Marc Faber
Encyclopedia
Background
Faber was born in Zürich and schooled in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland, where he raced for the Swiss National Ski Team. He studied Economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
at the University of Zurich
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
and, at the age of 24, obtained a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degree in Economics magna cum laude. Faber is best known for the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and its related 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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Zürich, and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. He moved to Hong Kong in 1973. He was a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel Burnham Lambert was a major Wall Street investment banking firm, which first rose to prominence and then was forced into bankruptcy in February 1990 by its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market, driven by Drexel employee Michael Milken. At its height, it was the...
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 Chiangmai, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, though he keeps a small office in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
.
Faber has a reputation for being a contrarian
Contrarian
In finance, a contrarian is one who attempts to profit by investing in a manner that differs from the conventional wisdom, when the consensus opinion appears to be wrong....
investor and has been called "Doctor Doom" for a number of years. He was the subject of a book written by Nury Vittachi in 1998 entitled Doctor Doom - Riding the Millennial Storm - Marc Faber's Path to Profit in the Financial Crisis. Faber has become a frequent speaker in various forums and makes numerous appearances on television around the world including various CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
and Bloomberg
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
outlets, as well as on internet venues like Jim Puplava
Jim Puplava
James Joseph "Jim" Puplava, born , is an investment analyst and Internet radio show host born in Gary, Indiana. He is the founder, president & CEO of the Puplava Financial Services Inc. group, and Puplava Securities Inc.. He is also chief author and host for the Financial Sense Newshour. His...
's internet radio show. Dr. Faber's also engaged the Barron's
Barron's Magazine
Barron's is an American weekly newspaper covering U.S. financial information, market developments, and relevant statistics. Each issue provides a wrap-up of the previous week's market activity, news reports, and an informative outlook on the week to come....
Roundtable and the Manhattan Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
Circle, lecturing on "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, When is the Next AIG to Fall?"
Marc Faber Ltd.
Faber's company, Marc Faber Limited, acts as an investment advisor 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 quoted in the financial press for his non-conformist viewpoint and alternative investment philosophies. His current tag-line 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. However Faber said that this prediction was "accidental".
He lost money shorting US stocks in 1999 although his call was later vindicated. He admits that market timing
Market timing
Market timing is the strategy of making buy or sell decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict future market price movements. The prediction may be based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis...
is very difficult. Nevertheless, his market advice since 2000 is quite accurate. Faber predicted the rise of oil, precious metals, other commodities, emerging markets
Emerging markets
Emerging markets are nations with social or business activity in the process of rapid growth and industrialization. Based on data from 2006, there are around 28 emerging markets in the world . The economies of China and India are considered to be the largest...
, and especially China in his book Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery. He also correctly predicted the slide of the U.S. dollar since 2002 and the 5/06 and 2/07 mini-corrections. He stated that there are few value investments available, except for farmland and real estate in some emerging markets like Russia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. He believed in early 2007 that a major market correction was "imminent." (Fox News, 2-2007); however, by 5/2007 he was saying that U.S. equities were moderately overvalued — less so than those of emerging markets.
In a June 2008 interview with Bloomberg
Bloomberg Television
Bloomberg Television is a 24-hour global network broadcasting business and financial news. It is distributed globally, reaching over 200 million homes worldwide. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P...
, he 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 views for the short-run were almost entirely deflationary except for holding precious metals; Faber still views hyperinflation as a certainty within the next 10 years. He also correctly expressed temporary bullishness for the U.S. dollar in the middle of 2008 before it dramatically recovered and positive expectations for holding the Japanese yen. In December 2008, Faber said, "I think a recovery will not come in the next couple of years, maybe in five, ten years' time" On March 9, 2009, Faber correctly predicted a U.S. stock market bottom but incorrectly stated that the rally would last only six months.
Writings
Faber writes the monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom Report which is subject to charge. He has also authored several books.Dr. Faber has been a regular contributor to several leading publications around the world in the past, among them Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
and International Wealth which is a sister publication of the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
. He has contributed regularly to several websites such as Financial Intelligence, Asian Bond Portal, Die Welt, Finanzen, Boerse, AME Info, Swiss Radio, Apple Hong Kong and Taiwan, Quamnet, Winners, Wealth and Oriental Daily. He has also written occasionally for the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
, Wall Street Journal, and Borsa e Finanza.
Faber has been long term bearish about the American economy for a number of years and continues to be so. He concluded his June 2008 newsletter with the following mock quote:
"The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebateEconomic Stimulus Act of 2008The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 was an Act of Congress providing for several kinds of economic stimuli intended to boost the United States economy in 2008 and to avert a recession, or ameliorate economic conditions. The stimulus package was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on January...
. If we spend that money at Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
, the money goes to ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, HondurasHondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. If we purchase a good car it will go to GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. If we purchase useless crap it will go to TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part."
Funds
Marc Faber serves as director or advisor of a number of investment funds that focus on emerging and frontier markets, including Leopard Capital’s Leopard Cambodia Fund and Leopard Sri Lanka Fund.External links
- Marc Faber interview on Bloomberg September 2007 before rate cut decision
- Faber's website
- Comprehensive Interview w/ Marc Faber (Bloomberg TV)
- Bloomberg interview
- Financial Sense News Hour Jim PuplavaJim PuplavaJames Joseph "Jim" Puplava, born , is an investment analyst and Internet radio show host born in Gary, Indiana. He is the founder, president & CEO of the Puplava Financial Services Inc. group, and Puplava Securities Inc.. He is also chief author and host for the Financial Sense Newshour. His...
Ask the Experts - Video of a wide ranging discussion of the US Dollar, credit crunch and emerging markets on CNBC Oct. 22, 2007
- interview with RTL Z 16-03-2010
- Video of a June 2008 Bloomberg News interview critical of Fed chairman and entitled: Marc Faber Says Oil, Stocks, Real Estate Are Overvalued
- Dr. Doom: Short Treasuries, Buy Hard Assets — 29 December 2008 interview
- The Marc Faber Blog