NOVEMBER 1 2007
AMERICANWAY 27
ThEJIMRogERsChEATshEET
Asmuchas he’swrittenabout his life, Jim
Rogers doesn’t really trumpet his private investments. “I don’t know if he has
Treasury bills, if he’s buying pepper plantations, or if he’s short-selling Zambian
rubber,” quips friend and fellowmarketwatcher JimGrant. Sowe thoughtwe’d
pierce the cone of silence andget Rogers’s thoughts onwhere themarkets stand
— andwhere they’re headed.
oNCoMModITIEs
Ü
“Look at previous commodity bull markets; they’ve lasted a very long time.
Sowe may still have years to go in this one. Most oil fields are in decline, many mines are being
depleted, and it takes a long time to bring new facilities onstream. I don’t knowwhen this bull
marketwill end. Askme again in 2019, when everyone is invested in commodities and thinks that
theywill go up forever.”
oNThEU.s. ECoNoMY
Ü
“Iwouldn’t be buyingAmerican stocks at this point. Housing is already
in recession, and there’s an inverted yield curve in the bondmarket [short-term bonds yieldmore
than long-term ones], which has frequently led to recession. Throughout history, a recession has
occurred every four to seven years, and it’s already beenfive to six years since our last one.”
oN globAl MARkETs
Ü
“Commodity-driven economies will continue to do well, like Canada,
which has a balancedbudget and a trade surplus. Countries likeAustralia, NewZealand,Malaysia,
andBrazil will all be decent places to invest.”
oN ThE pRICE of oIl
Ü
“I don’t see howwe’re going to avoid $100 a barrel. And adjusted for
inflation, the old highswere already over $100.”
oNThEdollAR
Ü
“As recentlyas the1980s,wewere still acreditornation.We’renow the largest
debtor nation theworldhas ever seen;weowe theworld$13 trillion. So thedollar is under a lot of
pressure.Mydaughter alreadyhas aSwissbankaccount, because this isgoing tobeaproblematic
issue in her lifetime. And she has to take care ofme someday!”
perous Botswanawas back in 1991, Rogers
invested ineverysinglecompanyon itsstock
exchange — all seven of them. He
fi
nally
soldhisholdingsonlya fewmonthsago, for
a tidypro
fi
t of several hundredpercent.
He also called for a bull market in com-
modities back in 1998, when no one was
touching the sector because it had been
in the doldrums for somany years. But as
Asian economies began to rev up and chew
throughmore andmore rawmaterials, he
saw themassivepotential there.As a result,
he created a commodities index within a
fewweeks of the sector’s absolute bottom.
Its performance since then? Almost 250
percent.
Instead of satisfying his wanderlust,
though, that trip served only to whet his
appetite. “I wanted to seemore, and see it
all,” he remembers. Along for the second
and even bigger trip, the so-calledMillen-
nium Adventure, came his then-
fi
ancée,
now-wife Paige Parker. She can’t say she
didn’t knowwhat shewas getting into: On
their
fi
rst date, at the Central Park Boat-
house Café, Rogersmentioned that hewas
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