Marc Faber Warns : China Slowdown to hit India

China slowdown to hit India; EMs better bet than US: Faber Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/fii-view/china-slowdown-to-hit-india-ems-better-bet-than-us-faber_2887381.html?utm_source=ref_article

Below is the verbatim
transcript of Marc Faber's interview with Latha Venkatesh & Sonia
Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.

Latha: The Chinese latest Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data is to
give heart attacks to the global markets every time those numbers come.
Is China slowing more than the world is discounting? What are your own
estimates?

A: Chinese growth has slowed down to maximum 4 percent. Now recent data
would suggest that economic growth is even worse than 4 percent. If you
look at the export performance and imports from Korea, Japan, Taiwan
which are very reliable statistics. If you look at car sales in China,
smart phone sales in China, all down, inventories are ballooning. So the
 data is fairly negative and this has also reflected in the performance
of industrial commodity prices and then you have also essentially by
huge credit bubble in China, a huge colossal credit bubble which will
have to be deflated in my opinion.

Sonia: How do you see the reaction of the various asset markets and
various equity markets here on? Is this the time to start picking
bargains anywhere?

A: Personally I think that there are very few buying opportunities
because although the market has gone down somewhat from the peak, they
are nowhere near as low as they were in 2009 or 2003 or 1998. Most
markets especially the US are still very pricy. So I do not think that
we are at the buying opportunity yet and as an investor an important
quality and strategy is patience; sometimes you have to wait until
bargains emerge. There are some bargains in the world like gold mining
shares, silver mining shares; precious metals are inexpensive compared
to financial assets but aside from that not many markets are very
depressed. Emerging markets are, in my opinion, more attractive than the
 US on a seven-ten years view but for the next six months we will still
have rocky market.

However, what has surprised me essentially over the last 12 months is
that - until the break came in August, the US market over 12 months
period was basically flat and the S&P was down 2 percent
year-to-date but as the market didn\\'t move the optimism kept on
exploding on the upside and all these analysts and strategists and
economists were all sleeping at the wheel because it was already
obvious. One-and-a-half years ago the Chinese economy was slowing down
very dramatically but these academics also that analysts and strategists
 and economists basically they were still dreaming that China was
growing at 8 percent or 7.8 percent as the government was announcing
because they do not even bother to analyse statistics. They just listen
to what the government is telling them.

Latha: You said that there is a six month of volatility that you are
seeing ahead - that is the time correction. How much of a price
correction are you seeing for instance in the US indices?

A: In my view the US market; we were at the peak of 2,134. We are now
down roughly 200 points. I wouldn\\'t be surprised if we went down
another 200-500 points - that would not surprise me because the US is a
Botox economy; they have always addressed the symptoms but not truly the
 problems of long-tem sustainable economic growth and it especially an
overhyped financial market. Americans are very good at promotion and
they overhyped their market. So as I told you, I think relatively
speaking emerging markets are much better bargain than the US.

Sonia: Will you expect India also to move another 5-10 percent lower
because of the global slowdown that we are seeing?

A: When it was close to 30,000 I mentioned to you that I expect it to
drop to around 24,000-25,000 and it will be from a longer term
perspective. However, it would be a mistake to assume that in an
environment of global liquidity tightening, India would not be affected;
 it will also be affected. It will be affected from the Chinese economy,
 not because of its exports to China but when the Chinese economy
weakens, it weakens all the resource producers of the world including
Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, Australasia and these
countries, they buy all the goods and so when their economies go down,
they buy less goods including less goods from India.

Latha: Tomorrow the central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan completes two
years in office. How would you assess his performance as a monetary
authority?

A: Different people have different views but in my opinion Rajan has
done an outstanding job as a central banker. Let me explain why I am
saying this, basically all over the world, central bankers have been
printing money and this lifts asset prices and it leads also to rising
wealth inequality.

We know very well from statistics in the US that over the last 10 years
or so, but especially in the recovery after 2009, it was not even 1
percent that made a lot of money. It was 0.01 percent of the population,
 so, a very small part of the population. In the case of India, I would
estimate that there are maybe 40-50 million shareholders on the
population of 1.2 billion and of these there are only very few large
shareholders, probably 10,000-20,000. Now, these people are all the ones
 that would like interest rates to come down and stocks to go up.

However, for the typical Indian, it doesn't matter whether the stock
market comes up or down. For a typical Indian more important is price
stability and currency stability. So, the way Rajan has conducted a
monetary policy has benefitted the majority of Indians and not just the
tiny minority.
Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/fii-view/china-slowdown-to-hit-india-ems-better-bet-than-us-faber_2887381.html?utm_source=ref_article




Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.Dr. Doom also trades currencies and commodity futures like Gold and Oil.