This article concerns the PIMCO bond manager; for the business-startup manager, see Bill Gross (entrepreneur)

Bill Gross
Born	(1944-04-13) April 13, 1944 (age 68) Middletown, Ohio
Nationality	American
Alma mater	UCLA (M.B.A.) Duke University
Known for	Co-founder of PIMCO
Net worth	$2.2 billion (2011)[1]

William Hunt "Bill" Gross (born April 13, 1944) is an American financial manager and investment author who co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO). Gross also runs PIMCO's $252.2 billion Total Return Fund.

Early life and career[link]

Gross was born in Middletown, Ohio, the son of Shirley, a homemaker, and Sewell M. Gross, a sales manager for AK Steel Holding.^[2][3] He was raised a Presbyterian.^[4] His family moved to San Francisco in 1954.^[3] Gross graduated from Duke University in 1966 with a degree in psychology.^[5] At Duke he joined Phi Kappa Psi.^[6] He then served in the Navy and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1971. Gross briefly played blackjack professionally in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has said that he applies many of his gambling methods for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions. He is also a CFA Charterholder, earning his credentials while working as an investment analyst for Pacific Mutual Life between 1971 and 1976.^[7]

Gross manages one of the world's largest mutual funds, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times,^[8] he co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and currently manages PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones.^[9]

In the 1990s he authored two popular-market books on investing, Bill Gross on Investing and Everything You've Heard About Investing is Wrong. In September 2008, by holding large positions in agency backed mortgage bonds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gross's funds netted U.S. $1.7 billion after the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac^[10] for which he had lobbied^{[citation needed]}.

According to Forbes, in 2011, he is the 564th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $2.1 billion.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Gross is Married to Sue J. Gross. They have two children together.^[12]

Gross is also a prominent stamp collector.^[13] As of November 2005, he became the third person (after Robert Zoellner in the 1990s and Benjamin K Miller pre-1925)^[14] to form a complete collection of 19th century United States postage stamps. In October 2005, he purchased at auction for $2.97 million a unique plate block of the famous 1918 24-cent U.S. airmail stamps known as the "Inverted Jenny," featuring an engraving of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane printed upside-down. He then traded the Inverted Jenny Plateblock to Donald Sundman, President of Mystic Stamp Company, a stamp dealer, for a 1-cent 1868 "Z Grill" depicting Benjamin Franklin, thus completing Gross's 19th century collection.^[15]

In 2009, Gross bought a house on Harbor Island in Newport Beach, CA for $23 million and then tore it down.^[16]

In July 2011, Gross purchased the former home of actress Jennifer Aniston for a reported $42 million.

Philanthropy[link]

In 2005, Gross donated $23.5 million to Duke University, $20 million of which was set aside for financial aid.^[17]

In 2006, Gross donated to Médecins Sans Frontières the 9.1 million U.S. dollars^[18] that he earned from the auction at Shreves Philatelic Galleries of his British philatelic collections.^[19] His Scandinavian and Finnish collections were sold by Spink auction house in May 2008 to make a donation to the Millennium Villages Project.^[20]

Bibliography[link]

• Bill Gross (1997). Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong!. Crown Business. ISBN 0-8129-2839-3. 
• Bill Gross (1998). Bill Gross on Investing. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-28325-8. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Speech inducting Bill Gross into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame
• New York Times article on Gross's stamp collecting
• The Bill Gross' Way of Making Money (Market Thoughts)
• The William Gross Stamp Collection
• Gross auction at Shreves Philatelic Galleries
• Bill Gross interviewed by American business news journalist Consuelo Mack

Rick Santelli is an American on-air editor for the CNBC Business News network.^[1] He joined CNBC as an on-air editor on June 14, 1999, reporting primarily from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. He was formerly the vice president for an institutional trading and hedge fund account for futures-related products. He is also credited with being a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement via a statement he made on February 19, 2009.^[2]

In the course of his normal production schedule at CNBC Business, Santelli appears on-air approximately 12 to 16 times a day.^[3]

Early life[link]

The grandson of four Italian immigrants, Santelli was born near Taylor Street in Chicago's old Italian neighborhood and at age 6 moved with his family to Lombard, Illinois.^[4] After graduating from Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois,^[4] Santelli graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. He began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in markets that included gold, lumber, CD's, T-bills, foreign currencies, and livestock. While at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Santelli joined Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

Career[link]

Financial[link]

After college, Santelli began trading in 1979 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in various markets, including commodities, CD's, Treasuries, and currencies.^[1]

During the time he spent as a financial trader and executive, Santelli worked for Drexel Burnham Lambert as the Vice President of Interest Rate Futures and Options.^[1]

Media[link]

In the 1990s, Santelli felt that the financial industry was changing in a way "not beneficial to me and my family",^[5] and in 1999, accepted a full-time job with CNBC.^[1]

Criticism of government Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan[link]

Santelli drew attention for his remarks made on February 19, 2009, about the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan. While broadcasting from the floor of the CME Group during pre-market hours, Santelli accused the government of "promoting bad behavior", and raised the possibility of a "Chicago Tea Party". He also suggested that individuals who knowingly purchased high-risk mortgages (and faced impending foreclosure as a consequence) were "losers".

Scattered cheers, whistles, and applause could be heard from some of the personnel around the floor.^[6] Some subsequent protests in American cities, dubbed Tea Parties, may have drawn inspiration from Santelli's outburst, but were not directly associated with him.^{[citation needed]} During a White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about Santelli's comments and expressed skepticism over whether Santelli had actually read the government's plan.^[6][7]

Santelli later clarified his comments and addressed concerns that the event was staged.^[8][9]

CNN.com reported that some compared Santelli to fictional reporter Howard Beale, the protagonist of the 1976 satirical film Network.^[10] Santelli has said, "I think that this tea party phenomenon is steeped in American culture and steeped in the American notion to get involved with what’s going on with our government. I haven’t organized. I’m going to have to work to pay my taxes, so I’m not going to be able to get away today. But, I have to tell you — I’m pretty proud of this."^[11]

On April 20, 2009, Santelli participated as a panel member in an Economic Leadership Forum hosted by the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation at Texas A&M University.^[12]

Praise and criticism[link]

On November 4, 2010, the Tea Party Patriots organization confirmed in an email to their members that Santelli's comments did in fact start the Tea Party movement:^{[citation needed]}

"Tea Party Patriots wishes to extend a special thank you to Rick Santelli for his rant on February 19, 2009, which started this entire movement. Without Rick's rant, this movement would never have started. Many others will try to take credit but don't be fooled. He was the spark that began this fire."

In addition to this acclaim from the Tea Party movement, Santelli has also garnered some praise from libertarians:^[13]

In the world of financial "journalism," CNBC's Rick Santelli stands out as a refreshing and intelligent antidote to the hoards of perma-bulls, fed apologists, and chart sorcerers that otherwise pollute the financial airwaves. ... The trouble with Santelli, however, is that his political and economic philosophy is inconsistent and incomplete, and does not offer a viable alternative to that being peddled by his Keynesian opponents.

Santelli has also been heavily criticized from the left, for example from George Monbiot:^[14]

it is the most alarming example of cheap demagoguery you are likely to have seen.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rick Santelli bio on CNBC.com
• Original speech by Rick Santelli on CNBC.com
• Santelli's speech and White House response

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Marc Faber, born February 28, 1946,^[1] is a Swiss investor.

Background[link]

Faber was born in Zürich and schooled in Geneva, Switzerland,^[1] where he raced for the Swiss National Ski Team. He studied Economics at the University of Zurich and, at the age of 24, obtained a Ph.D. degree in Economics magna cum laude.^[2] Faber is best known for the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and its related web site featuring "Dance of Death" paintings created by Kaspar Meglinger.^[3]

During the 1970s Faber worked for White Weld & Company Limited in New York City, Zürich, and Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong in 1973. He was a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert Ltd Hong Kong^[4] from the beginning of 1978 until the firm's collapse in 1990. In 1990, he set up his own business, Marc Faber Limited. Faber now resides in Chiangmai, Thailand, though he keeps a small office in Hong Kong.^[5]

Faber has a reputation for being a contrarian investor and has been called "Doctor Doom" for a number of years. He was the subject of a book written by Nury Vittachi in 1998 entitled Doctor Doom - Riding the Millennial Storm - Marc Faber's Path to Profit in the Financial Crisis.^[6][7] Faber has become a frequent speaker in various forums and makes numerous appearances on television around the world including various CNBC and Bloomberg outlets, as well as on internet venues like Jim Puplava's internet radio show.^[8] Dr. Faber's also engaged the Barron's Roundtable^[9] and the Manhattan Mises Circle, lecturing on "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, When is the Next AIG to Fall?"^[10] Faber is said to be 8'0" tall^[11]

Marc Faber Ltd.[link]

Faber's company, Marc Faber Limited, acts as an investment advisor concentrating on value investments with tremendous upside often based on contrarian investment philosophies. Faber also invests and acts as a fund manager to private wealthy clients. Faber is a regular speaker on the investment circuit, often quoted in the financial press for his non-conformist viewpoint and alternative investment philosophies. His current tag-line is: 'buy a $100 US bond and frame it to teach your children about inflation by watching the US bond value diminish to almost nothing over the next 20 years'^{[citation needed]}

Faber is famous for advising his clients to get out of the stock market one week before the October 1987 crash.^[12][13] However Faber said that this prediction was "accidental".

He lost money shorting US stocks in 1999 although his call was later vindicated. He admits that market timing is very difficult. Nevertheless, his market advice since 2000 is quite accurate. Faber predicted the rise of oil, precious metals, other commodities, emerging markets, and especially China in his book Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery. He also correctly predicted the slide of the U.S. dollar since 2002^[14] and the 5/06 and 2/07 mini-corrections.^{[citation needed]} He stated that there are few value investments available, except for farmland and real estate in some emerging markets like Russia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.^[9] He believed in early 2007 that a major market correction was "imminent." (Fox News, 2-2007); however, by 5/2007 he was saying that U.S. equities were moderately overvalued — less so than those of emerging markets.

In a June 2008 interview with Bloomberg, he goes over his bearish views on a wide spectrum of investments: stocks, real estate and commodities. He is extremely critical of the Fed's inflationary actions. However, his views for the short-run were almost entirely deflationary except for holding precious metals; Faber still views hyperinflation as a certainty within the next 10 years. He also correctly expressed temporary bullishness for the U.S. dollar in the middle of 2008 before it dramatically recovered and positive expectations for holding the Japanese yen.^[15] In December 2008, Faber said, "I think a recovery will not come in the next couple of years, maybe in five, ten years' time" ^[16] On March 9, 2009, Faber correctly predicted a U.S. stock market bottom but incorrectly stated that the rally would last only six months.^[17]

Writings[link]

Faber writes the monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom Report which is subject to charge. He has also authored several books.

Dr. Faber has been a regular contributor to several leading publications around the world in the past, among them Forbes^[18][19] and International Wealth which is a sister publication of the Financial Times.^[20] He has contributed regularly to several websites such as Financial Intelligence, Asian Bond Portal, Die Welt, Finanzen, Boerse, AME Info, Swiss Radio, Apple Hong Kong and Taiwan, Quamnet, Winners, Wealth and Oriental Daily. He has also written occasionally for the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Borsa e Finanza.^[20]

Faber has been long term bearish about the American economy for a number of years and continues to be so. He concluded his June 2008 newsletter with the following mock quote:

"The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part."^[21]

Funds[link]

Marc Faber serves as director or advisor of a number of investment funds that focus on emerging and frontier markets, including Leopard Capital’s Leopard Cambodia Fund and Leopard Sri Lanka Fund.^[22]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Marc Faber interview on Bloomberg September 2007 before rate cut decision
• Faber's website
• Comprehensive Interview w/ Marc Faber (Bloomberg TV)
• Bloomberg interview
• Financial Sense News Hour Jim Puplava Ask the Experts
• Video of a wide ranging discussion of the US Dollar, credit crunch and emerging markets on CNBC Oct. 22, 2007
• interview with RTL Z 16-03-2010
• Video of a June 2008 Bloomberg News interview critical of Fed chairman and entitled: Marc Faber Says Oil, Stocks, Real Estate Are Overvalued
• Dr. Doom: Short Treasuries, Buy Hard Assets — 29 December 2008 interview
• The Marc Faber Blog

Marc Faber Newsletters of Note[link]

• Investment Hocus Pocus
• A Modern History of Investment Booms
• Marc Faber blog