Byline: Manuel Schiffres
WHEN BILL GROSS TALKS ABOUT THE economy and the bond market, investors listen. Gross, arguably the nation's best-known bond-fund manager, is chief investment officer of Pimco, a Newport Beach, Cal., firm that manages fixed-income assets totaling $747 billion. He and his team are known for their uncannily accurate big-picture calls on the economy and the direction of interest rates. Their forecasting skills have helped propel Pimco Total Return, the firm's flagship, to one of the best records in the fund business. The institutional share class (symbol PTTRX) returned 9.1% last year, compared with 4.7% for the average intermediate taxable-bond fund, ...