Zulauf and Faber: buy GDX (Gold Miners ETF)

In the "Barrons Roundtable 2014" both Marc Faber and Felix Zulauf recommend to buy gold minining companies through "GDX", a gold miners ETF managed by Van Eck, more information can be found here.

The ETF closely tracks the appropriate gold miners index and only has a 0.5% management fee.

Top holdings are Barrick Gold, Goldcorp Inc., Newport Mining, Silver Wheaton, Yamana Gold, Franco-Nevada and Newcrest Mining.

The article on Barrons is behind a pay wall, but the individual stories from Marc Faber can be found here, from Felix Zulauf here.

Wishing all readers a happy and prosperous new year of the horse.

Felix Zulauf's market prognosis

 

 

Legendary Swiss investor Felix Zulauf believes that the current rally in risk assets is likely to last until at least the end of March, but that global sharemarkets will again succumb to downward pressure in the second half of the year.

 

In a wide-ranging interview with Business Spectator, Zulauf, who is president of Zulauf Asset Management and who has been a member of Barron’s Roundtable for more than 20 years, paints a gloomy picture of debt-laden industrialised countries, where central banks have no choice but to print money in an attempt to stave off dire deflationary pressures.

He also predicts that dwindling demand from the West will force China to redouble its efforts to boost domestic consumption, but that this will reduce China’s rate of economic growth.

Rest of the article:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Felix-Zulauf-Swiss-rally-risk-assets-Greece-crisis-pd20120213-RER8N?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot

Marc Faber's stock picks in Singapore and Hong Kong

Interesting (long!) article, "the Barron's 2012 Roundtable" with interesting people like Marc Faber and Felix Zulauf.

Lots of global macro stories, not all that rosy (to put it mild).

Faber is positive about Singapore and Hong Kong, and gives a few stock tips:

Singapore tips from Faber:

• SATS which provides catering services to the airline industry and ports. It yields 5% and trades for 13 times earnings.
• K-REIT Asia Management, a real-estate investment trust that yields 7%. The stock has fallen by about 50% and the dividend might be cut. But even if it is cut to 4%, this is an OK investment.
• StarHub, the mobile-phone company, yields 6.9% and the P/E is 14.
• Luxury-property developer like Wing Tai Holdings already sells for half its book value.
• Fraser & Neave is a conglomerate similar to Swire. It sells for 10 times earnings and yields about 3%. It could become a takeover target at some point.

The Hong Kong market was hit hard, and stocks haven't bottomed yet. But you can buy Sun Hung Kai Properties [16.Hong Kong], with a P/E of five and a yield of 3.5%. Swire Pacific [19.Hong Kong] is a blue-chip, a well-managed conglomerate. It yields almost 5% and the P/E is 11. Hang Seng Bank [11.HK] yields 5.6% and trades for 11 times earnings. There isn't a huge risk in these stocks, but maybe I'm too bullish.

The full article:

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748703535904577152932179268296.html?mod=BOL_hpp_highlight_top#articleTabs_article%3D1

Here is a link from Cullen Roche who estimated the returns of the forecasters of the Roundtable:

http://pragcap.com/how-useful-are-the-barrons-roundtable-pundits

The long term returns of Zulauf and Faber are clearly the best:

Annualized Returns: 2002-11
Felix Zulauf 25.1%
Marc Faber 23.4%

Very good results, considering that the S&P 500 returned zero over ten years, "the lost decade".