Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Bill Gross said asset markets from stocks to real estate are not overpriced because the Federal Reserve's long-term policy rate will be half of what policymakers are forecasting.
Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Bill Gross said asset markets from stocks to real estate are not overpriced because the Federal Reserve's long-term policy rate will be half of what policymakers are forecasting.
“Estimates which average less than 2 percent are much closer to financial reality than the average 4% 'blue-dot' estimates” of Fed policymakers, Mr. Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook posted on Pimco's website today. He was referring to the Fed's neutral policy rate, a level that would be consistent with full employment, growth and stable prices.
The Fed's March summary of policymakers' economic projections, or SEP, had a median estimate for the long-run policy rate of 4%, unchanged from the December report. The median forecast was for the federal funds rate to move to 1% in December 2015 and 2.25 percent a year later. That compared with estimates in December of 0.75% and 1.75%.
Mr. Gross has stumbled in the past year after building one of the best long-term track records in the industry. Over the past year, his $232 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, has lost 1.85%, trailing 90% of similar funds. Over the past five years, the fund is beating 57% of peers.
LOWER RETURNS
While investors don't face the risk of market bubbles if the long-run Fed policy rate proves lower than Fed officials now foresee, they will suffer from lower-than-average returns, Mr. Gross wrote. Pension-fund assumptions of 7% to 8% total returns will prove too high, he wrote.
“Still there are ways to fight back — most of which involve taking different risks than you may be commonly used to taking: alternative assets, hedge funds, leveraged closed-end funds, a higher proportion of stocks versus bonds in a personal portfolio,” he wrote. “All of these alternatives are potentially higher-returning assets in a world of 2% policy rates where cash is a poor-performing asset, but likewise a cheap liability that can be borrowed to an investor's advantage.”
Implied yields on federal funds futures traded at the CME Group Inc. exchange signal a 51$ probability the Fed will first increase its target rate in June 2015, according to calculations available on the exchange's website.
Fed policymakers have cut their monthly debt buying by $10 billion increments at each of their last three meetings, lowering it to $55 billion. The Federal Open Market Committee will complete a two-day policy meeting today and probably will continue with reductions at that pace and end the program in October, economists said in a Bloomberg News survey last month.
(Bloomberg News)
