Monday, August 31, 2020

Marc Faber: Guru's Mantra to Get Rich, and Stay Rich

Marc Faber has a simple, time-tested advice to get to those millions you've been dreaming of. Get a skill, and get better at it. This pandemic has upended the work culture as we know it, and finding your best talent can help you get ahead.

In a free-wheeling chat with ET NOW's Managing Editor Nikunj Dalmia, Marc Faber spells out a ready reckoner to get rich. Work, work and work, advises Faber. The secret sauce to becoming a billionaire is a heady mix of knowledge, focus, and acquisition of a new skillset. In Faber's words, posting pictures on Facebook thrice a day may score you 'Likes', but would add zilch to your bank balance.

You must ace that job, whatever you do, whether you are an economist or a computer technician. He adds, "If you want to be rich, money printing by the US Fed or the RBI isn't going to help you, that I guarantee you." The guru of investing believes hard work, focused discipline, and consistently improving knowledge and skills is the most certain path to become rich.

And if you already have millions stashed away in your account, should you be sitting tight? Well, Faber has a simple advice. Go buy land, or farmland in the countryside! With work from home becoming the new normal, more and more people are tilting towards finding an abode in the outskirts. The shift away from the city life is a trend worth betting on. Real estate in secondary locations could offer more potential than the ones in the heart of the city. He cites India as an example. Faber says, "the centre of Mumbai is not going to be particularly attractive but on the outskirts, maybe 1-2 hours from Mumbai, satellite towns offer property at a fraction of the price in Mumbai." In fact, he says, some people will also buy farms, and that can open interesting possibilities for the future.

- Source, Times Now

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Marc Faber: The Value of Money Will Diminish Moving Forward

We have had a recovery but if you look at the recovery in equity prices in the US, it has been mostly concentrated in FAANG and FAANG related stocks. The New York stock exchange FAANG Index is at all-time high but there are just 10 stocks in that index and one of them is Tesla. That is not representative of the entire stock market.

Some stocks have made new highs although the semiconductor stocks and some other stocks have languished. Going forward, investors should look at stocks that have languished or are very depressed. Since you are talking so positively about stocks, let me just point out to you that no stock market in the world has outperformed gold and silver. This year gold is up 28% and silver 53%. So instead of talking and telling me that stocks are doing so well, you should be pointing out that gold and silver have done much better than any equities.

Let me point out some differences and similarities. In 1999 and 2002 and 2003, commodities had been in a bear market essentially since the 70s and in the case of precious metals, since 1980.

In other words a 20-year bear market. Now we were in the bull market until 2008 for oil and for gold and silver until 2011 and for agricultural commodities a little bit differently. But basically after 2011, commodities did not perform well. So we have been in a bear market until in the case of precious metals since December 2015.

After 2015 gold and silver have done well but they just made the new highs in the case of gold and in the case of silver, it has not made a new high yet. So I can say precious metals are relatively inexpensive.

What is really very depressed are agricultural commodities and industrial commodities. Lumber for example is some kind of an industrial commodity and that has gone ballistic recently. It has got up a lot but to answer your general question, if the Federal Reserve and other central banks are printing money, the value of money will diminish and that is not difficult to see.

- Source, Marc Faber via Economic Times

Monday, August 24, 2020

Marc Faber: Emerging markets including India will begin to outperform US

What a fabulous recovery we have seen not just for the developed markets but for emerging markets and India as well from the March lows! It seems like the doom is over, but is this the gloom or is it the boom which has played out?

Economically it is not over yet. As you know the economy fell off a cliff and whereas it has kind of recovered somewhat from the low point in April, they are far from where they were say a year ago. So to say that everything is hunky-dory is a wrong statement. The markets have recovered and if you had an index of mom-and-pop stores or small businesses, it would look disastrous, a complete collapse.
There are many small businesses in the western world that will not re-open, there are many businesses in emerging markets they will never re-open, maybe a new crop of businesses will come up. But if you say that everything is fine, it is sticking your head in the sand.

The reality asset markets have done well and the Federal Reserve has said repeatedly that they will address one of their concerns of wealth inequality. Well, so far that they have been very successful at making the rich people richer and the poor people essentially poorer...

- Source, Economic Times