Monday, December 29, 2014

Oil prices decline is due to global economic weakness



Monday, December 22, 2014

Marc Faber upbeat on Hong Kong shares compared to US

I think that most stock markets in the world are correlated to the US market. I believe that if the US S&P500 drops 10 percent, 200 points for sure other markets will also go down. 

But is it possible that because of the weak economy in China the Chinese also print money which is a possibility. If they did that, the Yuan would weaken. [The Chinese Stocks] have been essentially under-performing the US since 2006 and so my belief is that if China decided to print money and currency weakened , money would flow into equities. 

The other reason I am reasonably positive is the valuations in Hong Kong is relatively depressed, because you can buy property companies that sell at a discount of 40 to 50 percent of Net Asset Value. Now the Net Asset value may not be correct as property prices in Hong Kong could decline as they have over the last 12 months. But still you have some cushion of security. Moreover Hong Kong shares have a relatively high dividend yield compared to other markets. 

So if someone says I'm very bullish on the US stock market, I would rather own Hong Kong shares instead of S&P because they have better value.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Current generation not as fortunate as previous



Monday, December 15, 2014

Marc Faber on Christmas and humor






Wednesday, December 10, 2014

World being inflated by money printing

We are in a world that is driven by money printing and, in general, I believe the standards of living for many people in the Western world will continue to decline as they have declined over the last 20 years, if we look at median income in real terms. 

How the world will look in 5 or 10 you and I and nobody knows, although some people think they know. 

So my advice is to be diversified. Hold some real estate, stocks, bonds and gold and you have to also diversify your assets geographically – don't hold everything in the US. Hold some outside the US as well; hold some outside Germany, outside Switzerland. You have to be diversified. Then you have to hope for the best. 

Monday, December 8, 2014

Emerging economies vs Emerging Sectors of the economy

I believe that what I called in the late '70s and early '80s, along with other people like Barton Biggs and Antoine van Agtmael, what we call emerging markets now, many emerging markets are no longer emerging; they're advanced economies, like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. Now we have new emerging economies like Kazakhstan, parts of the former Soviet Union, African countries, Mongolia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and so forth. 

So I'm sure there is some merit of investing in these regions. There is also what I have experienced, a significant execution risk. In other words, people go in there and they buy stuff and then they don't take much money because they're being cheated out or promoters of the projects make the money and not the investors. But in general, the concept appeals to me.

I would also say, we have to broaden the concept of emerging markets to emerging industries. You make much more money in investing in biotech and in the Internet and social media stocks in the last few years. It's not a recommendation to do it at the current level of stock prices. But I'm saying in the last three or four years you made much more money in emerging sectors of the economy than investing in Laos and Cambodia and Mongolia.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Negative employee vs Apathetic employee



Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Bank Muscat to host Marc Faber in Oman

Bank Muscat is hosting Dr Marc Faber, renowned economist and investment analyst on December 04, 2014.

Dr Faber will share his insights on the state of the world economy and financial markets at a series of seminars organised by the bank’s treasury and capital markets division.

The event will be attended by high-profile dignitaries from the government and top corporate clients.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Present system is not good enough

I believe that the idea of democracy that came up, say, more prevalently in the 18th century and then was implemented with the American Constitution and so forth.

I think that in 500 years or so people will look back and say, how could people have been so stupid to think that a democracy would work? Because everybody wants to take as much as he can from the cake and through the voting machine and through all kinds of tricks and so forth, the politicians always promise more than they can deliver. If they tell the people the truth they're not going to be elected. So I'm very pessimistic about the present system.