Jim Rogers says has short-term bet on euro, bearish on gold

Wednesday, 4 January 2012 00:03 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: The euro could rebound in the near-term despite the problems affecting continental Europe, as investors are overly bearish on the currency, investor Jim Rogers said on Tuesday.

Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s and is a well-known commodities bull, also said he remains bullish on commodities in general but expects gold will drop further given the run-up over the last 10 years.

“In my view, gold could go to $1,200-$1,300 (an ounce)... Gold has been up 11 years in a row which is extremely unusual in any financial asset so gold is overdue for a correction,” he told Reuters Insider in Singapore where he now resides.

“Agriculture is what I own a lot of,” he added.

Spot gold rose as much as 1.4 percent to $1,586.95 earlier on Tuesday, helped by investors renewed appetite for riskier assets.

The precious metal has, however, lost about 15 percent of its value since it hit a high of over $1,900 in early September.

On currencies, Rogers said he has a short-term bet on the euro as investors appeared too pessimistic.

“I own the euro just because there are so many people bearish and so many shorts in the euro. I do suspect that the euro will survive, in one form or another,” he said. He added, however, that he had short positions on European stocks.

He said he was still holding onto his long dollar positions given the market uncertainty. Rogers has been critical of the U.S. Federal Reserve for buying bonds with newly printed money, which he said will debase the currency over the medium term.

“People, rightly or wrongly, when there is international turmoil, put their money in U.S. dollars. It is the wrong thing to do but that’s what they do, so I still own my dollars,” he said.