Jim Rogers


Investor Jim Rogers said Friday that he has a short position on a "big, big, big" U.S.-based bank, though he declined to identify it on Bloomberg Television.
"I've got too many friends over there, I'll keep my mouth shut," he said when pressed by an interviewer.
Rogers admitted wishing he didn't own any stocks in the U.S., given his dim view of the country's economy due to record indebtedness and the Federal Reserve's easy-money policies.
A former partner of George Soros, Rogers is known for favoring commodities and currencies. Friday, he repeated that he's long in both areas, while taking short bets on emerging markets, and U.S. technology stocks as well as the unidentified bank. As he did in a separate interview with CNBC earlier this week, Rogers said he holds dollars, having bought them on expectation of a short-term rally.
He also said that, as of Friday morning, he had gone short on U.S. government bonds.
Because of its status as the world's biggest-ever debtor, Rogers said, the U.S. will face a bleak economic future unless Washington takes drastic action to slash spending, reduce the deficit and cut long-term debt.
"We've already lost one decade, we're going to lose another the way things are going," said Rogers, an American based in Singapore. He said rising stock values since early 2009 amount to a "rally in a bear market" and said the U.S. economy looks bound for the kind of stagnation seen in Japan for the past 20 years.