Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers (Paperback)

Another thing about Rogers is that he's a trader who in the short term can sound like an alarmist. He has a marvelously comprehensive world view, known as a top down model in the business of investing, and he isn't afraid to risk his capital and then turn on a dime. He'll reverse his investment from short to long in a heartbeat and usually win. A microscopic number of people are able to do this successfully. I repeat, he is not a buy and hold long term investor.

He's highly energetic and capable of putting in a prodigious amount of time researching questions in order to improve his model of assumptions which dictate his investment expectations. While he waxes eloquently on the romantic aura of spending the night in the Sahara and on the colors of the light show in Siberia in contrast with the technicolor collage of the homes and gardens there, he was clearly more interested in buying low and selling high. Notice how he went for the beer and banking stocks; also the local power company provided if there wasn't excessive government regulation.

As for Tabitha and the surrounding scenery Jimmy was doin' the best with what he's got. Like many men he lacks a full understanding of women, he just isn't programmed that way. The same can be said about women re men, but that's another subject. Sending her to mechanic's scholl was original thinking. The boy is on the cutting edge.

The border crossing problems he describes are identical to those recounted by Keith Richburg, a black liberal American who worked on the Nairobi desk for the Washington Post, and wrote "Out of America", a tale about his stint in the heart of darkness.

A great book. My German girlfriend, who travels on the cheap to out of the way places, loved this book. My hats off to Rogers for having the courage to do it, and to include his girlfriend.

A success on Wall Street, he has a lot of knowledge about many different parts of the world in a historical, and "future possiblility" sense in the political, economic, and cultural context. Because his experiences on this journey, which comprise this book were penned in the early 1990s, the reader can: see if Jim was right about his take on the future of these nations. Overall he's on track.

For example, the rise of Islamic extremism in poor Islamic countries that have been left behind in the technological advances and globalization of the planet. Religious resurgences in the former Soviet republics, the lack of common sense and wastefulness of the communistic system, and the then-and-now shrinking of our world via telecommunications, freer international trade, regulations, technology, and business/trade agreements.

For the ten-percent of the book that discusses general international investment, for the layman he discusses U.S. Gold and monetary policy, that are short and easy to read, as well as basic Monetary policy and Macro-economic functions. How does someone buy and sell currency? What do folks look for when the invest in a nation? Why do some countries have currency and foreign exchange controls? And, what are the positives and negatives of these monetary policies?

One historical insight Jim noted on his long trek across Russia and the former Soviet republics on his bike is that communism and Stalin in the Soviet Union were greatly helped by the invasion of Germany in WWII. Hypothetical of course, but what if Germany hadn't attacked the USSR which led to the deaths of 1/6th of the Soviet population? The invasion, loss of life, hardship and subsequent "heroic" victory helped the USSR substantially. In addition to defeating the Germans, the Soviet's victory meant the subjugation of Eastern Europe, which enabled it to extract its resources and industries which the USSR didn't immenselyviously this helped Stalin tyrannical. How long would Stalin's tyannical murder spree, with his own people starving in the 1920s, have lasted with out it? His forever-lasting economic policies were not sound, as we found out in 1991. With the subsequent victory in '45, he was a "hero." The glue that held this multi-ethnic and geographically gargantuan empire together until is collapse in 1991.

Many of his insights about where the U.S. economy and culture are headed are worthy of being considerate of. In the last several decades the U.S. currency has lost a full 1/3 of its value. Why? What is the result, both good and bad? Find out here. Jim also notes, from a rational investor standpoint that the American economy is past its glory days, and like every other nation or culture in history it will diminish in the same likes of the British and Roman Empires as examples. According to Jim, it has already begun. The world changes. Demographics change. Cultures and populations change over time. Our world and its history culturalism and not static.

Multi-cultralism: good, right? Wrong. We simply don't know. It hasn't worked anywhere else in the world. It may very well (or may not) cause a lot of problems in the United States in the future after we're dead. Multi-culturalism is a natural demographic historical process that has affected, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Italy, Rwanda, Switzerland, Nigeria, China, Canada, and Latin America (among many more). Americans are too myopic to realize what ethnic, linguistic, and geographical "nationalism" can become over decades and centuries. He points out correctly the deep similarities of the folks in Alaska, the Yukon Territories, and Pacific Northwest in the U.S. What does the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia have in common with DC and Ottawa? Not much. But they do have much in common with each other.

He explained some international investment and financial models, so the layman can understand what he's saying. It's a presursor to an International finance/investment Intro class. This is why it's not a financial book. Many of his friends at "Worth" and "Money" magazine, and Wall Street (even Peter Lynch), gave a sound-bite for this book. But it won't attract the type of folks who'd read it, because it's a Travel Book and travelers read travel books, not investment books (generally speaking). So, why is Lynch's "Beating the Street" put in the same category as "Investment Biker?" Because the person in charge apparantley hasn't studied much Marketing....

He's gotta a biker-like name, Jim Rogers. He's wearing a leather jacket and chaps and has a smile on his face in the company of a good looking girlfriend. After he returned home from this trip, he drove his motorbike to Alaska. He's a biker at heart and schrewd investor in mind. Jim and Pirsig out to get together. Boy, wouldn't that be a book?

I have found certain aspects of Rogers' investing style interesting. He has a knack for detecting social trends in advance of the influence this would have on the stock. He did this by subscribing to and reading something like 90 mass-market magazines and trade publications and looking for trends. For example, years ago, when the "natural look" was sweeping the country and women were shunning make-up, he saw this and shorted Avon Cosmetics. The stock was trading around 80 or 90 at the time and was still considered a solid company. He covered his short two years later when the stock was below 10 bucks. Not too bad.

Rogers' travelogue isn't a typical traver-writer's story, since he is so focused on the economics of the different countries, but I didn't mind that at all as I am an international investor myself, and wanted to hear his observations on these countries.

For example, he finds Botswana, north of South Africa, a good bet for investors since it is equally as resource and mineral rich as South Africa, but without all the racial and tribal problems it and other African countries has. The country is mostly one tribe but the other two main minority tribes get along well so the country lacks the tribal tensions that have led to all out civil wars in other regions of the continent. Furthermore, he notes that both political parties are solidly capitalistic and want a prosperous stock market.

This is just one example of the interesting observations Rogers makes as he travels around the world on his motorcycle. There are many more of these in the book, so I would recommend this book to anybody with an interest in international investing. The compelling reason for this approach is that the US market is acting so toppy and PE's are at historical highs. However, if you are knowledgeable about other markets in the world, it is possible to find investment opportunities elsewhere in countries whose markets are not so over-valued.