Are you sitting down? In a shocking turn of events, Jim Rogers is “not so optimistic” about something. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.Speaking in Bucharest last Tuesday, Rogers mentioned that he was “not so optimistic” about the price of gold and silver in the near future. Rogers, though, may have shocked the crowd when expressing bullish opinions in the long term about, well, anything really, but in this case the price of the aforementioned commodities.
“I expect the price to decline and when that happens I will buy more,” Rogers said.
End of Stimulus Could Hurt Gold
The price of gold and silver declined last week after comments from Ben Bernanke that he would most likely not be engaging in further fiscal stimulus. Gold and silver, long seen as safe haven investments that increase in value when the dollar appears weak, will become less appealing if the Fed declines to engage in more currency manipulation. The highly controversial quantitative easing plans, intended to stimulate the economy by increasing the money supply, helped in driving up the price of gold over the last few years. However, if Bernanke is to be believed that the program has come to a close, it would mean that the dollar will once again gain appeal as a safe-haven investment. Rogers, though, has a very public bearish stance on the American economy that is most likely a part of why he still sees gold prices rising in the long term.
Rogers Also Sees End to Chinese Housing Bubble
Rogers, who now lives in Singapore, is very bullish on the long term economic prospects of China and Asia. As such, in a recent exclusive interview with China New Daily, he expressed his belief that the housing bubble in China has come to a close.
“There has been a bubble in the Chinese property market which is now over,” said Rogers. “The Chinese government has been trying to burst the bubble. I think the government is doing the right thing to bring down the price of property. If you do not pop bubbles, lots of people get badly hurt. The bigger the bubble gets, the worse it is for everyone.”
David Carbon, Managing Director of Economics and Currencies at DBS Bank reiterated this belief in his own interview on CNBC.
“We look at the numbers and China gave us a touch and go three, four months ago, so it’s no longer a question of hard or soft landing,” Carbon said. “China has already taken off…as has most of Asia.”
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