Revealed: Marc Faber identifying major investment themes

Marc Faber, Editor and Publisher of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report’” talks about the major new investment themes.

Back to where we started, which was major investment themes. Which ones are you seeing on the horizon, if any at all?

Yes, I mean first of all some investment themes are not easy to implement for individuals.

In Asia, one country that stands out as having great economic potential is Vietnam.

And by the way the whole Indochinese region with Vietnam in the east and then north west with Laos, south west with Cambodia and then Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh and in the north China, and in the south Malaysia, Singapore… that whole region with over 500 million people has tremendous growth potential and Cambodia at the present time is a boom town, a boom country because it is also politically related, the Japanese and Koreans invest a lot of money as well as the Americans and the Chinese so they all compete essentially because Cambodia is strategically important.

Vietnam has a very strong export performance, the stock market has performed very badly for the last few years like China, until a year ago, properties have come down but in my view they are now bottoming out. The Vietnamese people are hardworking people not like say easy going like the Thais or the Indonesians or Philipinos, so I believe the country has a great potential.

Number two with the agreement with Iran, I think the future of southern Iraq is guaranteed in other words, from Baghdad south, that whole region where the oil is, Basra, that is Shia, their political future is essentially guaranteed because the Shias of Iran will not let ISIS capture that territory nor let Saudi Arabia invade. The Iraqi stock market is very inexpensive, it is very cheap. It is very difficult to invest now in Iran but in Iraq it is much easier and there are funds so that is an opportunity in my view. For the last few years emerging markets have underperformed say the US grossly, but if I look at the next ten years and in the immediate future, I don’t think that the emerging markets will perform well, they will come off further in my view but they are markets that offer relative good value in the sense that you have many shares say in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand…that have a dividend yield of say 5-6% so at least you paid to wait. It is not yet at a very attractive valuation level but it´s reasonable. It is a world of inflated assets.

Mining stocks are extremely depressed, I mean if someone says what is cheap in the market place then I would say the miners are incredibly low, next station is bankruptcy and maybe one of the big ones still goes bust and that would probably signal the end of the bear market in precious metals. Possible.

I would say the miners are incredibly low, next station is bankruptcy and maybe one of the big ones still goes bust and that would probably signal the end of the bear market in precious metals. Possible.

Interview conducted by Johannes Maierhofer and Peter Matay

Full Interview – The Big Picture with Marc Faber