Marc Faber: Outlook for April and Beyond
Speaking with hosts Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s afternoon program “Street Smart,” Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, offered his latest thoughts on a variety of financial subjects – including his guess for the direction of equities in April.
On the prospects for QE3, Faber reiterated his views of what he thinks is coming from a Bernanke Fed and an accommodating Congress.
“For sure, there will be QE3, but not right away,” Faber said. “So I think they will do QE3; and my view is they will do QE3, QE4, QE5, until QE26, until the whole system breaks down.”
As far as the timing of a Fed announcement of an extension of its so-called quantitative easing program, Faber suggested that the Fed won’t go forward with its plan for further easing while pundits of the Fed’s policy actions remain too large in numbers. Therefore, a crisis in confidence on Wall Street must precede any announcement regarding further expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet, he speculated.
“I think QE2 is fully discounted,” Faber said. “I believe the Fed would like to see stocks correcting somewhat and then have an excuse if stock are down 20%, then yeah, we need QE3.”
On the subject of relative stock market values between U.S. markets and other markets, the Swiss-born investment manager disagrees with the notion that U.S. stocks are cheap relative to foreign markets, citing Mexico’s much improved economic fundamentals, as an example, along with the country’s low-wage base and proximity to the world’s largest economy to the north.
China, Faber said, is pricing itself out as a low-wage producer of choice among developed nations, while Mexico’s wage growth, on the other hand, continues to stagnate. Faber also cited Thailand as another example of his viewpoint. The availability of sound growth stocks in the Thai market, which in some cases pay 7% dividends, and other stocks, which can be purchased at price-to-earnings valuations in the nine and 10 range, offer better value, according to Faber.
When asked by Carol Massar what he thinks of the fiscal climate in Washington to deal with the ballooning federal budget deficits, the unabashedly outspoken Faber colored the interview with his views on the issue as well as his opinion on U.S. foreign policy and American culture.
“The U.S. is already out of control. It’s going to be very difficult,” he said of the political will to institute fiscal austerity measures to slow explosive trillion-dollar budget deficits.
“A society has to be patriotic. Patriotism doesn’t mean to go to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and bomb Libya with mercenaries,” Faber explained.
