the shit that’s blowing up.
    How flakey is Harvard’s investing? I used to stuff them with crappy junk bond positions and sugar coat the trade with put/call ISDA OTC derivatives back in the late 1990′s…
    El-Erian is camel-jockeying scumbag.

  13. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 10:08 PM

    @11 you gotta be joking – the scumbag took the Harvard job and then turned tail and ran when the going got tough. I guess he found it easier to write a meaningless book and become a PR whore than to actually demonstrate that he can actually manage a portfolio in something other than ideal times. Anyone who has seen this idiot on CNBC over the last few months knows that he is an empty suit without the suit.

  14. Posted by guest | December 10, 2008 at 11:50 PM

    @11 – El-Erian had a bet with Larry Summers about whether women were good with math. El-Erian left Harvard loaded with investments that were headed south that poor Jane knew needed to be sold. Jane tried to sell them before the floor dropped out but wasn’t lucky enough to pull it off. Larry won the bet and in true Duke & Duke fashion, El-Erian paid him one dollar…
    - Fixed Income

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