Investing: My Problem, My Strength

My problem, my strength, is I don't like to sell. I like to own things. The kinds of things I buy, often, you can own forever, or at least for many, many years.

Over 90% Of Stocks Are In Downtrends

Over ninety percent of the stocks (in the S&P 500 Index) are in downtrends. Ten percent are in uptrends, but they're big companies. And since the S&P 500 Index is capitalization weighted, those 50 stocks, 40 stocks, whatever it is, dragged the average to all-time highs. 

Now, that doesn't mean it's not painful if you short those stocks. But basically, this has happened many times in market history. It gets narrower, and narrower, and narrower, the advance does, until it's just down to a few names. And eventually, they crack, too.

Stock Market: Lack Of Breadth

Today, if you look at the S&P 500 Index, for instance, in the United States, I think there are only 40 or 45 stocks that are above their 50-day moving averages, to use a technician's kind of talk. Everything else is in a downtrend. And yet the market is making all-time highs. Definitely a lack of breadth.

Video: The Potential For A Major Correction

Recent video interview with Real Vision where Jim Rogers discusses his concerns over the potential for a major correction in financial markets. He also identifies the sectors and countries that he’s bullish on.

The U.S. Dollar Is Not A Safe Haven

People would think the U.S. dollar is a safe haven, it’s not. The fundamentals are horrible. Nobody in his right mind would buy the U.S. dollar, but I own a lot because I’m not in my right mind. I’m assuming that the rest of the world is not in its mind either and they’re all going to buy it.

Japan Does Not Have A Great Future

Japan is one of my very favorite countries in the whole world. I'm extremely keen on Japan in fact I would probably live here except I want my children to speak Mandarin. But if you spoke Mandarin, I would probably live in Japan as it's such a fantastic place to visit and live.

Having said that, it grieves me because I see serious problems in Japan which is the point of this book. I am a foreigner and I know that the Japanese don't like foreigners but this this book is not really a foreigners book it is based on simple arithmetic whether you're Japanese or not Japanese the arithmetic is the same.

Every day the debt goes higher, there's addition and there's subtraction because every day the population declines in Japan. Everything can go wrong. You have a central bank which is printing staggering amounts of money every day and buys Japanese shares and Japanese bonds.

I'm old enough to remember and maybe some of you are that if even 30 years ago somebody had said, "Oh, the central bank of a major economy and a major country is going to print huge amounts of money and buy shares in its stock market." people would have walked away. They wouldn't listen to you anymore, so incomprehensible, inconceivable that that could happen even 30 years ago.

But look out the window, it's happening every day in Japan right now while the population declines and the debt goes up. So, I mean as far as I can see Japan doesn't have a great future.

Related trading instruments: iShares MSCI Japan ETF(EWJ), Nikkei 225 Index

Forex: The Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) Will Disappear

“I expect the Hong Kong dollar to break free of the US dollar once the renminbi [Chinese yuan] is convertible. The Hong Kong dollar will disappear… but that will not happen until the renminbi is completely convertible." - in RT.com (read the complete article here: Hong Kong’s days as global financial hub may be numbered – Jim Rogers)