Exclusive Interview with Ken Fisher Part 8 - Best Industries and Countries

Ken Fisher is a money manager, and on the list of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans. He is also a Forbes columnist, where he recently recommended several income stocks, such as GOL Intelligent Airlines (GOL), FLSmidth (FLIDY), and Hasbro (HAS). His latest book, Debunkery: Learn It, Do It, and Profit from It-Seeing Through Wall Street's Money-Killing Myths was just published. He is also author of several other books, including The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!) and How to Smell a Rat: The Five Signs of Financial Fraud

Ken Fisher Interview Part 8
Please note: The original interview took place on Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Stockerblog: What sectors and industries look good to you?

Fisher: I'm still in the exact same place I've been in for quite a while. We're in a period of where, domestically and globally, the economy will do better than people think it will do, when they don't think it will do well, and therefore in an environment like that, the stock area that will do well are materials, industrials, the more capital intensive parts of technology, consumer durables but not consumer staples, and to a lesser extent, energy.

The parts that do worse tend to be consumer staples, health care, utilities, finance, all the things that aren't economically sensitive.

Another way of saying it is that things that are rising right now are things that are economically sensitive. Because most people think that the economy is not doing so well. For example, something that's perfectly observable that nobody wants to write is that nominal GDP in America is already at an all time high. It's a simple fact, but nobody wants to write that, and if you write it, nobody will believe it. Because the mythology around us in the media is that we're mired in a slump. 'It's a dismal world.'

That's real GDP that's at an all-time high, inflation adjusted GDP isn't quite to its all time highs yet but it will happen in the first quarter. It's not that far away. It's been expanding for 14 months now. When the NBER came out and said 'we're officially saying the recession is over and it ended in the third quarter of last year', the media reacted to that with catcalls.

The fact is, the economy on a global basis, with some places better than average and some places worse than average which is normal, the economy's been expanding globally earlier than that.


Stockerblog: What countries do you think look good right now?


Fisher: Overall, the next step is you want to be overweighted in emerging markets, you want to be lightly overweight to America, and you want to be lightly underweight to the English-speaking world and most of Europe. We continue to have a world where people are skeptical of emerging markets, but emerging markets continue to do better than people think they will, with a couple of exceptions, and one of them is China. China continues to do well economically but there is so much interest in China relative to the rest of the emerging markets that the Chinese markets don't do well, because there is too much optimism and expectation about them and excitement. Latin America, Brazil, Chile, obviously not Venezuela, the broad spectrum of Hispanic America, the broad spectrum of the rest of Asia, India, and Eastern Europe. America is slightly over-weighted because America is doing better than people think it is.

End of Part 8

The Debunkery book is available at Amazon.

Ken Fisher obviously doesn't give individual stock recommendations in his interviews, but some stocks he likes that were mentioned in his recent Forbes columns, including high dividend stocks, are available in the form of a free Excel list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Part 1 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 2 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 3 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 4 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 5 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 6 of this interview is available HERE.

Part 7 of this interview is available HERE.

By Fred Fuld at Stockerblog.com

Disclosure: Interviewer doesn't own any of the stocks mentioned in this interview series at the time the articles were written.

Copyright 2010-2011. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this interview prohibited without permission. All opinions are those of Ken Fisher, and do not represent the opinions of Stockerblog.com or the interviewer. Neither Stockerblog nor the interviewer nor the interviewee are rendering tax, legal, or investment advice in this interview. If you want tax, legal, or investment advice, contact the appropriate professional.