$2.2 Trillion Asset Manager Considering ‘Trading Certain Cryptocurrencies’

On Wednesday (October 20), Daniel Ivascyn, the CIO of fixed income focused investment management firm PIMCO, which manages $2.20 trillion in assets (as of 30 June 2021) for “central banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, corporations, foundations and endowments, and individual investors around the world”, said that his firm is considering “potentially trading certain cryptocurrencies”.

Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (“PIMCO”) is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). PIMCO Investments LLC (“PIMCO Investments”) is a broker-dealer registered with the SEC and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc (“FINRA”). The PIMCO Group was acquired by Allianz in 2000.

According to his bio, Daniel Ivascyn is “Group Chief Investment Officer and a managing director in the Newport Beach office.” He is also “lead portfolio manager for the firm’s income strategies and credit hedge fund and mortgage opportunistic strategies.” He was named Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year (U.S.) for 2013 by Morningstar.

Yesterday (October 20), on Ivascyn said during an interview with CNBC’s Leslie Picker for Delivering Alpha:

“Now we’re looking at potentially trading certain cryptocurrencies as part of our trend-following strategies or quant-oriented strategies, then doing more work on the fundamental side… So this will be a gradual process where we spent a lot of time on the internal diligence side speaking to investors. And we’ll take baby steps in an area that’s rapidly growing.“

His comments came on the day that Bitcoin broke its all-time high (of around $65,000) before reaching an intraday high of around $67,000.

According to CNBC’s report, Ivascyn also that said some of PIMCO’s hedge fund portfolios are already trading crypto-linked securities:

“We’re trading from a relative value perspective. So we’re not taking directional exposure, but we’re looking to take advantage of mispricings between the cash product, popular trust that trades on the exchange, and then the futures. So that was a starting point for us in a very narrow segment of our business.“

As for decentralized finance (DeFi), he had this to say:

“You have to understand decentralized finance, because it will be disruptive, and it very well may disrupt our industry, in our business in particular.“

He went on to say that PIMCO wants to be “competitively prepared to deal with what’s a rapidly changing environment that offers a pretty significant value proposition, particularly for younger generations, or the new generation of the investment community.”

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

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Featured Image by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay

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