“One should only invest in what s/he knows about. Do not listen to hot tips, or me. Everybody wants hot tips. Those would bankrupt you, ruin you,” the American investor and financial commentator said during an interaction with Shiv Sehgal, President and Co-Head of the Institutional Clients Group at Edelweiss Global Investment Advisors, at the
ETMarkets Global Summit 2021.
The virtual event, which kicked off on Wednesday on
www.etmarkets.com, runs through January 22.
“The way to be successful as an investor is to do nothing until you yourself know it is going to work and is backed by your own research,” Rogers said.
The veteran investor said the dollar is on the decline, but one can stay invested in it as long as people continue to regard it as safe haven. “The US dollar is no longer a safe haven, but people for historic reasons still think it is,” he said. He saw the Chinese Renminbi as the only currency on the horizon that can replace the US dollar as a reserve currency.
Rogers said despite the adverse talk about bullion as an investment option, gold and silver continue to be attractive options and one should accumulate them on dips.
“I’m waiting for the correction. I don’t know how long that correction will last, a month or a year. I will buy more silver, because it is down 50 per cent from highs, gold is down 10 per cent or something. I will buy a lot of silver and gold sometime later, because their prices would eventually go much higher,” he said.
Rogers said while India remains an attractive destination for investors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has disappointed him on the reforms front.
“I wish the Indian economy would have been opened up more. If India does open up the economy for trading and investing, it would have a much better future,” he said. “PM Modi certainly changed the tax structure, GST was brilliant. Who thought it could have ever happened. But he did it. Yet, he has not done many of the things I thought he would do” Rogers said.
He stressed that there are more opportunities for investors in Asia than in the West.
Rogers said he is optimistic about agriculture as a commodity. He said India is one of the world’s great agricultural nations. “Unfortunately, agriculture is quite regulated, controlled and distorted here. The government says it is helping people. Oh my gosh!,” he said.
“India should be, could be and will be a great agricultural nation again if the government gets out of the way and leaves those smart farmers to do it,” he said. “It’s very dangerous when the government says it is coming to help you. When the government comes to help you, leave home, go away,” he said.
Rogers said the cheapest asset class on a historic basis right now is commodities and, among them, agricultural commodities.
The veteran investor said he is optimistic about Chinese agriculture, as people in the cities there have done well and the ones in the countryside did not in the past 40 years. “Beijing will catch up now.” The commodity guru said he also likes Russia’s agriculture sector.
Rogers said he never owned cryptocurrency, but now wishes he had bought Bitcoin. But he cautioned that many cryptocurrencies have disappeared of late. “If the Bitcoin ever gets accepted as currency, governments will be going to outlaw it,” he said.
