Topic: Bill Gross: A Wise Financial Manager (Read 176 times)

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MASTER TRADERS – PART 19

“However, master traders tend to act differently than most humans. They look inward for direction. They are not afraid of taking risks, even if it means hurting themselves in the end. Throughout history, famous traders, investors and business leaders have had tremendous ups and downs in their lives. Unlike most people, they have learned to overcome human nature.” – Joe Ross (Source: Tradingeducators.com)

Name: William “Bill” Gross
Date of birth: April 13, 1944
Nationality: American
Occupation: Financial manager, author and philanthropist

AMERICA’S MOST PROMINENT BOND INVESTOR
Bill was born in Middletown, Ohio, to a homemaker and a sales executive for AK Steel Holding. He also has Canadian blood in his veins.

He later moved with his parents to San Francisco in 1954, graduated from Duke University in 1966 (a degree in psychology), and then served in the Navy. He got his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1971, and began to play blackjack professionally in Las Vegas – an experience that made him learn how to spread risk and calculate odds to his trading positions. From 1971 to 1976, he worked as a CFA for Pacific Mutual Life.

He co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO), which grew to as huge as $270.0 billion Total Return Fund (PTTRX). Bill traded one of the biggest mutual funds in the world, thus earning the title of “the nation's most prominent bond investor.” In September 26, 2014, he left PIMCO to join Janus.

In the 1990s, Bill wrote two best-selling books on investing. They’re: “Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong!” (1997); and “Bill Gross on Investing “(1998).

In September 2008, he made a profit of $1.7 billion. He and his wife are generous philanthropist, having donate many, many millions of dollars to higher education, humanity (Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières), charities, scientific and medical research,

As of March 2013, Bill was worth $2.3 billion. He’s a Presbyterian, who’s been married twice and blessed with 3 children. He resides in Laguna Beach, California, United States.

This great trader is also a prominent stamp collector. One source reveals that, as of November 2005, he became the third person (after Robert Zoellner in the 1990s and Benjamin K. Miller pre-1925), to form a complete collection of 19th century United States postage stamps.

What You Need to Know:
1.   Yes, you can be a spiritual and be a profitable trader. In fact, spirituality helps a lot in trading, especially in the area of trading psychology. Dr. Van K. Tharp is a fine example of someone who’s found ways to apply spiritual principles to life and trading transformation, through a program called “Oneness.”  Bill was reported as one of a number of prominent investors who have taken to transcendental meditation.

2.   Bills said he was obsessed with delivering value to investors and winning the game from a personal standpoint. We need to desire success extremely seriously – till it appears like an obsession.

3.   Why are you a trader? Why are you a fund manager? As a trader/fund manager, you don’t get paid to regret or feel sorry for yourself. You’re paid to bring yourself or your investor money. Though traders are human beings, they’re tough when it comes to trading.

4.   Gross said: “The real boss in the family is my wife. She didn't want me hanging around the house all day and said, 'You don't want to retire; you'll regret it.' So I listened to her. What does this tell us? Well, good traders don’t retire as long as they’re alive. It’s one of those very few jobs in which there’s no age of retirement.

5.   What drives price movements? It’s humans. Human nature, herd mentality, coupled with institutions that lose their heads and sense of mission. This is the weakness that drives price movements.

6.   It’s unwise when your risk is higher than your potential rewards. This is when money runs out of time; when lenders desert credit markets for other alternatives such as cash or real assets.

Conclusion: Wise Traders don’t fool themselves into thinking that they can prognosticate the markets just as scientists do in other scientific fields. Prices have nothing to do with natural laws, since there are many hidden things that can affect price movements. We can’t do more than analyze only the information at our disposal and informed assumptions. 

This piece is ended with a quote from Bill:

“In questioning initially whether I am a great investor, I open the door to question whether other similarly esteemed public icons like Bill Miller are as well. It seems, perhaps, that the longer and longer you keep at it in this business the more and more time you have to expose your Achilles heel - wherever and whatever that might be.”