Zero Interest Rate Distorts All Evaluation Models

Marc Faber : "Well, the problem with zero interest rate policies and money printing is that it distorts all evaluation models, it’s very difficult to value something. I could say, okay, this house in Mayfair or on Park Avenue or Madison Avenue in New York is expensive if I compare it to, say a quantity of money that’s been floating around the world, but maybe it isn’t. Is a Warhol painting expensive or cheap? Well it’s up, say 12 times over the last ten years, so it’s gone up a lot but the quantity of money has also gone up a lot and the number of billionaires around the world has also expanded and so forth and so on. So I can say, maybe gold relative to a Warhol painting or relative to the U.S. stock market is not that expensive or relative to Hampton property. Obviously those are up from 250 Dollars in 1999 to now over 1.300, so, expensive or cheap is a very difficult concept in the present environment."

 

Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.