John Templeton: Gold has already gone up....
Da Herr Lips in seinem kürzlichen Vortrag sich ständig auf Äußerungen von John Templeton bezieht (was der sagt- Templeton, nicht Lips!- sollte man wirlich religiös befolgen) habe ich mal die letzten Interviews von Sir John recherchiert. Ergebnis: Der Meister rechnet keineswegs mehr mit einem deutlichen Dollarverfall gegenüber dem Euro, wie Lips behauptet. Dass der Dollar 40% fallen wird, hat er bereits letztes Jahr gesagt, als der Dollar noch viel höher stand. Zum Gold hat er sich auch geäußert, leider nicht besonders optimistisch. Für die astronomischen Kursziele von Lips hätte er vermutlich nur ein müdes Lächeln übrig....Aber lest selbst.
Grüße
Der Pfannkuchen
Interview with Sir John Templeton (For Educational Use Only)
by Eleanor Laise
1 April 2004 SmartMoney
Q: Where do you think the U.S. dollar will go from here?
A: The chances of the U.S. dollar going down in relation to the euro
are no more than 50/50. The euro has already gone up 47 percent in the
last two years. But the yen is up only 25 percent. Japan has put
hundreds of billions of dollars into buying American money. The
quantities are so great that that can't continue much longer. Japanese
money is likely to go up in the future.
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Q: Are you concerned about inflation?
A: Long term, because we have more and more democracies in the world,
we're going to have more and more inflation. Politicians who are
willing to spend too much are the ones who get reelected. Look back at
history. Inflation has averaged about 2 percent a year. Probably, it
will average somewhat more than that in the next century. But from a
short-range standpoint, there does not yet seem to be a shortage of
almost any product. Until there's a shortage, you're not likely to see
higher prices.
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Q: What do you see as the biggest threat to economic recovery in the
U.S.?
A: We don't need an economic recovery because we're already operating
at a very high level. The greatest threat to maintaining this level of
economic activity is debt. There's never been a time when people
worldwide, and especially in America, had such a high proportion of
debt. I think 20 percent of people who have mortgages on their homes
are likely to lose them in foreclosures. When a home goes into
bankruptcy, it's sold at auction. That pushes the price down and
affects the prices of other homes.
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Q: Does the U.S. government's debt level worry you?
A: Oh, yes. There has never been any government anywhere in the world
that has such a big deficit in the federal budget. And there's never
been a nation in history that had such an adverse balance of trade.
However, if you look at those debts and balance of trade as a
percentage of gross national product, they're bad, but not
unprecedented.
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Q: What does that mean for investors?
A: It's one more reason why this is a dangerous time to own stocks.
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Q: Even foreign equities?
A: Yes. In my long history I could always find some nation where people
were desperately trying to sell. Now I can't find a place where people
are trying desperately to get out of equities.
---
Q: So what do you think about the rush to invest in China?
(MORE)
A: The cycles will be much wider and more frequent in China because of
the lack of information. Having said that, if you're investing, you
should put a fairly large part of your total assets in China because
within as short a period as 30 years, China is likely to have the
largest gross national product any nation has ever had.
Q: Is India as great an opportunity as China?
A: Yes. You could say almost the same thing about India, except in
terms of speed. The improvement in India is wonderful but not as fast.
But the Indian market is up more than 80 percent in 12 months. That's a
danger signal. It means you're going to take a lot of risk that you
wouldn't have taken a year before.
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Q: What's the world's best stock market now?
A: The best answer is none. There are so many securities analysts
working on that question that the prices in different markets are less
out of line than normal.
---
Q: So an influx of information has made life difficult for global value
investors?
A: When I became an investment counselor, there were only 17 security
analysts on earth. Now, in America alone, there are more than 32,000,
and they do have an effect on prices by doing research on where to find
bargains.
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Q: If you were starting out in the investing world today, what would
you do?
A: Play safe. If you don't have your money in equities, it's very
difficult to find a place to put it. Gold has already gone up. . . . People also tend to think it's safe to put your money in the bank. When
I was studying in the U.K., people swore that it was safe to put your
money in pounds sterling. But within a few years, sterling went down
from $5 a pound to $1.50 a pound because of the war. If gold and bank
accounts are no longer safe, where can you put it? Diversify. Don't put
too much in any one thing.
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Q: What have you been buying lately?
A: I believe there are fewer opportunities than I've ever seen in 91
years. In the last year I've been using market-neutral hedge funds,
whose policy is to have always the same quantity of longs and shorts. I
have invested lately in two funds that are managed by people who worked
for me when I was in the investment business: Jane Siebels-Kilnes'
Siebels Multi-Fund and Mark Holowesko's Holowesko Global fund. They
aren't registered with the SEC, however, so American stockbrokers can't
sell them.