Tuesday, November 21, 2017

MORNINGSTAR SHOULD WATCH ITSELF..(JIM ROGERS - ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 6/7/12)

It was 1987. The book was called "The Great Depression of 1990". It was close to a number one bestseller. The writer was regularly on TV, was left-wing and a major university economics professor.

The Dow Jones was less than 3,000. The book concluded you should sell all your stocks and real estate.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average immediately began an ascent from less than 3,000 to close to 12,000 in the 1990's. Real estate prices doubled and tripled to absurdly overvalued levels.

The sensationalist professor in my views, attempting to become famous with extreme projections and recommendations, fell out of favor.

Today we have other people, mainly professors, often using extreme views to obtain attention. One of them is a man called Jim Rogers who doesn't seem to have managed any publicly recorded money in almost thirty years. He too follows the trampled road using intellect to prepare extremist advice geared towards scaring the average investor into oblivion.

Rogers has created the "Rogers" commodity index which is the kind of thing that can be put together by most anyone with a computer in my opinion.

Just as the Depression of 1990 fell off a cliff in it's timing and significant number of wrong commentary, I think it would be wise to beware of the pundits of either extreme optimism or extreme pessimism.

Please note that Warren Buffet tends to go against the crowd and does not often establish extreme views in either direction. Watch out for marketers wearing the cloak of financial acumen without having any recent or current public investment record.
 

Shepard Osherow. All Rights Reserved