Pimco’s Bill Gross on dead cat, Bieber and how sneezing is half erotic

Perhaps Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson said it best when he tweeted in June: “Something weird is going on with Bill Gross.”

Patterson was attending an investor conference in Chicago, where Gross -- the colorful co-founder of Newport Beach asset manager Pimco -- took to the stage in sunglasses and compared himself to Justin Bieber, among other odd behavior. He also instructed reporters to say: “Bill Gross is the kindest, bravest, warmest most wonderful human being you’ve met.”

A legendary bond investor who was widely known as the Bond King, Gross, 70, abruptly resigned from Pimco on Friday; the firm was reportedly preparing to fire him.

Tales of eccentric behavior have dogged Gross for years. To see some of his wackiness, look no further than the numerous investor letters he penned and posted online.

Some highlights:

-- On sneezing: “There’s nothing like a good sneeze; maybe a hot shower or an ice cream sandwich, but no -- nothing else even comes close,” Gross wrote in May. “A sneeze is, to be candid, sort of half erotic, a release of pressure that feels oh so good either before or just after the Achoo! The air, along with 100,000 germs, comes shooting out of your nose faster than a race car at the Indy 500.”

-- In April, Gross wrote an investment outlook titled “Bob,” and devoted much of the 1,700-word letter to his recently deceased Maine Coon cat (who, interestingly, was female).

“What a girl, what a kitty girl that Bob,” he wrote, after sharing stories of Bob watching him enter and exit the shower. (“Why was a female cat named Bob checking me out all the time?” he wondered.)

He ended the investment letter with: “And what would Bob have meowed? Well, like I wrote, she was always more certain about pet food stocks, but then maybe kitty heaven has given her some additional insight. I shall have to ask her in my dreams. Sometimes dreams come true you know.”

-- Gross apparently doesn’t own a cellphone. “Our modern age is becoming more virtual than physical, which I find increasingly depressing if only because I’ve failed to keep pace,” he wrote in June. “I’m sticking with live chirping as opposed to Angry Birds for now.”

-- On his hatred of crows: “They screech, they jabber, they complain from the treetops and then once on the ground they hop, hop, hop all over the street looking for garbage. Flying seems beyond them -- too much effort to flap those ebony wings. They prefer to play chicken with my car rolling into the driveway at 5 mph. ‘Get out of my way,’ they seem to be saying. ‘We’re probably on the endangered species list and if you hit us, you’re the one that’ll be sorry.’ Probably true – damn crows.”

-- Last month Gross recalled a nighttime taxicab ride he took in San Francisco: “The driver appeared to be Vietnamese, and having had a margarita or two, I unfortunately stumbled into the emotional jungles of Vietnam to which I had come, and from which I had safely departed nearly a half century ago. ‘You’re Vietnamese,’ I said, ‘how old are you?’ ‘53,’ he said. ‘I grew up in Da Nang and escaped when I was 8 with my mother, after my father and older brother were killed.’

-- On Cracker “Jacks”: “That’s right -- I said Cracker Jacks! I can’t count the number of people who have told me during the seventh inning stretch at a baseball game to make sure I sing Cracker Jack (without the S) because that’s what the song says. I care not. No one ever says buy me some ‘potato chip’ or some ‘peanut.’ How about a burger and some ‘french fry?’ In all cases, the ‘s’ just makes it flow better. My reality is a box of Cracker Jacks.”

Twitter: Andrea Chang