Owning Physical Gold Is A Prudent Insurance

Basically we are in an environment where central banks are monetising debts and where the balance sheets of central banks are increasing, and this will continue, especially in the United States and Europe. We are also in an environment where in the long run, a lot of sovereign debts will either not be paid or will have to be inflated away. So owning some physical gold is a prudent insurance. I am specifying here 'physical gold' because one wants to protect oneself as an investor for the potential of a systemic collapse of the financial system. - in Economic Times

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Crude Oil Prices Outlook

One hears all kinds of forecasts that oil prices will tumble and some are forecasting oil prices to go up substantially. There are all kinds of views. The fundamental fact is simply that not only for oil but for other commodities as well the production cost has risen very substantially. So I think that new oil will cost at least around $60-70 a barrel for the exploration and the capital investments. Therefore, I do not think that oil has a huge downside risk, but we live in a volatile world. In July 2008 we were at $147 a barrel and within six months, we dropped to $32 a barrel in December 2008. I would not want to necessarily go short on oil for the simple reason that the situation in the Middle East is deteriorating at an accelerating pace. - in Economic Times

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

I Do Not Believe There Will Be A Fiscal Cliff

I do not believe there will be a fiscal cliff. What will happen is that there will be some cosmetic spending cuts which will amount to no spending cuts in reality. There will be some cosmetic tax increases that will touch really a minority and the irrelevance on a fiscal deficit that officially is running around $1.3 trillion, but if you added the unfunded liabilities that accrue every year, the fiscal deficit will be more likely above $5 trillion. So even minor tax increases on the super rich will bring in annually a maximum of $5200 billion. So the total deficit, whatever they will agree upon, will have a meaningless impact and spending cuts will come back dated in 10 years time. So they will be quite irrelevant. - in Economic Times

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.