Bill Gross was right after all, though that hasn’t helped his investors this year.
Former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, the former chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, were among critics who challenged a view promoted by Gross’s Pacific Investment Management Co. that the U.S. economy may be headed for a long period of below-average growth and high unemployment, a scenario known as “new normal.” Money manager Kenneth Fisher called the concept “idiotic.”
Now Gross and co-chief investment officer Mohamed El-Erian, who coined the term more than two years ago, have been vindicated by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which said yesterday that the economic recovery is “considerably slower” than anticipated, following the biggest stock market loss since December 2008. Being right on the big call hasn’t prevented Gross from making a tactical miscalculation when he stayed out of Treasuries just as concern about the economic slowdown fueled a rally in U.S. debt.
Continue here: Pimco’s Gross Proves Summers Wrong as Selloff Shows ‘New Normal’ Is Real – Bloomberg.


