See huge short positions developing in precious metals: Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers: I own the US dollar. So I hope they are right. It worries me that you say that there is turning out to be a consensus. I like to be on the other side of the consensus. My view is that we are going to have more currency turmoil in the world and during periods like that, many people flee to the US dollar. They think it is a safe haven. It is not a safe haven, but many people think it is. I expect more turmoil. Eventually, whether it is this year or next, when everybody has flocked to the US dollar, that is the time to sell and get out.

Jim Rogers: I am not optimistic about the rupee. You constantly have huge deficits, trade deficits, government deficits and inflation. If they would make the rupee convertible, then we can find a real free market value of the rupee. I would probably be extremely interested in India and in the rupee, but as long as you have got all these blockages, with the Indian government and Indian central bank trying to control everything, you cannot have a real market. So I am not too optimistic about the rupee.

On the other Asian currencies, the Chinese renminbi in probably going to continue to be strong. There will be ups and downs, but since it has been very strong recently, it is overdue for a correction. The Japanese yen will continue to be very weak, although I bought a few recently, because there are so many shorts at the moment. I am trying to be a trader, though I am a terrible trader. So if I am trying to go long the yen, it is undoubtedly going to go down. The Hong Kong dollar is probably okay to buy.

Jim Rogers: I do not have a clue. I am not any good at that sort of a thing. I had bought SAS Airline which is a big disaster. I bought the Russian ETF. The Chinese are spending a lot of money on some parts of the economy and I am looking at places like that. I bought NTT, the gigantic Japanese blue chip, because the Japanese can now have tax-free investment accounts.

Source @ economictimes

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Jim Rogers spoke at SKAGEN Fondenes New Years's Conference 2014

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Jim Rogers Prefers Silver to Gold, but won’t Buy either at the Moment

Jim Rogers : There are huge shorts that have developed in precious metals as you know. So they are overdue for a rally. We have had a big drop in 2013 and everybody got negative and everybody got short. So we are going to have a rally, though not too much of the rally. I am not going to either buy or sell that rally, but there will certainly be a rally. 

Later in the year, things will go down again and hopefully finally, we will make a nice bottom and we can buy gold again. I would prefer silver to gold. I am not buying either at the moment. Silver is down 60% from its all-time high and gold is down 30% or 35% from its all-time high. However, I am not going to buy either at the moment. - in economictimes.indiatimes 

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Peter Schiff says bullish environment for Gold

Gold was going up faster than stocks in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005... What did we have back then? We had a phony economic recovery that was generated by cheap money. Well, now we have an even phonier economic recovery generated by even cheaper money. This is a great environment for gold.

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Jim Rogers on Chinese government and world debt levels.

“When it pops, when this artificial sea of liquidity dries up, it’s not going to be fun,” he told Reuters TV. “But I don’t see any reason why it will stop anytime soon.” In suggesting where an investor could put money in stocks this year, Rogers noted the Japanese stock market is still 70 percent off of its all-time high (while the U.S. is currently hovering around an all-time high), and that a new law in Japan makes it tax-free to invest in stocks. “I’ve been investing a long time, and every time a country does that, people invest,” Rogers said. 

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Marc Faber: Fed Policy Has Led to Global Problems

Jan.14 (Bloomberg) –- Marc Faber Ltd. Managing Director & Founder Marc Faber discusses fed policies and how they're creating a two-class system with Trish Regan and Adam Johnson on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg) 

Faber said that, “It is interesting that that despite of all the money printing, bond yields didn’t go down.” Instead, the bottom for 10-year bonds was hit in July 2012, when they reached 1.43 percent. Now, it is about 2.85 percent, Faber said. “But we’re up substantially. Now, this hasn’t had an impact on stocks yet. In fact, it pushed money into the stock market out of the bond market. But if the 10-years goes to say 3 percent to 4 percent, then the 30-year goes to close to 5 percent , the mortgage rates go to 6 percent. That will hit the economy very hard.” Faber predicted that it’s possible bubble could burst before then. “It could burst any day,” he said. Although “everybody’s bullish,” Faber took the contrarian position. “The global economy is slowing down, because the global economy’s largely emerging economies nowadays, and there’s no growth in exports in emerging economies, there’s no growth, in the local economies,” Faber explained. “So, I feel that the valuations are high, the corporate profits have been boosted largely because of the falling interest rates.” 

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How Warren Buffett Changed My Life

Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) --- Tequila Avion Founder & Chairman Ken Austin discusses his tequilas and how helping cut a deal with Warren Buffett changed his life forever. He speaks to Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Televisions' "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)

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Al Qaeda on the Trading Floor? ~ The Peter Schiff Show Thursday 01/09/2014

Al Qaeda on the Trading Floor? Kevin Freeman, author of the new book, Game Plan: How to Protect Yourself from the Coming Cyber-Economic Attack, on how economic terrorism played a role in the 2008 financial crash, how another economic attack is coming, and why hoarding gold isn't the answer for Americans looking to protect their finances.

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The Higher the Rate, the Greater the Downward Pull

"I'm known as a long term investor and a patient guy, but that is not my idea of a big move."

"To understand why that happened, we need first to look at one of the two important variables that affect investment results: interest rates. These act on financial valuations the way gravity acts on matter:     

"The higher the rate, the greater the downward pull. That's because the rates of return that investors need from any kind of investment are directly tied to the risk-free rate that they can earn from government securities. So if the government rate rises, the prices of all other investments must adjust downward, to a level that brings their expected rates of return into line.   

  "In the 1964-81 period, there was a tremendous increase in the rates on long-term government bonds, which moved from just over 4% at year-end 1964 to more than 15% by late 1981. That rise in rates had a huge depressing effect on the value of all investments, but the one we noticed, of course, was the price of equities. So there – in that tripling of the gravitational pull of interest rates – lies the major explanation of why tremendous growth in the economy was accompanied by a stock market going nowhere."

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Soros' biggest bet ever

In November George Soros, John Paulson and Leon Cooperman, three of the most successful hedge fund managers ever, quietly participated in a rights offering and became major shareholders in Caesars Acquisition Co., a spinoff from casino company Caesars Entertainment that has ownership in Caesars' online gambling assets.

Read more @ yahoo

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George Soros says the next crisis in Europe will be political

The crisis has transformed the EU from the “fantastic object” that inspired enthusiasm into something radically different. What was meant to be a voluntary association of equal states that sacrificed part of their sovereignty for the common good – the embodiment of the principles of an open society – has now been transformed by the euro crisis into a relationship between creditor and debtor countries that is neither voluntary nor equal. Indeed, the euro could destroy the EU altogether.

Source @ forexlive

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George Soros : China becomes major uncertainty facing the world

The hedge fund manager George Soros wrote in an article published in Economia that it has become a critical issue facing the world as to how China will cope with tension between its continual fast-growing economy and the rising burden of major debts, and China's future direction will become the major uncertainty of the global economy. 

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Peter Schiff Show 01/03/2014 - Open Line Friday

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Buffett Missing Goal as Berkshire Lags S&P 500 Test

jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Berkshire Hathaway is poised to report that it failed to increase net worth more rapidly than the Standard & Poor's 500 Index during the past five years, according to analyst estimates. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Marc Faber : “Well Done, Mr. Bernanke!”

In a little under four minutes, Marc Faber explains to Fox Business’ Dagen McDowell all that is wrong with the Central Planners ‘current plan.’ From a re-bubbled housing ‘recovery’ pricing real buyers out of the market (“homes do not offer a great opportunity today”) to forced-renters paying increasing amounts of their stagnant wages, and the small percentage of ordinary Americans who actually benefit from a rising stock market, reducing their disposable income to which Faber sarcastically rants “well done, Mr. Bernanke.” His advice, be diversified, don’t BTFATH in stocks, and physical gold is always a good insurance.

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George Soros: China Is The World's Biggest Story Right Now

There are some eerie resemblances with the financial conditions that prevailed in the US in the years preceding the crash of 2008. But there is a significant difference, too. In the US, financial markets tend to dominate politics; in China, the state owns the banks and the bulk of the economy, and the Communist Party controls the state-owned enterprises.

Aware of the dangers, the People’s Bank of China took steps starting in 2012 to curb the growth of debt; but when the slowdown started to cause real distress in the economy, the Party asserted its supremacy. In July 2013, the leadership ordered the steel industry to restart the furnaces and the PBOC to ease credit. The economy turned around on a dime. In November, the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee announced far-reaching reforms. These developments are largely responsible for the recent improvement in the global outlook.

So China could have a meltdown like the US in 2008 or it could drive the entire global economy to new heights.

The ultimate conclusion to China's tension — whether it can successfully rebalance its economy away from debt — will have "profound" consequences for the whole world he says.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/george-soros-on-china-2014-1#ixzz2pKyTAtcO

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Bernanke has set the stage for the Fed's collapse

“The US went up because people said, 'Now it's done, we don't have to worry anymore.' But somewhere along the line, markets are going to start suffering. They'll taper until the markets start hurting and then they'll panic and loosen up again. They've got themselves in a terrible box.”

“It'll turn into a bubble or a very inflated situation, but eventually the markets will say, we're not going to take your garbage anymore, whether it's treasury bonds or currency.” Inflation, Rogers says, has only been kept in check in the US by the country's shale gas discovery, putting a “dampener” on energy prices.

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Warren Buffett's firm buying Phillips 66 unit

OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — Warren Buffett's company has agreed to trade roughly $1.4 billion of its stock in Phillips 66 for one of the refiner's chemical businesses.

Houston-based Phillips 66 said Monday that Berkshire Hathaway will give up about 19 million of its 27.2 million Phillips 66 shares to acquire a business that makes additives that help crude oil flow through pipelines.

The exact number of shares will be determined by the price of the Houston-based company's stock when the deal closes. That's expected to happen in the first half of 2014.

The exact number of shares will be determined by the price of the Houston-based company's stock when the deal closes. That's expected to happen in the first half of 2014.

Source @ usatoday

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Peter Schiff Show 12/20/2013 - Open Line Friday

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George Soros takes stake in debt-laden construction firm FCC

Billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros has bought a 3-percent stake in heavily indebted Spanish construction firm FCC from the group’s founding family. Last week, Esther Koplowitz, whose father founded the company, sold 3.8 percent of her majority stake for 15 euros a share, amounting to 72 million euros. Soros is the second internationally renowned investor to take a stake in the company in recent months, following Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ purchase in October of nearly 6 percent.

FCC registered losses of 675 million euros ($923 million) in the nine months to September.

Esther Koplowitz, who inherited the firm from her father, now owns 50.01 percent of FCC. The sale is part of a debt-refinancing deal organized by B-1998, the company through which Koplowitz controls FCC, and which includes the Aguinaga family and Bodegas Faustino, each of which have 5 percent. The deal included the sale of these shares.

Bill Gates is now the second-biggest shareholder in FCC. The Microsoft founder bought 5.7 percent in October for 113 million euros, paying 14.85 euros a share.

FCC is currently refinancing some 5 billion euros of debt, the bulk of the 6.6 billion euros it had accumulated by September.

As the world, and Spain in particular, has faced financial troubles and a downturn in construction activity, the company has suffered and its share price has dipped. This year FCC faced restructuring of some $2 billion in debt as well as the restructuring and refinancing of its subsidiary Alpine in Europe. Early this year, there were rumors that Guggenheim Partners might inject equity, but no deal was announced. This all means Gates could be getting quite the bargain, presuming the price will eventually bounce back.

FCC has operations in 56 countries, according to its latest financial report. It is building the new, 6-billion-euro Riyadh metro, to be the longest subway in the world at 176 kilometers, and Central America’s first subway, a 1.1-billion-euro project in Panama. Other projects include a $650-million replacement for a failed bridge in Long Beach, California, as well as a hospital outside Belfast inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II last year.

Source @ elpais

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Billionaire George Soros Bought This Texan Oil Stock

You have probably never heard of Midland.

Located in the heart of West Texas, the nearest major city is a four-hour drive away. This town is about as close to the 'middle of nowhere' as it gets. Yet Midland could be sitting on the largest oil discovery in American history. 

Thanks to new technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, millions of barrels of previously unrecoverable oil are now being pulled up from the nearby Permian Basin. 
One company has been quietly buying up tracts of land in this area since the 1980's. And the firm's prospects are so exciting that billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros owns a $200 million stake in the firm. Other smart money operators like Stanley Druckenmiller and John Paulson are pouring money into the stock as well. 

I'm talking, of course, about Pioneer Natural Resources  (NYSE: PXD  ) . 

George Soros owns 964,000 shares of this stock

For those of you unfamiliar with this name, Pioneer is one of the country's largest independent oil and gas companies. The firm was the first non-integrated player to produce oil from Alaska's North Slope. Today, the company boasts a great set of high-quality assets in the Eagle Ford, Barnett Shale, and other fields.

But it's the company's assets in the West Texas Spraberry Wolfcamp that are really impressive. For instance...

Source @ The Motley Fool

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