NEW DELHI: Marc Faber, editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, on Tuesday said the rupee could hit 100 to the dollar mark over the next few years.
India’s fiscal position is not particularly good. Either India has to increase interest rate meaningfully or has to let the rupee depreciate over time, Faber told ETNow in an interview.
In an earlier interview to the TV channel earlier, Faber had predicted a 20 per cent drop in Sensex to a sub-30,000 level this year.
He said the rupee looks oversold and a bit of rally is on the cards, which may lift the domestic currency to 71-72 levels.
That said, he felt the currency could depreciate 5-10 per cent annually over the next few years and may touch 100 to the dollar.
Faber said financial markets were very fragile at the beginning of this year and that fragility is only increasing as there has been a tendency among central banks to step back from asset purchases and get interest rates to adjust on the upside gradually.
Global liquidity has not been shrinking, but growing at a diminishing rate, Faber said. To pick on China is really a ‘bad idea’ by the Trump administration, the market guru said.
The Trump administration’s confrontation with US’s largest trading partner, which also happen to be a large buyer of US assets, has disturbed financial markets globally, which is why they are adjusting on the downside.
A 7 per cent drop in US stocks from their peak levels is not meaningful, but it may become meaningful, Faber said.
Stocks in Argentina, Brazil, Turkey and parts of Asia have corrected materially. Faber said some of the emerging markets (EMs) now have better financials than those in 1997.
He said he would prefer to buy into EMs than developed markets now.