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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (60577)	2/24/2005 7:42:14 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

KEITH DAMSELL 00:00 EST Thursday, February 24, 2005 TORONTO -- Believe the hype -- commodities are the next big thing, says U.S. investment guru Jim Rogers. "The bull market is under way," Mr. Rogers told an audience of about 400 financial planners in Toronto. yesterday. While other assets languish or decline in value, he predicted that the commodities market will remain hot for at least another decade, with sugar, cotton and soybeans among his top picks. Along with George Soros, Mr. Rogers is co-founder of the Quantum Fund. He is a world traveller, having circled the globe on a motorcycle, and has written three investment books, Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker and Hot Commodities. In 1998, he launched the Rogers International Commodities Index Fund in the United States. It is up 185 per cent since its inception. The little-understood asset class has had a strong run. Last year, the price of crude oil doubled, sugar soared 59 per cent and the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index was up an impressive 17 per cent. The catch is there are very few commodity-driven investment products available to Canadian investors. AGF Management Ltd.'s AGF Managed Futures holds a diversified portfolio of commodity contracts but has a very volatile history of returns. "You can buy commodities the same way you buy stocks," Mr. Rogers said in an interview, adding that the Nasdaq Stock Market "has been a lot more volatile" than commodities in recent years. He dismissed suggestions that the market may have peaked. "You have 40,000 mutual funds for stocks and bonds in the world. You can't find five for commodities in the world. You are telling me it's over?" Mr. Rogers' do-it-yourself advice was met with some skepticism by commodities experts. For example, Nicolas Priftis, director of systems trading at Montreal's Norshield Financial Group, said the commodities market is unpredictable and extremely volatile. The Montreal firm manages more than $300-million in commodity and financial futures for institutional clients. In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with the audience, Mr. Rogers gave his views on a long list of subjects. China is "the next great country of the world," he said, adding that it has a culture of capitalism that belies its communist government. "California is more communist than China these days," he said. He predicts a so-called "hard landing," or rapid slowdown, in China's economy this year will represent a strong buying opportunity for investors. By contrast, India's investment appeal is "a sham," he said. A weak education system, limited infrastructure, suspicion of foreign investment and a slow-moving privatization plan means "you will make more money elsewhere," Mr. Rogers said. He expects the U.S. stock market and economy to fare poorly through 2006. The U.S. dollar will continue to weaken, aided by the country's $8-trillion (U.S.) foreign debt and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board 's "horrible policy" of devaluation, he said. Canada "is in the right place at the right time," he said. "You have the wind at your back." A resource-based economy and a prudent fiscal policy by the federal government means "your economy is going to be in much better shape" than the United States', he said.