BIR Ferrous Division secures THE raw materials guru: Jim Rogers to speak at upcoming plenary session in Singapore

In a joint sponsorship effort, several members of the BIR Ferrous Division board have secured one of the most famous raw materials visionaries and a highly successful businessman to speak at the Division’s upcoming plenary session on Monday, 23rd May at 11 am in Singapore’s Shangri-La Hotel.

Jim Rogers, a native of Demopolis, Alabama, is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and most publications dealing with the economy or finance.

(See below recent interview in The Economic Times).

After attending Yale and Oxford University, Jim Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund, a global-investment partnership. During the next 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200%, while the S&P 500 rose less than 50%. Rogers then decided to retire – at age 37.

In 1990-1992, Jim Rogers fulfilled his lifelong dream: motorcycling 100,000 miles across six continents, a feat that landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records. As a private investor, he constantly analyzed the countries through which he travelled for investment ideas. He chronicled his one-of-a-kind journey in Investment Biker: On the Road with Jim Rogers.

The BIR Ferrous Division felt that it was of utmost importance to invite such an illustrious speaker in order to share with BIR delegates his expert insight into the current situation on the world market and his outlook on the global economy. Therefore, not only members of the BIR Ferrous Division should listen to his presentation, but every participant who is interested in the world commodity markets.

BIR extends its special thanks to the following companies for their financial initiative that helped secure Mr Rogers as keynote speaker:

• Schnitzer Steel (USA)
• TSR (GER)
• EMR (GBR)
• SIMS Metal Management (USA)

Recent article in The Economic Times

Japan crisis unlikely to impact India: Jim Rogers, Chairman, Rogers Holdings

ET Now, Mar 14, 2011, 11.58am IST

In an interview with ET Now, Jim Rogers, Chairman, Rogers Holdings, talks about Asian markets, oil and commodities as well as the impact of the Japan quake and Tsunami on the global economy and the Indian market. Excerpts:

The way yen has depreciated and Japanese markets have come down, do you think this is more like a panic reaction?

Yes, normally whenever there is an artificial event like this, it is a terrible tragedy, but also buying opportunity because we assume we are not going to have gigantic earthquakes every year. So it is normally a buying opportunity. It is a question of when you step in to buy.

What is your call on India and does it seem like what is happening across Japan may actually have ripple effects across the Asian basket when it comes to liquidity flows?

No, I do not see why it would affect India very much but there may be some Japanese funds being repatriated into Japan to help rebuild Japanese insurance companies and banks and savers who have to bring money home or the yen may go up but I do not think there is very much of that money in India right now, it is elsewhere.

Japan happens to be a large importer of both hard and soft commodities, will this hit commodity demand and the outlook for commodity prices in the near term?

No, it will increase demand because with the nuclear power plants being closed down or damaged or under duress, Japan will have to import more oil, everybody in the world will now look at their nuclear power plants again and probably have more demand for oil and natural gas. Japan is now going to rebuild, that is going to cause big increases in demand for copper and other things. Japan wasn't building very much in the past 10-15 years, now there is going to be a big jump in the demand for building materials in Japan.

What is the call on crude though because what transpired in Japan had its repercussions on crude as the commodity, we did see a spike up come in on Friday as well, what levels do you foresee, how high could crude rise in the near term?

I have no idea in the near term. I am very bad on short term trading or market timing. I do know that over the next few years, price in crude is going to go much higher. The world is running out of known reserves of crude oil.

If I look at data for the week gone by, soft commodities and hard commodities have both corrected now. We could say it could be because of Japan or this could be routine profit booking but to your mind, is every decline a good buying opportunity to buy both soft and hard commodities?

Yes, this is going to increase demand for many commodities. This is the new source of demand for copper and lead and things that nobody expected of new demand coming out of Japan, now there is a lot of new demand coming out of Japan. If the rest of the world goes into an economic slowdown because of this, then governments around the world are going to print even more money, that is the wrong thing to do but that is what they will do and whenever they print money, it is good for real asset, commodities.