How is Jim Rogers so smart?

simon1080 · Sep 17, 2008

What school did he go to? Or is it just pure experience?

And do not start with his an idiot this that.. His richer than you by at least 100000x .. so he must know what his talking about.

These old timers are nailing everything to the dot.

I'm starting to believe Buffets side of bet.. that no hedge fund will outperform S&P 500 over the long run. (That is if they can manage to stay in business)

poyayan · Sep 17, 2008

Buffet and Jim are 2 person that I respect. Buffet always said that he probably sold early, but 1 year later, you always find him sold near the top.

Jim also said he is a terrible market timer...

Both men's medium term (6 month) to multi-year macro economic call are always on the spot.

Especially when they both see things the same way, that is when you really need to pay attention.

hughb · Sep 17, 2008

I don't give a fuck how rich he is, that's got nothing to do with being "smart". He plans on moving to China, (actually he may have already done it), because he thinks China is some economic superpower. China hasn't even put a stop to slavery yet and can't keep poison out of tooth paste and infant formula! And his "smarts" apply to trading too, he wasn't even aware of the Options Clearing Corportation or it's function until it had to be pointed out to him in an interview circa 1988.

man · Sep 17, 2008

Quote from hughb:

I don't give a fuck how rich he is, that's got nothing to do with being "smart". He plans on moving to China, (actually he may have already done it), because he thinks China is some economic superpower. China hasn't even put a stop to slavery yet and can't keep poison out of tooth paste and infant formula! And his "smarts" apply to trading too, he wasn't even aware of the Options Clearing Corportation or it's function until it had to be pointed out to him in an interview circa 1988.

sorry to say this, but this is the difference: he thinks on
another level. he sees bigger pictures. you care about
the details.

hughb · Sep 17, 2008

Quote from poyayan:

Both men's medium term (6 month) to multi-year macro economic call are always on the spot.

James Rogers in April of 1988:

Yes, eventually I expect the market to break the 1987 low. Right now I'm still looking mainly for a financial collapse. However, the politicians may foul it up and turn it into an economic collapse.

makloda · Sep 17, 2008

Quote from poyayan:Both men's medium term (6 month) to multi-year macro economic call are always on the spot.

Published: December 4, 2007 (!)

hughb · Sep 17, 2008

It sounds like I'm shitting on Jim Rogers, (and if you had mentioned Soros I would sound like I'm shitting on him too), but I'm exasperated at the adoration for these two people who outside of trading have been nearly 100% wrong on everything they've ever written and said. How long ago did Soros warn us about the imminent collapse of capitalism? It's no different than all these people who gush and give credit to Marty Zweig for calling the 1987 crash on Wall Street Week. He did nothing of the sort.

People like Ned Davis and Hugh Johnson are the most consistent I've read and listened too. Of course they aren't always right either, but they get very little credit for their work. Two of the best around.

simon1080 · Sep 17, 2008

His time horizon is very long.. So I don't expect a day trader to understand what i'm talking about.

I think China is right now .. what US was earlier in the 1900s ... potential of growth wise.

zdreg · Sep 17, 2008

jim rogers sold his mansion in manhattan and moved to singapore.

skip the jim rogers bashing. he recommended shorting fre and fmn and c. he recommended investing in commodities and china for a lengthy bull cycle. his negative forecasts about russia ,indonesia and the euro. have not yet come about. it doesn't matter since you would have large returns on his other predictions.

both soros and rogers are extremely wealthy men which is more than can be said about their detractors.

it is no longer surprising that many posters on ET are clueless on how to use the search button. one reason for its existence is to find previous threads on the subject in question.

Kicking · Sep 17, 2008

I don't think China is like the US in the early 20th century . There will never be another US, back then you also had an industrial revolution, tons of new inventions and new products, a whole new world that is.

There is none of the same in China . China is just a factory for the world without innovations. The rise of the middle class I believe has been greatly exagerated, in fact the vast majority of Chinese live in poverty and have even seen their living standards stagnate or worse according to the Economist last year.

China will have a problem giving access to all of its people to the kind of lifestyle we have in the Western world. It makes me laugh to hear everybody in China will soon get a car and thus steel demand etc will go through the roof. By the time this is possible environmental constraints and pressures from the outside world to drastically reduce pollution will put a lid on that growth toward current Western standards . But anyway a worldwide slowdown is already deflating the China bubble, just look at the stock market there. A 1929 style crash. In that way China can be compared to the US.

Rogers ; I don't know how he gets his insights and how he can have so much conviction , his macro calls have been great but some of them he's been making them for more than 20 years. If you had listen to everything you probabyl wouldnt be idolizing him so much. His calls now are becoming self fulfilling prophecies because of his near cult following (with all the dire consequences for food prices ). And yeah he 's a pretty bad trader, he's still long China, after the crash and an obvious blowoff top. But he's made a ton on his shorts. You have to give him credit for that given that a lot of fundamental analysts didn't see anything coming.