PIMCO Sets Low Price for Total Return ETF; El-Erian on QE3

The new ETF was being watched by the industry. “When you first hear of something like this you think, ‘OK, actively managed ETFs have arrived,’” Morningstar ETF Analyst Robert Goldsborough said in an interview with AdvisorOne at the time. “No one can say they still need to be tested as a product class when someone like Bill Gross gets in the game. This is big.”

While Goldsborough noted PIMCO already offers actively managed ETFs—PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond Strategy Fund and PIMCO Enhanced Short Maturity Strategy—he expects the new ETF to attract “a tremendous amount of investor interest.”

“I don’t think anyone can argue Bill Gross isn’t a fantastic investor,” Goldsborough said, adding Gross has been named Manager of the Year and Manager of the Decade by Morningstar. “He has made some contrarian bets against the bond market recently, and you don’t bet against someone like [Gross]. That said, I don’t think the ETF version will differ that dramatically from the mutual fund, but how its managed might, meaning it might trade after the mutual fund.”