It's a tricky business being a talking head. The first thing Jim Rogers says every time he is on TV is don't listen to a word I say, do your own homework. Then after the interview everybody says he is just talking his book.
I understand the "it hasn't worked in the past, people have failed with it" but every year that passes they get closer and closer to a death spiral. Assuming a rising debt to GDP ratio and interest rates that won't go negative(on the bonds), at some point interest payments will be larger than government revenues This is the GM math that got them bankrupt(borrowing to pay off debt and interest) "What Is Unsustainable Won't Be Sustained"
Always be aware of the motive. These guys usually aren't passing along investment strategies out of the goodness of their heart.
I have remained on sideline while this hot topic has been discussed on this thread about talking heads and what not. I will just like to chime in and say - that one person for whom I have the highest respect who is also the king of talking heads is Jim Rogers. To anyone who has slightest of the doubt that he is not correct more than 80% of time, should watch all his videos on youtube from 2007 onwards. Everything he predicted in the last 4 years (every prediction - i repeat) has been correct. 100% correct call hit rate. And that included taking positions that were quite unpopular or unknown at that time. Inside the house of money and Mkt Wizards have a chapter on him - all his long term predictions have come true - everyone of them. Even Soros said - that he could do work of 6 analysts together and was on top of everything. Either in his most recent book "Gift to my children" or in some video, he writes/says that in his haydays, he used to have spreadsheets for every company/sector/commodity/commodity producer/supply-demand analysis etc. and he used to be on top of everything. I think recently for last 10 yrs or so, he has become more hands-off, but his amazing experience of going around the Globe and initial hardwork he put in - lets him to make bold yet prescient calls. Hats off to that guy.
I'm finding BAC bonds quite tempting. There is one issue that matures on Sep 2012, yields 5.31%(If I hit the ask). This seems a lot Its hard to a find a scenario where the debt of BAC is no good. No matter if there is recession or EU collapses. The debt is ahead of Warren Buffett This is only a 0% world on your cash if you want it to be
I agree. To me he is a legend that has thought me a whole lot. I have one of his books on audio tape (he reads them himself, lol). The year is 2000 or something and he is walking around Athens talking about how they cooked the books and it will all end badly...Classic. Having said that my biggest positions: Gold (Rogers least favourite commodity) and miners (Rogers: people have lost more money in mining stocks then in anything else ever) are totally out of sync with his views but I still respect hem a lot. Hope he is wrong still...
Fucking IB, the yield is actually 4%. Still, not bad for a less than 1 year lockup in the bond(US Tax free for non-resident aliens with a W8-ben)
Timing is key of course in JGBs. And I don't buy the Bass Armageddon story for Japan either. However, when the daily range in JGBs gets really really tight for a prolonged period, as it has for the past few months, the risk reward playing the short side really improves quite considerably IMHO. JGB dealers get more and more complacent sitting on larger and larger overnight positions, VAR risk reports saying they don't have much risk, tendency to push bigger and bigger positions trying to eek out smaller and smaller gains. Of course they play the carry game too, and it works for most of the year...how else can a JGB trader keep his job for a prolonged period?! Then they're all positioned the same way and selling begets selling as the VAR goes up! The mini liquidation we've seen in gold the past couple of days looks vaguely similar to the Q4 2008 liquidation in gold, don't you think? Let's see how gold reacts the next few days. It makes me wonder if US and German bond markets might also lose their safe haven status for a short while. A nice little dump across all asset classes? If that happens, I would favour a JGB short. When UST lost their safe haven status for a couple of weeks after Lehman's failure JGBs also tanked 3BF in one session, if I recall. "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there", to quote my favourite musician...
Come on, ralph, don't be absurd... And you know all this stuff how, pray tell? How do you know that your heros do all these "insane amounts of research"? Have you had a chance to ask them questions to poke holes in their reasoning and to gauge the true depth of their knowledge? Have you had a chance to examine a diametrically opposing view to see if it makes more sense? What makes one guy on TV an "investing giant and great mind" and another a famous idiot? Is it just their returns? What's the sampling horizon? Is Paulson a the former or the latter or did he lose his "investing giant" status this year?