Markets May Not Change Much the Rest of This Year: Gross
The Federal Reserve has done a "masterful" job of keeping global markets relatively quiet, which for investors means stocks and bonds are unlikely to change much in the coming months, Bill Gross, Pimco’s co-chief investment officer, told CNBC Wednesday.
“What the Fed(learn more) has done, rather masterfully, in terms of asset markets, is to suppress volatility,” Gross said on “Squawk on the Street.”
"Because of that," he added, "we have volatility as reflected on the VIX and volatility as reflected by measures in the bond market where things simply don’t change much."
Although stocks, long-term bond prices and gold are all up for the year, Gross said, prices may not move much more even if the Fed decides to do a third round of quantitative easing, as many are expecting.
Gross expects the 10-year Treasury to end the year yielding 1.65 percent, about where it is now.
“That sounds rather boring and non-committal,” Gross said, “but that’s basically what the Fed wants. They want things to stay exactly where they are.”
This new normal of low volatility also underpins Gross’s recent pronouncement that the “cult of equities” is dead.
“What we’re talking about in terms of the ‘cult of equity’ or the ‘cult of bonds’ is basically that income or dividends will be the dominant emphasis going forward in terms of total returns,” he said. “Prices in terms of double-digit price movements for stocks and those double-digit movements from long bonds are a thing of the past.”
(Read More: Stocks Will Live, but ‘Worship’ of Them Is Dead: Gross.)
Investors will have to get comfortable with a 3 to 3.5 percent dividend yield in global large-cap stocks and a 3 percent yield from the bond market.
“Yes, low volatility is boring,” Gross said. “Perhaps that’s the mode going forward but investors should get used to it.”