Dear Outsider,
Never act upon wishful thinking. Act without checking the facts, and chances are that you will be swept away along with the mob.
— Jim Rogers
Legendary investor Jim Rogers, everyone. The guy with the bowtie. He was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros and made an absolute fortune shorting the British Pound. The Quantum portfolio gained 4,200% from 1973 to 1980.
Hence the legendary part…
I met Jim once while he was deciding which brownie to purchase in the lobby of a San Francisco Hilton. I was thrilled, because he was somebody I’d always looked up to — figuratively. I’m way taller than him, which I quickly learned while waiting for his brownie decision so I could get a cup of coffee.
I can’t recall exactly which one he decided on: I think it was a half-cookie, half-brownie concoction. I had the wherewithal to take a selfie and get his phone number. That will come up later.
But I was in San Fran to give a talk on cannabis stocks at the time, so it made for a very funny conversation about brownies. He asked me about the cannabis market, and I readily told him about it. I was genuinely excited about the meeting. We agreed to get in touch and have an interview for my readers.
That’s when things got weird.
His assistant gave me the wrong time for our first scheduled interview.
You see, Jim lives in Singapore, which is a huge 13-hour difference from Baltimore — where he was born, by the way — and I called him an hour later than he thought we were scheduled. He didn’t answer, and told me the next day that he was at the disco.
Already hilarious and cordial. I’m sure that Singapore has some banging discos — if that is even still a thing.
But during the next try, keeping in mind that this is way after-hours for me, I did the same thing. I called at the same scheduled time instead of the hour before. He was pissed.
Of course this was all just a misunderstanding and I really wanted to interview him. However he did not give up on the interview. Jim, despite the anger, agreed for a third attempt.
I most certainly ruined our fledgling relationship that time. Here is the email exchange:
Jimmy,
So you are canceling again? So you are both incompetent and irresponsible. Amazing.
Jim ROGERS
My smarmy response?
Jim,
I fell asleep with my children after putting them to bed and I blew it once again. I assume this will be the last of our correspondence and I wish it had gone differently. If I am to be called incompetent and irresponsible, I’m glad it came from someone of your stature. We all have to strive for something.
I’d be happy to do an interview about how much of an idiot I am. It could be a classic vaudeville-style routine, Jim on Jimmy: “He’s an idiot, I’m a genius.” I think we’d make a great duo.
Jimmy
Pangs of guilt hit me when I recall this matter. Now, that’s not the type of story I’d typically share, but Jim just came up in my newsfeed and it reminded me of the encounter. Here’s what he had to say about the market to The Financial Chronicle over the phone from — of course — Singapore.
We had the longest bull market in American history since 2009. So far it is the longest bull market and then we will have a bear market. I think the next bear market will be longer than ever with so much debt…
We will see a bear market in the bonds again and this will lead to a bear market in stocks and we will have a blow off. I have not sold stocks yet. Probably, I expect the markets to correct, central banks to panic, print more money, and cut back on the monetary tightening. Then there would be the last rally. The rally could last four to six months or even four days. I would certainly sell my stocks and bonds at that time and buy more gold.
Here’s the thing…
Despite my disagreements with Jim Rogers, I agree with some of his thinking. A broken watch is right twice a day. However, instead of gold, I’d go with one of his other favorite industries: agriculture.
He once said that “If you’ve got young people who don’t know what to do, I’d urge them not to get MBAs, but to get agriculture degrees.”
I’d agree. We need more farmers and less bankers. So you could buy Roger’s agriculture “ELEMENTS Linked to the Rogers International Commodity Index” over a Swiss exchange. But there is one company today that you can buy in major exchanges that could put that ETF to shame.
My colleague Luke Burgess is all over this. You’ve certainly noticed that food prices are soaring. And they’re about to go much higher. That’s because the world is facing a grim shortage of a main component in fertilizers.
The mainstream media is mostly ignoring the problem. But behind the scenes, governments all over the world are scrambling to secure a supply of this resource. China banned exports in September. Russia just cut exports beginning in December.
This is the agriculture play to make, and you can do it right now.
Apologies to Jim Rogers. I wish our relationship worked out better. But he’s still my second favorite Mr. Rogers.
