Nov 12, 2008

Global Stock Market Rout May Continue - Rogers

By Kyung Bok Cho

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The rout in global markets may continue while bonds will be a ``terrible'' investment as economic problems may persist until 2010, investor Jim Rogers said.

``Stocks in the West are still expensive on any historic valuation method,'' while ``bonds are going to be a terrible place to be for the next 10, 20 years,'' Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, said at a conference in Seoul today. Equities in the West will be ``in a trading range for years to come,'' he said.

More than $28 trillion has been erased from the value of global equity markets as credit losses and writedowns totaled $690 billion in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. has rolled out a $700 billion bailout plan to buy bad assets from troubled banks, while central banks around the world have been cutting interest rates to unfreeze credit markets.

``I have started going back into the markets; that does not means it's the bottom,'' Rogers said. His purchases since mid- October include commodities and equities in China and Taiwan, as well as ``a Korea stock,'' he said, without giving deails.

``We may be hitting `a' bottom,'' Rogers said. ``I don't know if it's `the' bottom.''

Rogers, 66, correctly predicted the start of the commodities rally in 1999. His books include `Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Investment Profitably in the World's Best Market' and `A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market.'

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