Pimco CEO Manny Roman on Japanese Bonds and the Sell America Trade
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Earlier this week, we saw something unusual happen in markets. The S&P 500 fell 2%, US Treasury yields rose, and the dollar simultaneously declined. This trifecta of market moves has rekindled talk of the "Sell America" trade as investors worry about the Trump administrations threats to take over Greenland. At the same time, Japanese bonds sold off after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called a snap election. So, how concerned should investors be about these latest developments? Is the "Sell America" trade really back? Or are we seeing a global rise in long bond yields? In this episode, we talk with Pimco CEO Emmanuel Roman about how he’s reading the moves. We also discuss Pimco's investment in data center debt, how the company is using AI internally, and why he doesn't 'get' gold.
Read more:
Why Investors Are Worried About Japan’s Bond Market
How Gold’s Safe-Haven Appeal Is Fueling Record Prices
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with Barclays Brief, a podcast from |
| 0:05.6 | Barclays Investment Bank. Each week, our experts analyze market themes, helping you anticipate |
| 0:10.7 | what's next. Listen to Barclay's Brief wherever you get your podcasts. Donald Trump is |
| 0:17.0 | rewriting the Washington rule book and reshaping the global economy. |
| 0:22.0 | If you're trying to connect the dots behind the headlines, Bloomberg's Trumponomics podcast |
| 0:26.4 | is here to help. I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of government and economics at Bloomberg. |
| 0:31.5 | Every week, I'll bring you a smart, focused conversation with reporters and experts from |
| 0:36.8 | Washington, Wall Street and beyond. |
| 0:39.5 | Listen to new episodes every Wednesday and follow Trumponomics wherever you listen. |
| 0:47.7 | Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. |
| 1:07.8 | Thank you. Podcasts Radio News Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 1:09.2 | And I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 1:10.5 | Joe, it's back. What's back? It's back. |
| 1:12.6 | What's back? They're back. No, it's the sell America trade. |
| 1:16.8 | Oh, they sell America trade. Various flavors of what that Quebec could have been, but all |
| 1:20.8 | seemed to be converging at once. Yeah, I should have been more clear. So we are recording this on |
| 1:25.0 | January 21st, and this comes a day after we saw a pretty big |
| 1:29.7 | sell-off in the market. What was interesting about that sell-off is it was a trifecta of U.S. |
| 1:35.4 | assets. So you had the S&P 500 down, bond yields up, and the dollar index down as well. And so |
| 1:41.9 | obviously people are talking about, is this the start or the restart of |
| 1:47.1 | the sell America trade? All of this is coming in the context of Trump's threats against Greenland, |
| 1:54.1 | lots of geopolitical risk. And I should also just mention we are recording this literally at the end of this discussion, Trump is due to speak at Davos. |
... |
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