Jim Rogers – Don’t Listen To Everything I Say

Jim Rogers : “Well, nobody should invest in anything that they themselves don’t understand. So if I sat here and said you should do x, y, z, and people don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, they should probably ignore what I say or even what you say.” “Nobody should invest in something that they don’t understand. If you know nothing about gold except that it’s supposedly valuable, you shouldn’t buy it, or invest in anything you don’t know about. But once you know a lot about something, you will probably figure out some ways to protect yourself.” “I mean if you have your own business, like you, usually the best thing to invest in is your own business, because you know more about that than anything else. I have various ways that I’m trying to protect myself, but even if I told you I’m doing x, I might change my mind tomorrow afternoon, and then you would be stuck doing x because I said it.” “I’m not going to call you and tell you I changed my mind on that position. So people really need to invest in only what they themselves know a lot about.” - Jim Rogers in a recent interview with Investor Guide


Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.

Jim Rogers: people are not paying real attention to the biggest problems facing the world

Tom:  It seems like a lot of it comes down to human nature and human psychology. In a bubble, some don’t realize it’s a bubble, but even those that do are jealous of their neighbors making so much money in whatever’s hot right now, greed overwhelms fear and they can’t resist buying regardless of cost.
Jim Rogers:  Well yes, all of that is correct. But I never know whether people really believe some of the absurd things they say. I don’t know whether they’re fools or liars. I’m stunned sometimes with some of the things I hear when I go through life.

Tom:  So as a follow-up question, what’s something you think most people aren’t paying attention to now but should be?
Jim Rogers:  Oh well, there are many things. I would start with the debt in the United States government. You might say “oh, they’re paying attention”, I would say balderdash. You know, my entire life I’ve heard congress talk about deficit spending, bemoan deficit spending, and talk about the debt. Back in the 1980s there was something called the Grace Commission, which was specially commissioned to study what to do about the deficit and the debt. And it passed laws, congress passed several laws since then, saying there will be no more deficit spending, or there will be no more debt, there will be no more, this will change, blah blah blah. And then they turn around and they ignore the laws. This has been going on for a long time. You might say people are paying attention, I would say that’s claptrap, they’re just talking, they have no intention of doing anything about it, and even if they “do something”, what they do is say “ok, instead of having increased spending, we’ll have less increase, we’ll still increase, it’ll just be less.” I mean, no, nobody’s paying attention to it.

Tom:  I think some people are aware of it, but it gets back to what I was saying about a systemic problem with the political system. Since pain later is easier than pain now, a lot of people on both sides kick the can down the road… they know there will be big problems but they don’t want to lose political power now and they don’t care what happens once they’re out of office.
Jim Rogers:  Well, I call that not paying attention. You say they’re paying attention, I guess you’re saying they’re liars, not fools. Either way, people are not paying real attention to the biggest problems facing the world, not just America, and of course all of that deficit spending has led to money printing worldwide, and nobody’s paying attention to that either. Now it’s the accepted conventional wisdom that money printing is a good thing and only nuts like me say there’s something wrong with debasing your currency. - in investorguide




Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.

Jim Rogers : All bubbles look the same, all absurd policies look the same, and they all lined up. And people always say the same things, they say it’s different this time

Tom: Throughout your investing career you’ve consistently spotted trends before others, including the housing bubble and the financial crisis. How are you able to do this? Is it about knowing what sources of information to pay attention to and which to ignore, or are you able to synthesize information into wisdom in a way others don’t?
Jim Rogers : I don’t know, but I do know that if something’s too good to be true then it’s probably not true. The idea that we could all buy five or six houses with no job and no money down, and then that those mortgages could be sliced and diced and made into even more miraculous AAA credit… Looking back, even at the time it was incomprehensible to me that people would believe that. But looking back on it, I don’t think anybody could comprehend how that happened, but it did. You often see that. Back in the late 90s there was the whole dot com thing. Everybody was talking about a new era. Even the Wall Street Journal started to capitalize New Economy, you know, everybody got sucked in. But if you have any knowledge of history, you know this can happen throughout history. All bubbles look the same, all absurd policies look the same, and they all lined up. And people always say the same things, they say it’s different this time, they say it’s a new economy, a new era, whatever, and it never is. All these absurdities always end up badly. And by the way, the Wall Street Journal stopped capitalizing New Economy in the early part of this century, because even they came to realize, oh my gosh, it was not a new economy, and it never is a new era. Mankind doesn’t change very much at all. - in an interview yesterday with investorguide


Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.

Jim Rogers : the old ways usually have to change or get passed by

Tom:  It sounds like you’re saying that our political system has a systemic problem, it has too much inertia and can’t change… even if smart people agree that there’s a better way, the switching costs are too high and we can’t get from where we are to where we want to be. You’ve said something analogous with technology, about how emerging countries are leapfrogging the United States.
Jim Rogers :  Certainly in some ways, yes, I mean if you go to some countries now, people don’t have telephones with land lines, they just completely leapt over that whole thing. We all used to have telephones with copper wires coming in. Most new countries don’t have land lines, they don’t have all those copper wires, et cetera. They don’t need it, they just completely leapt over all that. That’s been the story throughout history, the way people have developed, something new comes along, people develop it rather than go with the old ways, and people still stuck with the old technology and the old ways usually have to change or get passed by. - in an interview yesterday with investorguide



Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.

US treasuries bubble burst ?

US treasuries is probably one of the last remaining asset bubbles left in the world. To buy them now would be a “terrible mistake”. The US Federal Reserve's continued quantitative easing measures should help hard assets.

Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.