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American investor Jim Rogers has been talking about investing in North Korea through coins and stamps for weeks and he finally pulled the trigger over the weekend, buying 13 $2,000 gold coins and “most of the available silver coins” going for $70 a pop.
The investment has caused a media stir as it is likely to support, however marginally, a totalitarian North Korean regime known best for its nuclear gamesmanship and starvation of its citizens.
Rogers’ line is that big changes are coming to North Korea and that the coins will be worth multiples of their current value once the regime has fallen or the country is absorbed into a larger Korean state.
Essentially, Rogers is shorting Kim Jong-un and North Korea.
Rogers’ North Korea play is part of a broader contrarian investment strategy that tries to identify buys with upside potential that “no one else is willing to touch.” Russia and Myanmar are two other countries that Rogers has currently in his sights.
Sources: Wall Street Journal; Business Insider
