Jimmy Rogers on Investing

One of my favorite investment gurus, and one of the more impressive, successful, and interesting speakers at last week’s New Orleans Investment Conference, was famed investor and author Jim Rogers. During 1990-1992, Jimmy (as he’s known to his fiends) took a motorcycle trip of over 100,000 miles around the world, crossing six continents and setting a Guinness World Record. His best selling book, Investment Biker: On the Road with Jim Rogers, was a result of that trip.

Not satisfied with surviving that outing, he set out again on January 1, 1999, with Paige Parker on a 116-country, 152,000-mile overland trip to chronicle the world during three years spanning the turn of the millennium, which resulted in another book, Adventure Capitalist.

Earlier in his career, he was co-founder with George Soros of the wildly successful Quantum Fund, a global-investment partnership that gained more than 4,000%. At age 37, having made a purported billion dollars, he retired, but kept busy by serving as professor of finance at Columbia University Graduate School of Business and, in 1989 and 1990, as moderator of WCBS's "The Dreyfus Roundtable" and FNN's "The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers."

What is his best advice today? “The single best advice I can give you of any kind,” he said, “is to teach your children and grandchildren Chinese. It’s going to the most important language in their lifetime.” He has a three year old girl who is already learning to speak Mandarin. Jim hired a Chinese nanny, and instructed her to never speak anything but Mandarin to his daughter.

China is going to become the world’s leading economy and nation, and is on the way. They want what we have and they’re willing to work to get it. It’s staggering to see. So, he said, “buy China”. Invest, and when there are setbacks, don’t worry, just invest more.

Second, he urged the audience to sell all bonds, and particularly get out of the U.S. dollar. The dollar is and has been the world’s reserve currency, he noted. "As recently as 1987 we were a creditor nation, and today we owe the rest of the world over $10 trillion. And our foreign debt is increasing at the rate of $1 trillion every 15 months." The US federal debt is out of control.

Third, his advice is to buy commodities. In the case of oil, for example, he pointed out that there have been no major oil discoveries in 35 years. Yet the population is steadily growing, along with the demand for oil. Moreover, buy agricultural commodities, such as coffee and grains. Politicians can print money, stock promoters can print stock certificates, but no one can print commodities.

Personally, I’m in complete agreement with all three of Jim Rogers’ recommendations. Get out of the dollar, invest in natural resources, and diversify into China.

I highly recommend that you immediately buy and read Jim Rogers’ latest book, Hot Commodities : How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. You can find it on Amazon.com.