The “Michael Jordan of trading” is now table-poundingly bullish on gold. And the Reserve Bank of India may have just made him look like a prophet... John Paulson (no relation to Hank) is widely...div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.taipanpublishinggroup.com/~ff/taipan?a=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/taipan?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.taipanpublishinggroup.com/~ff/taipan?a=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/taipan?i=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.taipanpublishinggroup.com/~ff/taipan?a=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/taipan?i=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.taipanpublishinggroup.com/~ff/taipan?a=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:wd9GD17jvC4"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/taipan?d=wd9GD17jvC4" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.taipanpublishinggroup.com/~ff/taipan?a=dMcbimDGhHo:FGQV1WAidn4:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/taipan?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/taipan/~4/dMcbimDGhHo" height="1" width="1"/

Below is a wide-ranging interview with Marc Faber on four videos on CNBC TV18 in India in which he explains his views on inflation, currencies, commodities, stocks and more, all courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns.

Asset-based economy. In general, he thinks we are in an inflationary environment, whereas I think deleveraging is secular and means any inflation is only cyclical. But he shares my belief that zero interest rates induce money balances to move into consumption or into higher-yielding assets. He believes this is a boon over the medium term (if not the short or long term) for financial assets, whether they be stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate or art. And it is something that will continue, he says. Faber believes Bernanke will be loath to raise rates aggressively given his prior statements and writings.

Currencies. Faber takes the view, with which I agree, that

...

India's Wholesale Price Inflation Enters Negative Territory, But No Risk of DeflationIndia's Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for the first week of June went sub-zero for the first time in 35 years. The fall is largely due to the high base effect caused by the sudden jump in prices of fuel and power as well as manufactured goods last year.The WPI had reported an 11.7% rise for the first week of June 2008. The situation has changed a lot since then. Due to the bloated base, the current decline seems to be of more statistical significance.Decline in wholesale prices however provides some scope to the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates again in order to offer additional stimulus to the economy. The central bank estimates that three stimulus packages already announced, along with six interest-rate cuts in last ...

The Indian Stock Market has gone up sharply in the recent weeks based on high expectations from the re-elected United Progressive Alliance government, (this time with a record mandate), which promised to bring about high economic growth by opening up foreign investment and boosting infrastructure spending.The Bombay Sensex is now at around 15000, almost double from the bottom hit in November 2008. The rally has been broad-based, with shares of Indian ADRs of software companies like Infosys (INFY) and Wipro (WIT), banks like ICICI (IBN) and HDFC (HDB) and automobile companies like Tata Motors (TTM) up sharply.Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have invested more than $5 billion (over Rs 25,000 crore) in Indian stock markets so far this calendar year, with as much as $3.2 billion coming since the UPA government came to power last month, which is one of the ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /blockquote"For what it’s worth, a key conclusion from the IMF’s new World Economic Outlook is that recessions caused by financial crisis typically end with export booms, with the trade balance improving,on average, by more than 3 percent of GDP. I find this a disturbing result: we’re now suffering from a global financial crisis, which means that the usual driver of recovery will only be available if we can find another planet to export to."br /a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/japans-recovery-again/"Paul Krugman /abr /br //blockquoteblockquoteWith results still coming in, projections show the United Progressive Alliance is likely to win about 250 seats, making it a shoo-in to form the next government and provide continuity, a stable administration and progress on key economic and corporate reforms.br /a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124247401653426893.html"Wall Street Journal/a, May 16 2009/blockquotebr /blockquotePrime Minister Manmohan Singh’s electoral victory, the biggest any Indian politician has scored in two decades, may ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona India is in the middle of a storm at the moment, there can be no doubt about that. But the important point to note is that this storm is not of India's making. The financial turmoil in a number of key developed economies, and above all the United States, is sending shock waves across the global economy, and as is normal, when the earth trembles, it is the most fragile who notice it most. India's economy may be fragile in the sense that it is very vulnerable to what is colloqially known as global risk sentiment, but it is not fragile in terms of being susceptible to having its growth trajectory knocked completely off course. India may be shaken, but her economy will not be broken. Emerging Market Bonds Emerging-market bonds had their worst week in four years this week as the deepening credit crisis raised global recession concerns ...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaIndia is in the middle of a storm at the moment, there can be no doubt about that. But the important point to note is that this storm is not of India's making. The financial turmoil in a number of key developed economies, and above all the United States, is sending shock waves across the global economy, and as is normal, when the earth trembles, it is the most fragile who notice it most. India's economy may be fragile in the sense that it is very vulnerable to what is colloqially known as global risk sentiment, but it is not fragile in terms of being susceptible to having its growth trajectory knocked completely off course. India may be shaken, but her economy will not be broken.Emerging Market BondsEmerging-market bonds had their worst week in four years this week as the deepening ...

India's inflation held steady in the week to September 13, rising 12.14 percent from a year earlier, thus maintaining the same pace as in the previous week. The rate has now been trending slightly down from the recent peak of 12.63 percent hit on the 9 August. If this trend continues it should give the central bank the necessary room to hold borrowing costs unchanged and thus avoid placing funding pressures on a banking system which is struggling in the wake of the most recent bout of financial turmoil in the United States.

India's financial system is evidently showing signs of strain as the impact of both local policy tightening and the global credit crunch steadily take hold. The rate at which Indian banks lend to each other climbed to an 18-month high of 15.125 percent on Sept. 19, following the

...

India's inflation held steady at the start of September, making it more likely that the Indian central bank will adopt a wait and see approach before adding to its three interest-rate increases since June. Wholesale prices were up an annual 12.14 percent in the week to Sept. 6 according to the commerce ministry in New Delhi. This follows a 12.1 percent rise in the previous week. The inflation news follows a very turbulent week in the financial system, and the Reserve Bank of India announced on Sept. 16 a battery of measures to boost cash in India's financial system and sooth concern that the global credit crisis will worsen and have a negative impact on the Indian economy. the central bank said it would sell U.S. dollars and increase interest rates on some foreign-currency deposits to bolster the rupee, which ...

To find out how the U.S. financial crisis is beginning to play out in foreign markets, we spoke late last week with Zacks senior analyst Ann Heffron, CFA recently about how banks around the world under her coverage are currently being affected.

To what extent do you feel the U.S. economic slowdown has affected foreign banks in Europe at this time?

The US economic slowdown has hurt European banks immensely, for a couple of reasons. First, many European banks conduct a significant portion of their business in the US. Second, the slowdown in the US is spreading to Europe and the UK, and these countries are experiencing the same types of problems as in the US.

For example, Britain, Ireland, and Spain are witnessing a substantial contraction in their housing markets, which has pushed both sales and pricing into negative territory. This is particularly problematic for Spain and Ireland, where residential investment

...