Friday, December 5, 2014

"Jim Grant is (still) bullish on Russia, gold and private equity"

He's gone from serious analyst to...I don't know what. Gold's going lower and Russia is Russia, where people with an actual understanding of the place travel in armored Mercedes limos and have a hidey-hole in London.

From Yahoo Finance:
Jim Grant is best know for his view on interest rates and monetary policy but in recent years he's made some public calls on stocks as well, including a bullish bet on Russian energy giant Gazprom last May at the Ira Sohn conference in NYC.

Gazprom shares have tumbled since then and Grant concedes the steep fall in energy prices, Russia's currency crises and geopolitics "have all conspired to make this the single worst call in spring 2014."
Still, the newsletter writer and author is still bullish on Gazprom and other Russian stocks like Lukoil and Sberbank.

"My point of view on all these Russian stocks is the world hates them, they're the cheapest things in the world and everyone expects them to get worse," he says. "If something goes right these are explosive stocks to the upside it seems to me. It's the intersection of value and contrary opinion [and] to me it's irresistible."...MORE
Here's the action in the Market Vectors Russia ETF:

It's kinda hard to tell what's going on at the far right as the price bars have fallen so far they are mixed up with the volume bars but let's just say Grant's original call was very bad.
$18.56 -0.10.
52 week range $28.97-18.15. That $18.15 printed today.

I'm reminded of a scene that last graced our little blog in "Peter Boockvar Calls A Bottom In Gold (Again)"
...Monty Python Does Finance
Black Knight:     I am invincible! 
King Arthur:      You're a loony!  
December futures $1190.30 down $3.60 after trading as low as $1176.20. 
Black Knight:  The Black Knights always triumph!
tip d'Chapeau: Rotten Tomatoes 

See also October's "Putin Makes Compelling Case at Investment Conference":
Be very, very leery about any Invest-in-Rus pitch.
And salivate over the valuations....
And July's "Betting Big on Russian Bonds":
Even the Czar's bonds evenually paid off, a little.  
You can probably tell, I'm jaded.