Marc Faber

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Dr.Marc Faber (aka Dr. Doom) is an investment analyst and entrepreneur born in Zürich, Switzerland.

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[edit] Background

Faber was born in Zurich and schooled in Geneva, Switzerland. He studied Economics at the University of Zurich and, at the age of 24, obtained a Ph.D. in Economics magna cum laude[1]. Faber resides in Thailand and is best known for the Gloom Boom Doom newsletter and web site featuring "Dance of Death" paintings created by Kaspar Meglinger.

During the 1970s Faber worked for White Weld & Company Limited in New York City, Zürich, and Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong in 1973. He was a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert Ltd Hong Kong from the beginning of 1978 until the firm's collapse in 1990. In 1990, he set up his own business, Marc Faber Limited. Faber now resides in Thailand, though he keeps a small office in Hong Kong.

Faber has gained a reputation as a contrarian investor. He has become a frequent speaker on various TV programs and forums in recent years. He is very bearish on the long-term outlook for the U.S dollar because he believes that the excessive money supply by Fed is inflationary and detrimental to the currency's value. He is very bullish on the long-term outlook for commodities.

[edit] Marc Faber Ltd.

Faber's company, Marc Faber Limited, acts as an investment advisor company concentrating on value investments with tremendous upside often based on contrarian investment philosophies. Faber also invests and acts as a fund manager to private wealthy clients. Faber is a regular speaker on the investment circuit, often in the financial press for his non-conformist viewpoint and alternative investment philosophies. His current — if eccentric — tagline is: 'buy a $100 US bond and frame it to teach your children about inflation by watching the US bond value diminish to almost nothing over the next 20 years'.

Faber is famous for advising his clients to get out of the stock market one week before the October 1987 crash.

A lot of people say[who?]that he gets the trend right, but the timing wrong. The prime example was his calling NASDAQ top and advising investors go long commodities, including gold, in 1999.[citation needed] He lost money shorting US stocks since 1999. Now he admits that market timing is very difficult. His market advice since 2000 is quite accurate and he predicted the rise of oil, precious metals, other commodities, emerging markets and especially China in his book (Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery). He also correctly predicted the slide of U.S. dollar (since 2002)[citation needed] and the 5/06 and 2/07 mini-corrections[citation needed]. He states that there are few value investments available now, except for farmland and real estate in some emerging markets like Argentina and Vietnam.[citation needed] He believed in early 2007 that a major market correction was "imminent." (Fox News, 2-2007); however, by 5/2007 he was saying that the U.S. equities were moderately overvalued -less so than the emerging markets.

His most recent interview (June 2008, see external link for Bloomberg) goes over his bearish views on a wide spectrum of investments: stocks, real estate and commodities. He is extremely critical of the Fed's inflationary actions. However, his recent views are almost deflationary except for holding precious metals.

[edit] Writings

Faber publishes a widely read monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom Report which highlights unusual investment opportunities. Faber is the author of several books including “TOMORROW'S GOLD – Asia's Age of Discovery” which was first published in 2002 and highlights future investment opportunities around the world, for several weeks on Amazon.com's best seller list.

Dr. Faber is a regular contributor to several leading publications around the world, Forbes and "International Wealth" which is a sister publication of the "Financial Times" amongst them. He also contributes to several websites, such as Financial Intelligence and Asian Bond Portal, to name a few. Others include Forbes, Die Welt, Finanzen, Boerse, AME Info, Swiss Radio, Apple Hong Kong and Taiwan, Quamnet, Winners, Wealth and Oriental Daily. These, he writes on a regular basis. He also writes occasionally for the Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal and Borsa E Finanza.[2]

[edit] Philanthropy

Marc Faber funds philanthropic endeavors using some profits from newsletter subscriptions to educate Thai children.

[edit] References

  1. ^ 'Dr. Faber'
  2. ^ 'Profile at Financial Gurus'

[edit] External links

[edit] Marc Faber Newsletters of Note

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