Over the past few days, legendary investor Jim Rogers was in China making appearances at the opening of an investment club in Shanghai and an investor conference in Nanjing. Bloomberg’s Zhang Shidong wrote Monday:

Investors should avoid the dollar and buy commodities, which is the “best investment” for this year, said Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

Avoid the dollar “at all costs,” Rogers said at the opening of an investment club in Shanghai today. “Agricultural prices have much higher to go over the next decade. We have a shortage of everything including seeds.”

Rogers, who called the beginning of the latest bull market in commodities back in 1999, still sees tremendous potential in hard assets. The author of Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World’s Best Market said today:

The best investments in 2008 are commodities and natural resources.

While in Nanjing last week, the Singapore-based investor told conference participants not to “give up” on Chinese shares, even though the country’s stock index fell almost 50% this year. Bloomberg’s Zhao Yidi wrote:

“Start buying when others say ‘never again’,” Rogers, 65, said today at an investor conference in Nanjing. There is “much money to be made” from investments in Chinese stocks, he said.

Even though China’s CSI 300 Index has fallen 52% from its peak back on October 16, Rogers said he hasn’t sold any of his holdings. According to Yidi:

Rogers told Chinese investors that the current correction is “the way the market works,” and they shouldn’t be a “market timer” trying to figure out when is the bottom. “You should get in at a time like now,” Rogers said. “I’m starting to think about buying again.” He said he’d be “investing in China for the rest of the century.”

In Nanjing, the creator of Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI) also predicted trouble for the United States. Rogers said U.S. stocks “are going to go down,” the subprime mortgage crisis “has many years to go,” and that the U.S. may be in its “worst recession since World War II.”

Sources:

“Avoid U.S. Dollar, Buy Commodities, Jim Rogers Says (Update2)”
Zhang Shidong
Bloomberg, June 30, 2008

“Rogers Tells Investors Not to ‘Give Up’ on China (Update3)”
Zhao Yidi
Bloomberg, June 28, 2008

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