Finance

JIM ROGERS: I like depressed markets like Russia, China, and Japan

Legendary investor Jim Rogers sat down with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget on this week’s episode of The Bottom Line.Rogers likes investing in depressed markets. Rogers says it’s just like your parents taught you: “Buy low and sell high. Don’t buy high and hope it goes higher.” He is investing in China, Russia, Japan, and agriculture. Following is a transcript of the video.

Blodget: What should people do with their money now, then?

Rogers: Well, I’ve said many times in my life, here and in other places, you should only invest in what they know. They shouldn’t listen to me. Maybe they should listen to you but they shouldn’t listen to me. Because if you invest in what other people say, you don’t know what you’re doing. You know what they said and you’re probably going to wind up losing money. Just stay with what you know and if you find opportunities, invest. I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m investing in Russia, China, Japan. These are markets that are down 50% from their all-time highs. The US market’s at its all-time high. Now I know your parents taught you: Buy low and sell high. Don’t buy high and hope it goes higher.So these markets that I’m looking at are depressed. I bought some Russian stocks last week and Russian bonds the week before. Agriculture. Agriculture is extremely depressed.These are places that I’m looking at but don’t listen to me. Listen to what you know because when times get really tough, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re really going to lose everything.

Blodget: And speaking of Russia, you just arrived in New York from Russia, a dinner with Vladimir Putin, who we all watch on television and have very strong thoughts one way or another. What do you think of what’s going on in Russia and what do you make of this bromance between Putin and our president?

Rogers: Well, I would love to see everybody happy. I mean, I think we’re all going to shoot each other and blow each other up. It’s absurd, if you ask me. Nothing good has ever come from any war. Even if you win the war, you lose millions of people, millions of dollars, capital, etc., etc. So I’m not an advocate of war.I would suspect that things are going to calm down. Right now, the press in America is hysterical. And the Congress is hysterical about Russia. I’m not sure why. I didn’t change my vote because of Mr. Putin. Did you change your vote because of Russia? Did anybody in this room change their vote because of Putin? What did he do? What can anybody do? We’re always interfering in elections around the world. Washington interferes — Washington interferes in New York’s elections, Chicago’s elections, everybody’s elections. So we’re always doing it. I don’t’ understand the hoopla at all.

Blodget: But you believe that Russia will continue to prosper as a state or start to prosper?

Rogers: Henry, in my experience, I have learned that if you find something that’s hated, that has a lot of value and things are getting better, you probably will do fine. And that’s why I’m investing in Russia. I first went to Moscow in 1966. You weren’t even born when I went to Moscow. And I came away saying, ‘This will never work. This is going to be a disaster.’ And I was bearish for the next 48 years. You talk about a long-term bear, I was a long-term bear. But now things are changing dramatically in the Kremlin so I’ve changed and I’m a bull.

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