The Bond King: Bill Gross and his Influence on American Finance

Gabelli100 | May 27, 2022 | Gabelli School of Business

After Bill Gross graduated from college in the late 1960s, he headed to Las Vegas where he gambled at the casinos. He later applied the lessons he learned counting cards to finance, becoming a renowned investor and fund manager who co-founded Pacific Investment Management (Pimco) and transformed the bond market.

In this webinar, co-sponsored with the CFA Society New York, the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis, and the Museum of American Finance, financial journalist and co-host of NPR’s Planet Money, Mary Childs, shared her perspectives on the man nicknamed the “Bond King.”

Author of the recent book, “The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost it All,” Childs describes Gross as someone who easily made both friends and enemies—a “trailblazer” who at the height of his career loved fame and was unusually skilled at branding.

What will endure as his legacy? “He helped to invent active bond trading and that is obviously hugely consequential,” Childs said. “He’s talked lately about how capital markets and credit are full of risk now—[they] are a ‘casino’—and he helped to do that! I think his invention of structural alpha is hugely innovative. Also, his very personality has helped to shape the bond market and American finance.”