Via the @JanusCapital account on Twitter, Gross said on Tuesday, "Buffett, not oil, likely cause of today's rally. $32 billion purchase of PCP closes Friday. Fresh $$."
Breaking it down:
- There's been a very tight relationship between the movements in crude oil prices and stocks of late. Of course on any day there's more than one "catalyst" moving markets, but the fact that oil and stocks move in tandem almost daily has been hard to ignore.
- But Gross' comments, then, is saying the rally had to do with the closing of Buffett's acquisition of Precision Castparts, a huge supplier to the aerospace industry, for $32 billion. The deal was announced last August, finally has the blessing of regulators, and will close on Friday.
- And since Berkshire Hathaway's largest acquisition ever is finally closed, Buffett can take some of Berkshire's cash and redeploy it into the market and buy other things. Namely: all of the stocks. Or so the story goes.
Maybe Gross is actually talking about Warren Buffett, or maybe he's just referencing value investors in general who might look at current stock market levels and want to buy.
Either way, we know we definitely haven't read this anywhere else.