Bill Gross has it bad. Despite being 72 years-old and rich as Croesus, he cannot sleep. The reason he cannot sleep? The markets. – Gross just has to keep on waking up and checking what they’re up to.
He confesses as much in an interview with the New York Times. As soon as he gets home, Gross says he checks the Bloomberg. At night, he wakes up as ‘as many as three times’ to check it again. Gross is obsessed – he wants his returns at Janus to exceed those at Pimco Unconstrained. Pimco Unconstrained is part-managed by Daniel J. Ivascyn, one of the executives who ousted Gross from Pimco in September 2014. “My whole evening is dependent on whether I beat them [Pimco],” Gross says. “You see, I have to prove it all over again. Every day.”
Gross’s obsessiveness might be wholly attributed to his eccentricity, were it not for the fact that other successful and less eccentric portfolio managers have demonstrated similar tendencies. The most well known is Greg Coffey, the former Moore Capital trader who reportedly turned over his entire $5bn portfolio nearly three times daily before quitting the industry at the behest of his wife in 2012. You have been warned.
Separately,Karim Moussalem, a hedge fund manager who made MD at Goldman Sachs in his 20s and has been running his own Paris-based fund for the past five years, has been dispensing career advice. Competitive tennis is a route into Goldman, suggests Moussalem: he played tennis competitively; during his Goldman internship he got to know the MDs by playing tennis with them. He’s also a big advocate of reading (“…a little about a lot – you need to know about a lot of things”), of staying humble, and of not switching jobs too often when you start out.
Meanwhile:
Fund manager predicts his profession’s demise: “Humans aren’t going to be completely replaced, but they will be mostly replaced.” (Financial Times)
“In investment banking, that’s what you do. Working on Saturdays is a no-brainer.” (NY Post)
Two senior researchers just left Goldman’s Russian business after over a decade. (Intellinews)
Paddy Boyle, ex-head of G10 FX options at Goldman Sachs joins LCH Clearnet in ‘senior FX role’. (Financial News)
Nomura’s former global co-head of prime brokerage joins retail FX broker. (Leaprate)
Morgan Stanley has named Ed Bayliss and John Gally to lead corporate trading in North America: “market leaders in their crafts.” (Reuters)
Ex-Citi executive Sandy Weill has given $1bn to charitable causes. (NY Times)
Citi won’t be breaking up because it derives $8bn to $12bn in efficiencies because of its size. (Reuters)
Barclays LIBOR setter copied 100 people in the bank into incriminating email saying, ““Libors are not reflecting the true cost of the money. The true cost of money is anything from 5 to 15 basis points higher.” (Financial Times)
Good news for EU bankers in the City: 67% of Britains think EU migrants should stay in the country after a Brexit. (British Future)
Father was an M&A banker, children work in liberal arts. (NY Times)
Try touching someone on the back of the shoulder instead of shaking their hand. (Bloomberg)
“I hope the traits of Patrick Bateman are not indicative of what I’ll become.” (Bloomberg)
Unfortunate advertisement for young bankers’ competition depicts man squatting on City. (Evening Standard)
The only way to get money out of a Goldman account is to initiate an electronic transfer to another financial institution or a wire transfer that can take up to one to three days. (WSJ)
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