The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All

From the host of NPR's Planet Money, the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever.

Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. $10,000 and countless casino bans later, he was hooked: so he enrolled in business school.

The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino. Over the course of decades, Bill Gross turned the sleepy bond market into a destabilized game of high risk, high reward; founded Pimco, one of today's most powerful, secretive, and cutthroat investment firms; helped to reshape our financial system in the aftermath of the Great Recession--to his own advantage; and gained legions of admirers, and enemies, along the way. Like every American antihero, his ambition would also be his undoing.

To understand the winners and losers of today's money game, journalist Mary Childs argues, is to understand the bond market--and to understand the bond market is to understand the Bond King.

ISBN-13: 9781250120847

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Publication Date: 03-15-2022

Pages: 336

Product Dimensions: 6.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.30(d)

Mary Childs (she/her) is a co-host and correspondent for NPR’s Planet Money podcast. Previously she was a reporter at Barron’s magazine, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg News. She graduated from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, with a degree in business journalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Housing Project 9

2 In the Beginning 24

3 The Turn 46

4 The Crisis 54

5 Constructive Paranoia 78

6 New Normal 95

7 Stinker 108

8 Edge 121

9 Grow or Die 143

10 Ratfucked 157

11 Taper Tantrum 172

12 Secretariat 193

13 Inside the Showdown 212

14 Stealing the Firm 229

15 Minutes 251

16 Bye-Bye to Those Days 272

Epilogue 298

Author's Note 305

Acknowledgments 311

Notes 315

Show More