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

by Mary Childs

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250120847
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	169,416
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

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

Editorial Reviews

"Well written. . . a deeply researched book about one of those money men who made a fortune and lost it all and changed finance but not for the better." —Roxane Gay

"A perfect book... brilliant, chef's kiss! It's hilarious, tragic, witty, bright, smart, inspiring, devastating, and complete! Filled the Succession-size hole in my heart." —Kaleb Nygaard, Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation.


"This is an essential and enraging book, and it’s also a page-turner, even if you have a literary website editor’s knowledge of the financial world. It’s also very funny." —Jessie Gaynor, LitHub

"[Childs's] book The Bond King isn’t just the story of Bill Gross. It’s about the expansion of finance to its current form, where experts rule and the little guy can’t win." —The New York Times

"Who the heck reads a book thrice in two months? I did. Mary Childs's The Bond King is a page-turner—about treacherous ... credit wonks" —Roben Farzad, host of public radio's Full Disclosure

"It's amazingly good. It cuts through all the mind-numbing jargon of the finance world to provide an accessible and illuminating look at the rise of the multitrillion-dollar bond market. It's beautifully written. It's meticulously researched and reported. It's eye opening. And it centers on a fascinating and entertaining character whose journey takes us right to the heart of the story of high finance over the last half century." —Planet Money

"It has been a long time since I devoured a book as just assiduously as this… I was completely gripped and I loved it. —Felix Salmon, Slate Money podcast

"Entertaining. . . . [Childs] is a keen observer. . . . She ably describes the mechanics of the mortgage futures market. . . . A galloping narrative." —Wall Street Journal

"[T]he award-winning financial journalist Mary Childs paints a vivid picture of how it all began and unraveled for the man credited with turning a once sleepy and low-risk corner of finance into an exciting casino." —Insider

"Admirably thorough." —James B. Stewart, New York Times

"[A] vivid tale of the bond manager and his empire." —Niel Irwin, Axios

"A vivid and authoritative portrait of one of the most influential figures in American finance." —Sheelah Kolhatkar, bestselling author of Black Edge

"An instant classic of finance and a joy to read. Mary Childs has a gift for explaining the rise of the modern bond market, one of the most important stories of finance, and interlaces that story with the deeply reported, thrilling, tragic and occasionally comic human story of the downfall of Bill Gross. And it is all written with great style, wit and insight. Anyone looking to understand the nuances of bonds or the difficulties of managing complicated people should read this book." —Matt Levine, 'Money Stuff' columnist, Bloomberg Opinion

"A most necessary book. Mary Childs is one of a handful of finance writers who understand how the industry has reshaped America and helped create the strange, often failing society we inhabit. And one cannot understand modern finance without understanding the character of the mad bond king Bill Gross. Well-researched and written with verve, this is nothing short of a page-turner." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends and Lake Success

"The Bond King details the intractable brilliance of Bill Gross that enabled him to build a bond empire but also kindled his own demise. The book navigates into some of the “colorful” corners of Gross’ recent years (including his acrimonious divorce and Hatfield’s vs. McCoy-like feud with his neighbor), but, importantly, it emphasizes practitioner-level insights into the markets he once dominated. The book could have been salacious, but to [Childs'] credit, it remains serious and insightful." —Mike Terwilliger, BC Partners Credit

From the Publisher