HONG KONG (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar is sinking fast and investors wanting to stay afloat should clamber into a raft of commodities and benefit from the rising tide of China's economic boom, investment guru Jim Rogers said on Monday.

"I'm hoping to get all my assets out of U.S. dollars in the next few weeks or months," he told reporters in Hong Kong via a video link from Singapore. "But that will include going into commodities because that is a way out of U.S. dollars."

Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s, said the U.S. economy was already in recession, or soon would be, and the U.S. dollar would continue to have problems for years to come.

But that would not be enough to dent demand from Asia.

"Asia's now becoming its own entity. Asia is growing on its own. If you look around Asia you'll see that they're much more independent of the United States and will continue to get more independent."

Driving this bull market would be 3 billion people -- in China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam -- whose economies were at a subsistence level during the last commodities boom.

"Now, look around you. Everybody in Asia wants to live the way we live in America," said Rogers, who was launching Barclays' (BARC.L) Global Commodities Delta Fund, which tracks his Rogers International Commodity Index .RICIX, in Hong Kong.

He said he'd recently been buying agricultural commodities, which he favored over metals such as tin MSN3 and lead MPB3, which were close to all-time highs.

"I think there are great opportunities in agriculture ... like sugar, which is something like 80 percent below it's all-time high, or cotton." he said.

OIL DOUBLES, CHINA BUBBLES

Another long-term winner will be crude oil because, he said, demand continues to grow but new supplies are scarce.

"Over the course of the bull market, oil has to go to $150, it has to go to $200, because nobody's been discovering oil."

But Rogers, who described himself as the world's worst short-term trader, said all big rallies suffered occasional setbacks on the way up and he wasn't making any short-term forecasts about the oil price.

And bear markets catch support on the way down, which he said might give the dollar a few footholds as it falls.

"Everyone's extremely pessimistic about the dollar, so we're bound to have a rally soon," said Rogers.

But longer-term, the picture was clear and the best currencies to buy would be the Swiss franc, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. He said the Chinese government should make the yuan fully convertible as soon as possible.

"I would certainly suspect by 2010, if not by the Olympics next year," he said. "It's causing bubbles within the Chinese economy. It's causing inflation within China."

But he had little love for the Hong Kong dollar, which he said should disappear as soon as the yuan becomes convertible.

"If I were the Hong Kong government, I would abolish the Hong Kong dollar. There's no reason for the Hong Kong dollar. It's a historical anomaly."

(Source)⇒Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States has entered a recession, according to highly-regarded investor Jim Rogers, who told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday he was switching out of the dollar and into yen, the yuan and the Swiss franc.

The veteran investor, who predicted the 1999 commodities rally, also said he was still bullish about surging Chinese stock markets despite worries over a bubble.

Fears are growing over the health of the U.S. economy after the fallout from the subprime mortgage market crisis and the global credit crunch it triggered.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has already slashed borrowing costs by 50 basis points to 4.75 percent to try and shore up the world's biggest economy and is widely expected to lower interest rates again next week.

"The US economy is undoubtedly in recession," Rogers told the Telegraph in Hong Kong in an article published on its Website.

"Many parts of industry are actually in a state worse than recession. If it were not for (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke putting huge amounts of money into the market, the stock market would probably be down much more than it is."

Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s, said it made sense to desert the dollar.

"All other things being equal during the next six months, that's the way I will go," he said. "But if the Swiss franc goes through the roof, I probably won't put money into the Swiss franc."

And he dismissed worries for now that surging Chinese equities had formed a bubble.

The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC settled 1.2 percent higher on Wednesday at 5,843 points. This time last year the index was trading around 1,800 points.

"It's not a bubble yet -- if it goes past 9,000 in January I'll have to sell. Bubbles always end badly," he said. "I do not want to sell Chinese stocks. I want to own them forever and I want my four year-old daughter to own them."

(Source)⇒Reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's stock market is dangerously high but environmental protection, water, railways and renewable energy stocks are still worth holding, fund manager and investment author Jim Rogers said on Thursday.

Rogers, in a presentation at a conference, also reiterated his view to dump dollars and bonds and stay bullish on commodities, such as oil and aluminum. Gold was still going strong, but copper prices look stretched, he added.

A prominent China bull, Rogers said investors should be cautious after China's benchmark Shanghai composite index quadrupled over the past two years.

It closed at a record high on Thursday.

"The stock market is going through the roof over the past three years. That's always a dangerous sign," said Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum hedge fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s.

"And if you are new to the stock market, you probably think this is the way that things always work. This is not the way the market always works," he said.

"I'm not suggesting you sell your stocks. But I want you to know this is not usual," he said, adding that some Chinese shares were going to collapse as they were "crazily priced".

But Rogers sees opportunities in Chinese companies involved in sectors such as environmental protection, water, green energy, railways and education, where the government and public were expected to spend a lot of money.

"I'm not selling my Chinese shares. As I said, I bought more of them last week. If the market triples again in the next year I would probably have to sell my Chinese shares," said Rogers, who bought his first Chinese stocks in 1999.

Rogers, 64, urged investors to get exposure to the Chinese currency, the renminbi , and dump the U.S. dollar, which he calls "a terribly flawed currency" as the United States is deep in debt.

"Renminbi is going to be one of the strongest currencies for many years to come," he said.

Bonds around the world are headed down and that trend would also continue for many years to come, he said.

"If you invest in bonds anywhere in the world, sell it," he said. "If you invest in shares, think of Asia," he added.

Commodities such as oil and metals are expected to stay strong for many years, driven by supply and demand, Rogers said.

He said he favored aluminum over copper right now because copper prices had shot up, and said property in China is getting expensive.

"I will not buy in Shanghai or Beijing at the moment."

(Source)⇒Reuters

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Fund manager and investment author Jim Rogers said he was selling stock in Wall Street banks because of a likely housing market slump and suggested buying sugar as a way into commodities.

Rogers, who co-founded the Qantum hedge fund with billionaire investor George Soros in 1970, is a long-time commodity bull and believes that fast growth in Asia, especially China, makes the region more attractive to investors than the United States or Europe.

"Financial companies, stock brokers, investment banks -- I am short. I am short financial services companies, mainly in America. I am short (U.S. home funding firm) Fannie Mae (FNM.N)," he told reporters after a speech to investors, adding that America's financial sector offered "the best" short selling opportunities available.

Investors have been increasingly nervous about U.S. financial stocks as the market for risky, or subprime, mortgages faces a possible crisis due to rising defaults and repossessions.

"The problems with the housing market have a long way to go in the United States. Probably more so than in any other country. But the excesses in the world economy are on Wall Street: investment bankers. Those guys are making vast fortunes, that's not the way the world works."

Rogers traveled around 116 countries in 2000-2002 in a yellow Mercedes coupe. He also traveled through China in the 1990s, looking for investment ideas and collecting material for his popular books, which include titles such as "Hot commodities: How anyone can invest profitably in the world's best market" and "Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers."

"China is the next great country in the world -- whether we like it or not. And a lot of people in the West do not like it that China is the next great country in the world," he said, citing the country's high savings rate and hard-working people.

DON'T BUY NOW

But Rogers also warned that Chinese shares were overvalued after the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC gained more than 35 percent since the start of the year.

"I wouldn't buy Chinese shares now. I'm not selling my Chinese shares," he said, adding that if the stock market fell by 40 or 50 percent "I would increase my position in a big way."

Rogers, 64, said his favorite commodities investments were agricultural products.

"At the moment, if I'm looking for a new investment in commodities I would look at agriculture."

He said lead was his least favorite commodity after the metal hit a record. In early London Metal Exchange business on Thursday, three-month lead MPB3 traded at more than $2,900 per ton supported by strong fundamentals and speculative buying.

Lead has gained more than 72 percent since the start of the year as investors, attracted by an outlook of firm demand and tight supply, have bought heavily.

"It doesn't mean I'm selling lead, it just means that its probably my least favorite. Sugar is 85 percent below its all-time high, lead hit a new all-time high...and is up 600 or 700 percent in the last few years."

Rogers reiterated an idea first aired two years ago to sell his New York apartment and move to a Chinese-speaking city with his family to enable his bilingual daughter to attend a Chinese school -- although he appeared to have cooled to a plan to move to China's mainland.

As Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing were ruled out because of air pollution, he is considering Singapore as well as the Chinese cities of Dalian, Huangzhou and Qingdao.

"At the moment, Singapore is one of the most interesting," he said, adding that one drawback was that the city-state "is not enough Chinese."

(Source)⇒Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's yuan has further to climb against the dollar and could rise by up to 500 percent over the next 20 years, U.S. fund manager Jim Rogers said Tuesday at the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit.

Rogers, who co-founded Quantum hedge fund with billionaire

investor George Soros in the 1970s, urged investors to hold the yuan and said he is "extremely bearish" on the U.S. dollar.

"It's going to go a lot higher," he said, adding he holds yuan in two Chinese bank accounts.

He declined to predict where the yuan would trade against the dollar by year-end, but said he expects it to appreciate anywhere from 300 to 500 percent over the next two decades.

The dollar last traded at 7.7325 yuan. It has shed 1 percent so far in 2007 and about 4.7 percent since July 2005, when China widened the band in which the yuan floats.

Rogers said the United States' transformation from a creditor to a debtor nation and a growing tendency in Washington to embrace tariffs and other anti-free trade policies would decrease investment inflows into U.S. assets.

The administration of George W. Bush has long argued the yuan is undervalued, giving China an unfair trade advantage. Congress has threatened punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.

Last month, the Department of Commerce imposed duties on some Chinese coated paper imports, and on Tuesday, at the World Trade Organization, Washington accused China of piracy and blocking access to U.S. films, books and software.

Rogers said signs that U.S. protectionism was on the rise were "terrifying," adding "a trade war or a currency war will turn into a mess" and encourage other states to embrace protectionism and possibly lead to a global depression.

Rogers has traveled across China by motorcycle and car and said he plans to move permanently with his family to the Chinese-speaking world -- probably to Singapore.

He also holds Chinese stocks and is bullish on commodities, including copper, oil and wheat, largely because the appetite of China and other emerging markets for them means demand will continue to outstrip supply.

"The best way to play China is through commodities," he said. "If you're going to invest in China or Asia, invest in something they have to buy."

(Source)⇒Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investment industry icon Jim Rogers, who helped launch one of the world's best performing hedge funds, said on Tuesday that he is betting against U.S. home builders and expects the sector will suffer more losses.

"I am short home builders and Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)," Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with hedge fund industry legend George Soros, said at the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit on Tuesday.

"They will go down a lot more. You just don't clean out a speculative bubble in six months," added Rogers, who now invests only his own money. Rogers' calls, particularly his views on commodities, still resonate with other investors. He said he was short American Home Mortgage Investment Corp AHM.N and other mortgage companies as well.

The U.S. housing sector has taken a hit in recent months as home builders are reporting slumping orders and the number of U.S. borrowers falling behind on making payments on riskier types of mortgages is rising.

As a group, home builders have lost about 18 percent of their value this year, according to the Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index .DJUSHB, an industry benchmark.

Rogers said the call was not difficult to make considering the obvious risk at a time lenders were becoming far more lenient than ever before.

"Never in American history has there been a time where you could get a mortgage for no money down," Rogers said.

However some other investors, most notably Legg Mason's Bill Miller, considered the best U.S. stock picker for having beaten the Standard & Poor's 500 index 15 years in a row, said in December he expected home builders to show new promise in 2007.

Mutual funds won't release data on the investments they made in the first quarter until later this spring.

Rogers said he is also betting against some of the big investment banks which have been making headlines with multimillion dollar pay packages for top executives.

"That is one of areas where there are excesses," Rogers said, noting "Even though hedge funds and mutual funds aren't doing so well, people are making gigantic amounts of money."

Last year five hedge fund managers, including Centaurus' John Arnold who topped the list of star earners, took home at least $1 billion. Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein earned $54.7 million in 2006.

Even though hedge funds are pulling in money from investors like pension funds at a record pace, Rogers said the $2 trillion industry is poised for a setback.

"There will be many disasters coming both from incompetence and dishonesty," Rogers said adding "Right now the best way to make money is in the private equity and hedge fund industries and some people will be wiped out. It is all going to come to a bad end," he forecast.

(Source)⇒Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Commodities investment guru Jim Rogers said on Tuesday he expects oil prices to hit $100 a barrel as part of a larger commodities bull run that could last another 15 years.

With new oil discoveries struggling to keep up with rising demand from emerging economies in China and India, Rogers said crude prices will surge past historical highs.

"The surprise is going to be how high oil prices can stay and how high it goes. The old high for oil adjusted for inflation would be $100 a barrel, say," Rogers said at the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit.

"We'll certainly get there again," added Rogers, who rose to fame as the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s.

U.S. oil futures surged to a record high over $78 a barrel last year driven by supply concerns from producer nations, before easing to current levels around $62 a barrel.

Rogers, who is also known for founding of the Rogers International Commodity Index , said commodities are in the midst of a bull run that started in the late 1990s and that could last through 2022, until prices rise to a level where demand is finally sated.

"If oil goes to $200 they will be drilling for oil on the White House lawn. If it goes to $300 they will be drilling at Buckingham Palace," Rogers said, adding: "This will come to and end someday, but someday is a long way from now."

(Source)⇒Reuters

HONG KONG, March 29 (Reuters) - Commodities and investment guru Jim Rogers said on Thursday he was holding on to his Chinese shares, even though the market is pricey and a bubble may be developing.

"I own Chinese shares. I'm not selling Chinese shares. If the Chinese stock market doubles again this year I'll have to sell, because then it's a full-fledged bubble," he told a media briefing after a speech in Hong Kong.

"If it goes down 50 percent this year I will buy a lot more Chinese shares. I'm not smart enough to know what it's going to do, but I'm not selling China at all."

China's benchmark Shanghai composite stock index .SSEC broke a half-decade losing streak last year to rise more than 130 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI jumped more then 34 percent. Both indexes then pushed to new highs, before Shanghai stocks plunged nearly 9 percent on Feb. 27, helping trigger a global stock market slide. They have since recovered and hit a fresh record high on Thursday.

"There's no question that PEs (price to earnings ratios) in China in the A-share market are too high for some companies, but that doesn't mean it can't get much worse. When you have a bubble develop, crazy things happen," he said.

"The Chinese stock market could double this year, even though it's expensive right now."

He added that his favourite sectors in the Chinese market are tourism, water, agriculture, infrastructure and companies that help clean up pollution.



SELL BONDS, BUY SUGAR

Rogers first rose to fame as the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s. In recent years he's become better known for his bullish stance on commodities and founding of the Rogers International Commodity Index .RICIX.

He is also the author of "Hot Commodities", and two books on his global travels, "Adventure Capitalist" and "Investment Biker".

Rogers reiterated his view that commodity markets will rise for years to come, boosted by demand from the economies of China and India. By comparison, he said both stocks and bonds are overvalued.

"I would urge you to go home and sell all your bonds. I know some of you are bond managers. I would go home and get another job," he told a Hong Kong business audience.

He later told reporters that the most promising commodities were agricultural products.

"Oil is going to go much higher over the next few years, but in the meantime there's more money to be made in cotton, or sugar or coffee or some of the other things," he said.

He reiterated past calls that the dollar will eventually plunge in value and that the euro will disappear within 15 to 20 years.

He also told the audience that if he were in charge of the U.S. Federal Reserve he would abolish the central bank and let market set the level of interest rates.

"America's had three central banks in our history. The first two failed. In my view this one is going to fail too," he said.

(Source)⇒Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Commodities investment guru Jim Rogers stepped into the U.S. subprime fray on Wednesday, predicting a real estate crash that would trigger defaults and spread contagion to emerging markets.

"You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better," the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York.

"It's going to be a disaster for many people who don't have a clue about what happens when a real estate bubble pops.

"It is going to be a huge mess," said Rogers, who has put his $15 million belle epoque mansion on Manhattan's Upper West Side on the market and is planning to move to Asia.

Worries about losses in the U.S. mortgage market have sent stock prices falling in Asia and Europe, with shares in financial services companies falling the most.

Some investors fear the problems of lenders who make subprime loans to people with weak credit histories are spreading to mainstream financial firms and will worsen the U.S. housing slowdown.

"Real estate prices will go down 40-50 percent in bubble areas. There will be massive defaults. This time it'll be worse because we haven't had this kind of speculative buying in U.S. history," Rogers said.

"When markets turn from bubble to reality, a lot of people get burned."

The fund manager, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s and has focused on commodities since 1998, said the crisis would spread to emerging markets which he said now faced a prolonged bear run.

"When you have a financial crisis, it reverberates in other financial markets, especially in those with speculative excess," he said.

"Right now, there is huge speculative excess in emerging markets around the world. There will be a lot of money coming out of emerging markets.

"I've sold out of emerging markets except for China," said Rogers, long a prominent China bull.

Even in China, the world's fastest expanding economy, Rogers said stocks were overvalued and could go down 30-40 percent.

But he added: "China is one of the few countries in the world where I'm willing to sit out a 30-40 percent decline."

The last stock market bubble to burst was the dot-com craze which sparked a crash from March 2000 to October 2002.

When the last bubble burst in Japan, said Rogers, stock prices went down 85 percent despite the country's high savings rate and huge balance of payment surplus.

"This is the end of the liquidity party," said Rogers. "Some emerging markets will go down 80 percent, some will go down 50 percent. Some will most probably collapse."

(Source)⇒Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prominent emerging markets investor Jim Rogers said Russian equity markets were overvalued and could burst "sooner rather than later," revealing the skeletons in the cupboard of its "outlaw capitalism."

"I wouldn't put a nickel of my own money in Russia, and I wouldn't put a nickel of your money there either," Rogers, a long-time commodities bull, told Reuters by telephone from New York on Wednesday.

"Everything about Russia is one big bubble, and it's going to pop. It's going to happen sooner rather than later," said Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s and has focused on commodities since 1998.

"When that happens, people will look around and say, how did that happen? That's when we'll find out about all the skeletons in the cupboard."

The fund manager said the Russian state was confiscating assets and company owners were cashing out via a series of initial public offerings in London.

The Kremlin has muscled its way into big deals with foreign companies under President Vladimir Putin and taken control of strategic industries including oil.

Late last year, after months of official pressure, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and its Japanese partners agreed to cede control to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) of the vast Sakhalin-2 natural gas project.

"Russia is a disaster," Rogers said. "Everybody in Russia is busy stripping assets. If you ride across Russia, you are not going to see a lot of money being spent on railroads, pipelines or roads."

"It's outlaw capitalism."

Russian stock prices surged 80 percent last year, driven by an economic boom now into its eighth year on the back of high oil prices and soaring consumer demand. But the RTS stock market is down about 7 percent in the year to date amid a global sell-off triggered by concerns over U.S. growth and inflation.

Rogers predicted Russian stocks would suffer huge losses when the bubble pops. Some stocks could go down by as much as 90 percent, others 40 percent, while some could disappear, he said.

Referring to a rash of Russian companies that have listed shares in London, Rogers said: "People don't have a clue. They're buying blind pools, and companies are saying 'Just give us your money, we're not going to tell you what we'll do with it'."

Investors last got their fingers burned in Russia after the August 1998 domestic debt default and rouble devaluation sent volatility through world markets, losing major banks billions of dollars.

But Rogers warned: "Things will be worse this time. 1998 was a stock market bubble; this time we have a huge housing and commodities market bubble."

(Source)⇒Reuters

Jim Rogers fears the worst is yet to come for the market -- but he's still optimistic, in ways that may surprise. The commodities trader and author joined "Closing Bell" to share his insights on perils and opportunities.

Rogers, who penned investment books including Hot Commodities, told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo that yesterday's "3% or so" change in the market was not a true correction: "Normally, we have a 5%, 10%, 20% correction" -- and he declares that the U.S. market is "overdue" for one.

Why? The trader pointed to weak "housing starts, auto sales," along with margin debt "at an all-time high." To those, he adds the "gigantic amounts of liquidity in the system," all signs that -- he claims -- indicate a big correction will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Rogers boasts viewpoints that many call contrarian: he says the trouble in the subprime lending segment can, in fact, damage the greater lending industry, as "80% of all subprime loans were made" in the past three or four years.

But he agrees with seasoned analysts who dispute the impact of China: Rogers said that the Asian nation's "9% drop was a signal, perhaps" of trouble to come -- but was a small factor in Tuesday's market meltdown, as too few non-Chinese are actually invested in the country.

Besides the sugar, cotton and coffee he invests in, Rogers touts utilities -- naming KKR's TXU takeover as a sign of utility vitality -- and air carriers. "I'm not thinking about selling the airlines," he said, "and if they go down, I'll buy more." He concluded on another up note: "Major economies don't change because of something that happens...on Tuesday in New York."

(Source)⇒CNBC