Bitcoin would also not be an alternative investment in times of economic crisis, according to Gross. The famed financier also reiterated that bitcoin’s high volatility was one of the reasons it would not serve as a viable store of value.
Gross Likes Meme Stocks Five years later, he has changed his tune again. But he is not alone.
By becoming a bitcoin investor, Gross joins a list of big names in traditional finance who are converting to digital currencies.
“Crypto has been one of the great stories in finance over the course of the last 15 years. And I’ll be clear, I’ve been in the naysayer camp over that period of time,” billionaire Ken Griffin said recently . “But the crypto market today has a market capitalization of about $2 trillion in round numbers, which tells you that I haven’t been right on this call.”
“I have a tiny percentage on it on my portfolio to diversify,” billionaire and hedge-funder Ray Dalio said in February.
In the same interview with CNBC, Gross also confirms that he continues to bet on the same stocks, which are also among the favorites of crypto fans, especially on the Reddit forums.
“I am still trading GameStop (GME Get GameStop Corp. Class A Report and AMC (AMC Get AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Class A Report . These are lottery-ticket stocks,” the investor said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview with Brian Sullivan.
“The volatility on these options that I’m dealing with is so high that if you sell the options out of the money, which take GameStop around $120. Now, I’m selling four-month calls at $200 and capturing $12 or $13 per option of because the volatility’s like 120%,” Gross added.
The frenzy in GameStop and AMC shook Wall Street in January 2021 as retail investors piled into those stocks and call options, causing massive short squeezes that burned many short-selling hedge funds.