Jim Rogers & The Only Way to Make Money Off Pessimism (Updated for 2024)

Every year around this time I write a note explaining how there are a bunch of famous financial prognosticators that make money shouting scary words that help them book speaking engagements, and sell newsletters that trick people into making terrible financial decisions.  One of those people is Jim Rogers.  Every year he makes the same catastrophic predictions, every year the financial media gleefully prints his warnings, and every year I have a client forward me one of these articles asking if we need to do something. 

Since we’re now in 2024 I figured I’d update my annual Jim Roger’s Prediction List with this August 27^th article from Yahoo Finance: America is long overdue for a problem’: Jim Rogers says next market crash will be ‘the worst' — names 2 safe assets

In case you don’t have last year’s email handy, here were some of the same articles going back to 2011. 

·         2011: 100% Chance of Crisis, Worse Than 2008: Jim Rogers

·         2012: Jim Rogers: It’s Going To Get Really “Bad After The Next Election”

·         2013: Jim Rogers Warns: “Run for the Hills Now, I'm Doing It

·         2014: Jim Rogers Wants to Put All His Money Into North Korea

·         2015: Jim Rogers: “We’re Overdue” for a Stock Market Crash (original link no longer works)

·         2016: $68 TRILLION “BIBLICAL CRASH” Dead Ahead? Jim Rogers Issues a DIRE WARNING (original link no longer works)

·         2017: THE BOTTOM LINE: Legendary investor Jim Rogers expects the worst crash in our lifetime

·         2018: Jim Rogers says the next bear market will be ‘the worst in our lifetime’

·         2019: Jim Rogers on US Economic Crisis, Gold & Bitcoin - Jim predicts that the next bear market will be in the worst in his lifetime.

·         2020: 'The next one has to be worse than 2008': Legendary investor Jim Rogers says you shouldn't trust the stock market's rally — and warns of a scenario where 'everything collapses for a while'

·         2021: Jim Rogers: Next bear market will be ‘the worst in my lifetime’ — here are 3 keys to survive it

·         2022: Jim Rogers warns of the ‘worst bear market’ in his lifetime – these are the ‘least dangerous’ assets to own today

·         2023: 'You Should Be Extremely Worried': Jim Rogers Warns That The Next Bear Market Will Be The 'Worst In His Lifetime,' Suggests A Bigger Crash Than 2008. Here's What He Owns Now

All the articles above refer to Jim Rogers as a “legendary” or “renowned” investor. All the articles make it feel like these are fresh warnings.  All the articles infer Jim Rogers is a smart guy that is rarely wrong on such things. These misleading points are all intentional. The authors know they are going to get clicks by reinforcing investor fears and catering to their confirmation bias.  Sure, some people may make some bad investment decisions as a result but that isn’t the author’s problem.  As the disclaimer at the bottom states, they do not provide investment advice.

So, take this and other cataclysmic articles with a grain of salt.  It is generally the optimists that make money investing, and the pessimists that make money selling books.