During the last few years, he has done a couple of great interviews in Barron's. His claim to fame is that he called the Asian miracle a big lie years before the crash.
Excerpted from a March 15 Barrons article:
<<< Some equity strategists such as Albert Edwards with Dresdner Kleinwort
Benson in London believe inflation will become a more pronounced factor in
Europe. He urges investors to take a more aggressive posture, predicated on
a belief that Asian-like "bubbles" are developing in countries like Ireland,
Spain, Portugal, Holland and Finland, arguing that investors should take an
emerging-markets investment strategy to reap the benefits of inflation.
"When the U.S. market fell in the third quarter last year, all the European
markets fell about 35%-40%, but the ones which rebounded were those with
the earnings momentum, such as Italy, Spain and Ireland," says Edwards.
"Others, like Germany, hardly recovered at all. That was a good time to
switch into those markets, and we think U.S. market will have another wobble
this year, which will offer yet another opportunity for a shift."
Last year, markets outside the core of Europe -- Spain, Portugal, Ireland,
Italy and Finland -- rose by between 30%, in Portugal, and 95%, in Finland,
in U.S. dollar terms as measured by Dow Jones Global indexes.
"We liken Euro 'bubbles' to a balloon," Edward says. "Bursting is only one
option. As wage inflation increases in the Eurobubble countries, excess
growth will ultimately be competed away within the single European market.
The less open the bubble economy is, the longer the process will take. We
believe this offers the investors an unusual and, in all likelihood, a lengthy
period of superior earnings evolution."
The adoption of a single interest rate in Euro-zone countries will result in a
major overheating in many peripheral countries, Edwards argues. "From an
investment perspective, a major bubbling up of nominal economic growth will
look extremely attractive against a subdued European core and minimal
top-line growth in the U.S., Japan and the U.K.," he adds. "Riding the growth
bubble with almost zero currency risk will become an investment nirvana.
"The process is just getting started and will be ongoing for some time." >>> |
