I have essentially three views. First off all, the US economy is like a supertanker or a sailboat. It is not easy to turn it around and come back to where you have been in terms of prosperity. In general, Mr Trump’s policies will fail to lift economic growth rates significantly.
US stocks, compared to emerging markets or European companies or Japanese stocks, are significantly ahead of themselves. In 2017, emerging markets will outperform the US or by going up substantially more than the US. So I would essentially avoid the US and rather invest in emerging economies....
The second view I have is that recently investors have been obsessed with growth in the United States and with interest rates going up because the Fed has said that they would essentially increase the Fed fund rates three times this year but in the US, the treasury bond market is grossly oversold and for the next three months, we can have a rebound in US treasuries. Short-term and long term interest rates in the US are going to ease again in the next three months. You could get the 5% to 10% upside move in US treasuries.
The third view I have is the whole world seems to think that the only way the US dollar can go is upward. I doubt this is to be the case. First of all, if you have a strong dollar, the trade deficit in the US and the current account deficit are likely to weaken as well as the economy. So, within the next three to six months or even already now, the US dollar has become rather vulnerable against foreign currencies. I would rather be short on the US dollar in 2017 than go long.
If I look at the sentiment of investors towards precious metals, it is actually puzzling because gold is up against the US dollar and gold shares were up on an average of 60 to 80% in 2016. But despite this performance, investors are very bearish about gold and gold shares. I would accumulate or recommend to accumulate precious metals stocks and the physical in 2017.
