Bill Gross of Janus warns financial markets have become 'a Vegas casino'

[October 04, 2016]  By Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global central bank policy makers have turned world financial markets into a casino, thanks to their unprecedented monetary policies, warned bond investor Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group <JNS.N> on Tuesday.

“Our financial markets have become a Vegas/Macau/Monte Carlo casino, wagering that an unlimited supply of credit generated by central banks can successfully reflate global economies and reinvigorate nominal GDP growth to lower but acceptable norms in today's highly levered world,” Gross said in his latest Investment Outlook titled “Doubling Down.”

Gross, who oversees the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, recommended Bitcoin and gold for investors who are looking for places to preserve capital.

"At some point investors – leery and indeed weary of receiving negative or near zero returns on their money, may at the margin desert the standard financial complex, for higher returning or better yet, less risky alternatives," Gross said.

Gross has been lambasting ultra-loose central bank policies for hindering global economies by keeping so-called "zombie" corporations alive and inhibiting "creative destruction."

For several years, Gross and others have warned that zero and negative interest rates not only fail to provide an easing cushion should recession occur, but they destroy capitalism's business models.

"A commonsensical observation made by yours truly and increasing numbers of economists, Fed members, and corporate CEOs (Jamie Dimon amongst them) would be that low/negative yields erode and in some cases destroy historical business models which foster savings/investment and ultimately economic growth," Gross said.

Bill Gross speaks at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago, Illinois, June 19, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young

He added: "Our argument is that NIMs (net interest margins) for banks, and the solvency of insurance companies and pension funds with long dated and underfunded liabilities, have been negatively affected and that ultimately, the continuation of current monetary policies will lead to capital destruction as opposed to capital creation."

All told, Gross said central bankers have fostered a casino-like atmosphere that present “a Hobson's Choice, or perhaps a more damaging Sophie's Choice of participating (or not) in markets previously beyond prior imagination. Investors/savers are now scrappin’ like mongrel dogs for tidbits of return at the zero bound. This cannot end well.”

(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.