Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund, said the debt of consumer-finance companies is attractive after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans to use the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue program to help relieve pressures on consumer credit.

“American Express has been potentially admitted to the club in terms of capital injections,” Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Gross said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “These are excellent investments based on their associations with the government either through the FDIC guarantees or through the TARP program, and that's where I think an investor wants to go.”

Paulson, who shifted his focus on Nov. 12, initially sold the Troubled Asset Relief Program as a way to rid bank balance sheets of illiquid mortgage assets. American Express won Federal Reserve approval on Nov. 10 to become a commercial bank, which may help the New York-based company expand funding from consumer deposits and get access to the Treasury's bank rescue program. American Express has dropped 61 percent this year as more consumers fell behind on payments and doubt was raised about its own access to credit.

Yields on bonds backed by auto loans and credit-card debt stayed at record highs relative to benchmark interest rates. The gap, or spread, on top-rated credit card bonds maturing in three years remained at 525 basis points more than the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, according to Bank of America Corp. data.

Total Return Fund

Gross has recommended buying mortgage securities issued by government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the debt of banks that have sold stakes to the U.S. government. He advised against buying Treasuries, which his Total Return Fund has not held since December.