by Mina Kimes
You have to see it from Bob Rodriguez's perspective. Twice he has spotted an approaching storm. Twice he has warned the world. Twice he has been pooh-poohed and seen investors abandon the two mutual funds he managed. Twice he has taken steps to shield his clients from the coming crisis.
And twice -- first with Internet stocks in the 1990s, and then with the financial crisis of 2008 -- Rodriguez has been right.
As the latter cataclysm unfolded, the man once mocked for missing out on the hottest markets of his lifetime was anointed as a seer. The Wall Street Journal pronounced Rodriguez one of the "doomsayers who got it right." Barron's labeled him a "prophet." MarketWatch described him as one of the "four horsemen of the market."
Rodriguez, the CEO of $16 billion money management firm First Pacific Advisors, isn't the type to be satisfied with being right (though he's certainly not above that particular pleasure). He's seemingly compelled to share the hard truth. It's as if he has this terrible gift, and with that comes the obligation to tell the world when calamity is on the horizon.
So when he was invited to address more than 1,000 mutual fund managers at a conference held by Morningstar in May 2009 -- just when it looked as if the crisis had finally abated -- Rodriguez gave himself only a brief pat on the back. Then he launched into a tirade, ripping into all of the parties involved in the meltdown. Fund managers, he said, had "stunk." The federal stimulus programs were foolish and shortsighted, and regulators had lost all credibility. Worst of all, he said, was the ballooning U.S. debt, which had prompted him to stop buying long-term bonds from the "irresponsible and fiscally inept government."
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You have to see it from Bob Rodriguez's perspective. Twice he has spotted an approaching storm. Twice he has warned the world. Twice he has been pooh-poohed and seen investors abandon the two mutual funds he managed. Twice he has taken steps to shield his clients from the coming crisis.
And twice -- first with Internet stocks in the 1990s, and then with the financial crisis of 2008 -- Rodriguez has been right. As the latter cataclysm unfolded, the man once mocked for missing out on the hottest markets of his lifetime was anointed as a seer. The Wall Street Journal pronounced Rodriguez one of the "doomsayers who got it right." Barron's labeled him a "prophet." MarketWatch described him as one of the "four horsemen of the market."
Rodriguez, the CEO of $16 billion money management firm First Pacific Advisors, isn't the type to be satisfied with being right (though he's certainly not above that particular pleasure). He's seemingly compelled to share the hard truth. It's as if he has this terrible gift, and with that comes the obligation to tell the world when calamity is on the horizon.
So when he was invited to address more than 1,000 mutual fund managers at a conference held by Morningstar in May 2009 -- just when it looked as if the crisis had finally abated -- Rodriguez gave himself only a brief pat on the back. Then he launched into a tirade, ripping into all of the parties involved in the meltdown. Fund managers, he said, had "stunk." The federal stimulus programs were foolish and shortsighted, and regulators had lost all credibility. Worst of all, he said, was the ballooning U.S. debt, which had prompted him to stop buying long-term bonds from the "irresponsible and fiscally inept government."
Read more:
