Ups and downs: Investment adviser Marc Faber shows no sign of slowing down

You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it,” said English philanthropist, author and MP Charles Buxton. This adage applies perfectly to Dr Marc Faber, well-known investment adviser and publisher of the monthly Gloom Boom & Doom Report.

“I am on time whenever I have to be, like boarding [flights], attending conferences and at meetings,” says the contrarian investor often called “Dr Doom”.

But he adds that he never sets an alarm clock and works only when he has to, whether doing research or writing reports. Faber was born and raised in Switzerland but has spent nearly 40 years in Asia, witnessing the passage of the region’s financial industry through dramatic change. “When I arrived in Hong Kong in 1973, people didn’t make appointments,” he says. “They just walked into the offices of the person they wanted to meet. Likewise, the financial markets were very basic.

There was no futures trading, treasury bond futures or complex products like derivatives. There was no internet or mobile phones. The only quotation machines were Reuters machines, which almost broke your fingers. Technology has changed everything, allowing traders and investors to take a short-term view of the financial markets.”

Faber is often invited by media to give his expert views on the markets, including tips on sectors and products. He says the highs we saw in equity stocks after the 2008 Wall Street crisis were due to the temporary boost experienced by the major economies as a result of the artificial boost provided by the central banks. “That effect has watered down in time and we haven’t solved the fundamental problems yet,” he warns.