Credible gurus

From time to time the credibility of various investment "gurus" comes up in our discussions.

Given that (i) there isn't enough time to read even a fraction of the material that is available to us today and (ii) I don't want to waste time which is better spent on other things (like reading company reports) BUT (iii) I do want to read a variety of view points, I have drawn up a list of gurus whom I am willing to spend time listening to (and a few that I wont waste my time on).


The "highly credible" list comprises:


Marc Faber

Jeremy Grantham

Russell Napier

David Fuller (I am not a trend follower, but his coverage is broad enough to be worth following)

Warren Buffet (excluding bullion)

David Dremen (although of limited use given focus on US stocks)

Tim Price

Christopher Wood

George Soros

Niall Ferguson


Some people who are worth looking at occasionally:


Tyler Brden (Zero Hedge) - too fixated on claiming that the economic world is at the point of implosion

Robert Schiller - got the US housing crisis right but has been largely wrong on many other calls

Jim Rogers - too fixated on commodities as the solution to all investment needs

Nouriel Roubini - too fixated on believing that the economic world is about to collapse

Peter Churchouse - excellent calls on HK property but don't hear enough from him


Zero credibility


Paul Krugman

Harry Dent

Robert Pretcher


Any others that people think are worth listening too?

Faber is entertaining - I would put him more in the middle category.


No #1 for me is Buffett, and I must say I think he is spot on regarding his comments on gold. (I have not seen any creadible argument that counters the points he makes on why he does not invest in gold).


I have zero respect for trend analysis - its really just mostly superstitious nonsense supported by industry terms that make it sound scientific (much like the little grandmas who take notes while playing roulette and then bet big on black if a series of reds have come up).


Soros - super smart, ethical, and really thinks things through.


Grantham - of course right at the top of the list.


Dent - basically nonsense mumbo jumbo. Same with Roubini.


Churchhouse - no rocket scientist, but applied good common sense.


Rogers - zero cred - gets way to much airtime (and has been successful at that), but I would not take anything he says too seriously.


Schiller - his big contributions, which I use to formulate my own valuation methods, are in how to measure "fair value" for housing. He provides an objective, mathematical valuation methodology, which is far far from what most people use (be it on this site, in real life, and even at a Government level (eg look at HK right now imposing taxes on property)) when valuing property.

@ Remmy


I agree with you on trend following - but the reasons I put David Fuller on the list are (i) he doesn't limit himself to just that - he looks at a number of other issues as well and has made some very good calls incuding India, commodities in general and the global multinationals and (ii) he puts all his own trades up on his site so you see what he is doing with his own money.


Grantham - agree although it's worth remembering his very early forays did not go well


Buffett - while I tend to agree with Buffett (and a few others) on gold's lack of utility etc the fact that it has more or less retained its value over thousands of years and out lived many other currencies is not something I can completely ignore either. FWIW, my investment in gold is de minimus and I have a more meaningful position in silver

Yes - I understand your point re gold. I think silver makes a lot more sense - glad to see you favour that :)


Rather than actual gold, I own a gold mining company stock, which has been doing nicely.

Jeremy Grantham believes we are soon to reach peak growth - that resources, farmland etc... are near, at or past peak... He gets the Big Picture better than anyone...


Tyler Durden... well ... TD is not a person... 'he' is the name used by Zero Hedge editors... as well as anonymous contributors to ZH... and yes they are very negative... as they should be - they understand full well that any 'positive' data points are irrelevant because without the ongoing printing of trillions of dollars... there would be no positives... now if you think we can print forever then ya... ZH has it all wrong.


Jim Rogers - he has been hugely right about buying commodities and PM since 2007... he deserves top spot


Buffett - he seems to meet with Obama before he makes investments these days... crony capitalist...


Roubini - made one correct call... living off that forever...


Churchouse - wasn't he the guy who was calling the hk property market higher right till the 97 crash - but meanwhile was selling his flats?


One of my favourites is Ray Dalio ... he's the most successful hedge fund guy of the past decade... he's pretty negative - particularly on europe

@ Ed - thanks for correcting me on Tyler Durden being a collective. My views remain unchanged - he/they only look at one side of every issue. The world I live in is a bit more complex than that.


After giving the matter a bit more thought, I'm inclined to agree with you on Buffett. He was very good early in his career. In recent years, he's benefitted from too many sweetheart deals rather than investing on the same playing field as the rest of us. Add in the political grovelling and hypoctritical comments on taxation and I don't think nearly as highly of him as I used to.


I blow hot and cold on Rogers. He's been good on commodities and pretty waffly and inconsistent on other things (especially currencies).


I don't recall what Churchouse was saying before '97 but in 2002/3 he was urging people to buy and to take advantage of the cheap mortgage finance. He also urged people to focus on industrial units quite early on. Unfortunately, I only listened to the first piece of advice.


I'm familiar with Ray Dalio by reputation but haven't read/listened to him much. I'll make the effort.

Dalio here http://fora.tv/2011/10/27/Leading_Indicator_Bridgewater_Associates_CIO_Ray_Dalio


How about Taleb? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan_%28Taleb_book%29


I think he's actually the best of all of them ... he mocks the fund managers most of whom after fees, get destroyed by index funds...


Likewise John Bogle the index fund king... as he has stated... these 'star' fund managers are often the guys who made a lucky call... which they never repeat... yet they can live on that reputation for years.... he also notes that very few funds last more than 10 yrs... ultimately if you have a 1000 fund managers making picks... some will get it very right...


Luck and consistency don't belong in the same sentence though

Will listen to Faber on agriculture and currencies. Buffet on anything to do with the US. For HK, I can't think of anyone.

For UK, Roger Bootle.

Thanks for the link to Dalio.


I should have included Bogle - the low cost index fund has been one of the best things that have happened to investors. Pity we can't access genuinely low cost no-load index funds from out here.


Taleb - a smart guy but also incredibly arrogant. The Black Swan was interesting (even if many of the ideas had been published before by others). Not someone I follow.

Lol at Taleb - he wrote a whole book on a concept that can be summarized in a paragraph, and ended up confusing most people who read it as to what he was actually writing about.

How do you rate Andy Xie and his predictions for Australia and the AUD?

I think he has overstated the case for a mining/economic collapse in Australia.


To begin with, the Australian federal government's finances are in relatively good shape leaving room for stimulus/tax cuts should the need arise. Likewise, further interest rate cuts and quantitative easing could be used to help the economy (and weaken the currency).


Second, while prices of some resources (most notably iron ore) have fallen a long way from their highs, others have held up quite well (oil, gold) and , critically, volumes have not contracted. The latter means that I would not expect there to be material lay offs. My understanding is that while some projects have been shelved or delayed, many infrastructure investments are still proceeding which will help lower costs in the longer term and may help keep some of the more marginal projects going. If the AUD keeps going up then an already expensive place to do business would become even more so which would not be good for Australia.


Shale oil/gas is only just getting going in Australia and remains something of a wild card.


The banking sector looks pretty good when compared to America's pre crisis status. I'm not aware of any very large institutions with the 20-40x levergage that Lehman and Bear Sterns etc had. The big 4 banks benefit from a lesser degree of competition and have perhaps been a little but aggressive in their capital structures. I would expect them to hurt in a down turn, but would be very surprised if any of them got into serious difficulties.


The household sector and the housing market remain the biggest concern. The household sector has very high levels of debt and much of that is tied to the very expensive housing market. If there is a large scale problem in the Australian economy, this would be my pick for the "ground zero". That said, I understand that liars loans and the like are few and far between in Australia so the prospect of huge numbers of people who should never have had a mortgage in the first place is much lower than we recently saw in America.


Another point in Australia's favour is their mandatory retirement savings scheme. Not only is the size of any demographical time bomb diminishing rather rapidly, but there is a steady flow of money that will be invested and the imputation system means that there is a very rational case for a lot of it to end up in the local share market. fWIW - Australia is one of the few countries in the world that has produced a retirement system that is both fair and sustainable.


Now, none of this says Australia will not experience economic cycles and they have had a good long run so a down turn of some sort is probably closer than some would like to believe, but a major crash would appear to be less likely than a mild recession.


By way of disclosure, I hold shares in a few Australian companies so I hope I have this right!