Bill Gross Likens Market to Retirement Community

In an interview with CNBC earlier this month, Janus Henderson portfolio manager Bill Gross said that the stock market’s “halcyon days are over” as central banks around the world take away the high levels of stimulus they’ve provided over the past ten years.

“I’m not supporting a bear market,” Gross said in the interview, “but sort of a market where you move into an old-age retirement community where the pace of activity and prices behave more maturely.” He argued that the shift is due in large part to the Fed’s reducing stimulus after years of “bargain-basement interest rates and trillions in money printing,” adding that investors are going to have to accept lower returns. He cites rising interest rates and balance sheet reductions by both the Fed and the ECB as factors that will negatively affect the bull market.

“I think double-digit increases are over,” Gross told CNBC, “simply because the credit cycle itself is pulling back.”