Mohamed El-Erian: My Money Has Mostly Been Into Cash as Central Banks Pump Asset Prices

Former PIMCO co-founder and now chief economic adviser at the Allianz Mohamed El-Erian, in a recent interview says why his portfolio has been mostly in cash.

Selected excerpts from OCGregister (hat tip Bloomberg) [bold mine]

Q. Why write a book on central banks?

A. This is a historic period in which central banks are the only game in town when it comes to policy. But central banks do not have the tools to deliver what the global economy needs. We need more potent reinvigorated growth models.

The West fell in love with the wrong growth models 10 years ago. It fell in love with finance as an enabler of prosperity. The whole society fell in love with leverage and credit as a way of prospering. We were entitled to accumulate debt! People bought homes they could not afford. Governments borrowed money that they could not pay back.

Regulators believed that finance was so sophisticated that you could lessen regulations on it. This romance with the wrong growth model fell apart in 2007 and 2008...

Q. Where is your money? Stocks? Treasuries? Bonds?

A. It is mostly concentrated in cash. That’s not great, given that it gets eaten up by inflation. But I think most asset prices have been pushed by central banks to very elevated levels.

Q. So we’re nearing a bubble?

A. Go back to central banks. Central banks look at growth, at employment, at wages. They are too low. They don’t have the instruments they need, but they feel obliged to do something. So they artificially lift asset prices by maintaining zero interest rates and by using their balance sheet to buy assets.

Why? Because they hope that they will trigger what’s called the wealth effect. That you will open your 401k, see it has gone up in price, and you’ll spend. And that companies will see their shares are going up and they will be more willing to invest. But there is a massive gap right now between asset prices and fundamentals.

It's interesting to see how changes has been happening at the margins to the point that risks appears to be seeping into mainstream awareness.