And... it doesn't seem all the world's debt has been put to good use.
Those are two of the messages from legendary investor Jim Rogers. (I spoke with Jim personally earlier this year, and you can read the full interview here.)
In the early 1970s, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund, which went on to become one of the world's most successful hedge funds. He quit full-time investing in 1980 after making returns of 4,200% over 10 years.
He then traveled the world twice and wrote a few books about the lessons he learned. Even if you aren't interested in traveling or investing, Investment Biker andAdventure Capitalist are both entertaining and educational reads. They're must-reads for anyone interested in understanding global markets and how they work.
I recently re-read parts of Adventure Capitalist, which Rogers wrote in 2003 after a three-year, 152,000-mile drive around the world. I found a number of lessons that are all the more relevant today. Here are two of them:
On the Dangers of Making Money in the Market
"One of the mistakes that many people make in the stock market is buying something, watching it go up, and thinking they are smart. They find themselves thinking it is easy. They take a big profit and immediately go looking for something else. That's the time they should really do nothing. Self-confidence leading to hubris leading to arrogance -- that is when you really should put the money in the bank and go to the beach for a while until you calm down. Because there are not many great opportunities that are ever going to come along. But you do not need many if you do not make many mistakes."
As Rogers has said before, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. And sometimes doing nothing means holding cash.
Cash might seem like a terrible investment -- it doesn't earn interest, it gets eaten up by inflation, central banks can just print more of it, and holding it can mean you miss out on the power of compounding.
That said, cash is the perfect hedge. Holding cash means you don't have to worry about market crashes. And it's there to use when, as Jim Rogers said, you find "money lying in the corner."
Those are two of the messages from legendary investor Jim Rogers. (I spoke with Jim personally earlier this year, and you can read the full interview here.)
In the early 1970s, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund, which went on to become one of the world's most successful hedge funds. He quit full-time investing in 1980 after making returns of 4,200% over 10 years.
He then traveled the world twice and wrote a few books about the lessons he learned. Even if you aren't interested in traveling or investing, Investment Biker andAdventure Capitalist are both entertaining and educational reads. They're must-reads for anyone interested in understanding global markets and how they work.
I recently re-read parts of Adventure Capitalist, which Rogers wrote in 2003 after a three-year, 152,000-mile drive around the world. I found a number of lessons that are all the more relevant today. Here are two of them:
On the Dangers of Making Money in the Market
"One of the mistakes that many people make in the stock market is buying something, watching it go up, and thinking they are smart. They find themselves thinking it is easy. They take a big profit and immediately go looking for something else. That's the time they should really do nothing. Self-confidence leading to hubris leading to arrogance -- that is when you really should put the money in the bank and go to the beach for a while until you calm down. Because there are not many great opportunities that are ever going to come along. But you do not need many if you do not make many mistakes."
As Rogers has said before, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. And sometimes doing nothing means holding cash.
Cash might seem like a terrible investment -- it doesn't earn interest, it gets eaten up by inflation, central banks can just print more of it, and holding it can mean you miss out on the power of compounding.
That said, cash is the perfect hedge. Holding cash means you don't have to worry about market crashes. And it's there to use when, as Jim Rogers said, you find "money lying in the corner."
- Source, The Street
