Jim Rogers: No One Leaves the Euro Zone This Year
Associate Editor, CNBC
No country will exit the euro zone this year but a solution to the debt crisis remains elusive, Jim Rogers, CEO and Chairman at Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Monday.
"I don't think we'll see anybody will leave the euro zone in 2012, there are 40 elections in 2012 there will be more problems this year, governments everywhere will do their best to make sure we get through elections.
"Maybe in 2013 you should panic and certainly by 2014 you should be panicked but 2012 will be better," said Rogers, a widely followed investor who has published several books on investing, co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, and more recently is the creator of the Rogers Global Resources Equity Index.
Greece is hoping to gain its second bailout and reports on Monday suggest a private sector involvement deal in swapping shorter-dated debt with longer maturity bonds at a loss to creditors could be close after negotiations stalled last week over how big a haircut would be taken by the private sector.
Rogers added that he was short European stocks and wanted to hear direct talk from European policymakers.
"I would love for them to say that OK it's a disaster and for banks and shareholders to say they'll take big losses. Everything would collapse and I would buy all the euros I could and all the stocks I could, but I don't think that is going to happen," Rogers added.
The European Union holds a summit later on Monday to discuss the debt crisis further but Rogers dismissed this latest in a long line of summits as a "charade".
"We've been having European summits every few weeks for the past two years, it's all a charade. They are just trying to get through the French elections and I am not paying too much attention to it until they start to take real action," he said.
