Courtesy of our vibrant evening meetings team, capably led by Yidan Xi and George Giamadakis, Rotary Melbourne Members and guests were privileged to enjoy a convivial conversation with Jim Rogers, a successful investor and financial commentator based in Singapore. 

After learning of Jim’s adventurous travels across the globe, and his deep respect for Rotary from his childhood onwards, Jim shared with us his analysis of the economic situation and associated investment environment.  He noted that financial markets are filled with investment bubbles that are inflated by the amounts of money created by most governments following the Global financial crisis (2008) and the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

Observing that disaster often brings with it opportunity. He anticipates that a number of the inflated financial bubbles will burst some time in the next year or two.  Assets in particular danger are real estate in conspicuously overpriced markets, and shares particularly in sectors such as consumer goods and the digital technology sector.  Jim’s thinking is to invest in commodities, either directly, or through the stocks of mining and agricultural producers where demand is likely to be strong.  Beyond that industries hit hard by the pandemic such as transportation, tourism and airlines are likely to show significant growth.

Jim is a believer in the fundamental factors that drive markets.  He suggested that the stock market is already predicting the Ukraine conflict will end shortly, because petrol prices for which prices typically rise in in prolonged conflict declining again.  Jim asked if any one has reliable information about when financial bubbles will start bursting, please let him know.  Timing is the most difficult variable to predict.

It is definitely worth taking a look at the video recording of this presentation, which you can do by following this link: https://youtu.be/okI2bxaXJDM