Roubini says call me ‘Dr. Realist,’ while Faber sticks to doom handle, sees more QE
NEW YORK (Oct 21) As a new week starts, a couple of prominent doomsayers — Nouriel Roubini and Marc Faber – are weighing in with their views. But one is so downright cheery he’s admonished people to stop pigeonholing him.
In a video out Monday, Roubini continued to sound upbeat about stocks.
“I think that a global recovery is going to occur, so you might want to be marginally overweight in equities,” the influential economist told Bloomberg TV in response to a question on how to invest $1,000
He emphasized that investors should be diversified, with exposure to the U.S. and overseas markets. He suggested being underweight emerging markets, noting there have been “more positive signals” from developed economies such as Japan and the U.K.
Roubini also said long-term interest rates are going to rise gradually, so investors might want to be underweight bonds. Overall, his views largely echoed what he said one month ago at an IndexUniverse conference
In addition, he suggested it’s time for people to stop labeling him with the “Dr. Doom” nickname that he earned for predicting the financial crisis.
“I prefer to be called Dr. Realist. I’m not either a pessimist or an optimist,” he said. “It’s not as if I’m a perma-bear. Right now there is a global economic recovery, so I think you have to be a realist about what can go right, and what can go wrong.”
Meanwhile, Faber — publisher of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report” — isn’t resisting the doomsayer label. Like Roubini, he also is often called “Dr. Doom.”
Faber argued on CNBC that investors shouldn’t be asking when the Federal Reserve will taper its $85 billion-a-month in bond purchases, but rather when it will increase these buys, known as quantitative easing or QE.
“The question is not tapering. The question is at what point will they increase the asset purchases to say $150 [billion] , $200 [billion], a trillion dollars a month,” Faber said.
He also argued there’s been massive asset inflation: “We are the bubble. We have a colossal asset bubble in the world [and] a leverage or a debt bubble.”
