Last month, the portfolio manager for Janus Capital Group recommended shorting the Chinese stock market, tweeting from the Janus account that the next “Short of a Lifetime” would be the China Shenzen Index. Turns out he was right, of course: the Shenzhen Composite Index has fallen 38 percent since Gross’s tweet, according to Bloomberg. Over the course of the year, Shenzhen’s stock market had more than doubled over the course of the year to its most expensive level ever.
But unfortunately for Gross, he didn’t fully commit to his own advice–for the second time this year. In April, Gross also recommended shorting German bunds, but he hedged his own position. “My famous (infamous?) ‘short of a lifetime’ trade on the German bund market was well-timed but not necessarily well executed,” he wrote in the June investment outlook for Janus.
Even so, the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, which Gross oversees, is still beating out 98 percent of its rivals, Bloomberg wrote.