Largest bond fund bets against US debt
Published: 11 April, 2011, 23:58
The world's largest bond fund bets against US debt
TAGS: Crisis, Currencies, USA, Economy, Finance
In a sign of growing concern over America’s fiscal health, PIMCO raised its cash holdings and began betting against US government debt.
PIMCO co-chief investment officer Bill Gross has been arguing the future will hold a lack of buyers for US Treasuries once the US Federal Reserve ends its QE2 bond purchasing program in June.
As the Federal Reserve ends its $600 billion round of bond buying aimed at holding interest rates low, investors are worried about what will occur when the program ends, and if it will be replaced.
This past February Gross began dumping all of his fund's U.S. government-related debt holdings. In March PIMCO's $236 billion Total Return Fund held in long-term US debt declined to minus three percent from zero at the end of February.
PIMCO expects lingering US debt and the Fed's ongoing monetary policy will drive faster inflation and overall hurt the dollar. This view follows a recent last minute compromise between Congress and the White house regarding spending cuts and the 2011 budget.
Gross argued in a recent newsletter that the US is "out-Greeking the Greeks," a reference to the financial collapse which devastated Greek markets.
“We are smelling $1 trillion deficits as far as the nose can sniff," he said, arguing that the government must tackle entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security immediately.
Others have also expressed distrust for US securities. A number of other funds are betting against the debt, and showing growth as financial speculators went net short for the first time in over six weeks in early April.
As debt instability and friction among US leaders continue, more and more people are beginning to worry about the health of the America’s finances.
11.04.2011, 22:57
4 comments
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More libertarian tripe.
The problem is not "entitlement" programs. (I pay into Medicare and Social Security, so they are not entitlements when and if I receive benefits!) Half those benefits literally go to orphans and widows. Most of the rest goes to the elderly with no other source or potential for income.
No, the problem is the ever ballooning, untouchable "defense" budget, the biggest corporate welfare program ever conceived. Trillions upon trillions--not including the hundreds of billions that go to shady quasi-governmental entities in the "black" budget for God-knows-what kinds of hideous covert activities--are filtered into this cabal.
America's empire building (over 1000 foreign bases) is what needs to be cut off at the knees. We cannot sustain military spending. I agree with the great Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower: the biggest threat we face is the military-industrial complex, not "socialism."
Libertarians may never understand this because their ideology blinds them. But most of us eventually realize that an economy built on weapons and empire building can never last. If we continue on this path, we are doomed. The rest of the world sees it happening. Why don't we?








A free Medicare, Social Security, and rebuilding
the American econmy would only be a fraction
of the Neocon military empire costs. Busting out
the new energy suppressed patents would provide
jobs and export revenues.
see fukushima.blogspot.com