The 'Big Bull vs Bear' debate included the following members on the panel:
- Bert Dohmen, founder of Dohmen Capital Research, is known as a Contrarian and leader in the investment research business
- Keith Fitz-Gerald, the editor of Total Wealth and Chief Investment Strategist for Money Morning since 2007.
- Alexander Green, the Chief Investment Strategist of The Oxford Club
- Peter Schiff, stockbroker, author, and one-time Senate candidate
The moderator of the debate, Mark Skousen, who is also the producer of FreedomFest, started the debate by asking the following question: “Despite the fed raising rates, the oil collapse and Brexit, the stock market today hit an all time high. What happened to the bear market that the bears were predicting?”
Bert Dohman told the audience to evaluate how the world markets have been performing – look how the major banks in Europe have been down 89%, Latin America Index down 83% and Asian markets down 70%. “Is this really a bull market”, he asked the audience.
Alexander Green feels that there are a lot of positives out there in the market that people don’t focus on. We now have low inflation, rock bottom interest rates and ultra cheap energy, which are all positives in the current economy. He is not 100% invested in stocks. He claims that people should “forget what you think the Fed will do.”
Peter Schiff said that investors should consider overseas markets claiming that the “real returns are overseas”. Gold stocks are through the roof and the U.S. market is at a stand-still. Overseas markets are going up so it is time to consider the overseas markets. For years they were going down based on the “false belief” that the Fed was going to raise interest rates. That put pressure on emerging markets and commodities. He believes we are just getting started. The height of the stock market was 16 years ago so it has been losing value. Gold has been in the bull market since 2000. Gold went up to about 1900 in 2011 and stopped rising because people believed that the Fed policy actually worked. People are starting to wake up that the Fed is just getting started, the rates are going back down and gold is resuming the bull market. He concluded that 2016 is the worst year of managing money.
Keith Fitz-Gerald believes that the psychology is all about profits. What drives the markets are peoples emotions, he iterated. In January, the stock market was crashing so understandably, people started panicking. He did not panic in January because corporate initiatives are what drive the economy, not government statistics. He says to tap into growth and innovation.
When the panel was asked about the specific investments that investors should be considering for this year and for positive growth, the debaters gave their two cents worth.
Alexander – “Every investor should ask, “what is undeniably cheap right now?” and to look at the world’s emerging markets. 85% of world’s population is in Latin America, Europe and Asia. These markets are cheap; they want what we take for granted so it will be a tremendous market. EEM that will eventually have its day in the sun.”
Keith – “Stick with unstoppable trends. Invest in must-have companies like water. American water works; consider commodities that we can’t live without.”
Bert – recommends ETF since it has been up 35% since last year. “Get an ETF that mimics the gold mining stocks, better than the metal itself because of the leverage.”
Peter – disagreed with emerging markets investment. “They have been bearish in China and that part of the world forcing a downward pressure on commodity prices.” However, he does invest in small companies funds of emerging markets. A little contradictory on his end, but he wants to keep his options open.
When concluding, Mark Skousen turned to the audience for their opinion on who won the debate. The verdict...
The Bulls clearly won the debate based on audience applause (with added woo's).
Read more by HashtagTrumped
