Marc Faber was born in Zurich, Switzerland. He went to school in Geneva and Zurich and graduated from high school with the Matura. Marc Faber studied economics at the University of Zurich and received a magna cum laude doctorate in economics at the age of 24.
Between 1970 and 1978, Dr. Faber worked for White Weld & Company Limited in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong. He has lived in Hong Kong since 1973. From 1978 to February 1990, he was Managing Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert (HK) Ltd.
Marc Faber Lecture Topics
- The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report – Investing in crazy Markets
- Economic, geopolitical, social and financial shifts in the global economy
- The U.S. and Global Shifts: The Constant View Across the Pacific
- China and the Old Burma Road: The Road to Globalization
In June 1990, Marc Faber went into business for himself and published a widely read monthly investment newsletter, THE GLOOM BOOM & DOOM, in which he highlights unusual investment opportunities. He is also the author of several books, including “TOMORROW’S GOLD – Asia’s Age of Discovery,” first published in 2002, which highlights future investment opportunities around the world. “TOMORROW’S GOLD” was on Amazon’s bestseller list for several weeks and has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Thai and German.
Marc Faber is a regular speaker at a number of investment seminars. He has lectured on all continents to large audiences of professional and individual investors on a wide range of topics. Dr. Marc Faber also writes regularly for several leading financial publications around the world.
Famous for his contrarian approach to investing, Marc Faber does not run with the bulls or bait the bears, but steers his own course through the maelstrom of international financial markets. In 1987, he warned his clients to get out of the market before Black Monday on Wall Street; he gave them handsome profits by predicting the bursting of the Japanese bubble in 1990; he correctly predicted the collapse of U.S. gambling stocks in 1993; and he foresaw the 1997/98 Asia-Pacific financial crisis and the resulting global volatility.
Nury Vittachi writes in Riding the Millennial Storm: Marc Faber has style. He was a ski racer in his youth, and he’s still a flamboyant guy. He plays with the press calling him Dr. Doom; his monthly newsletter, always an excellent read, is called “The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report.” He wears a ponytail, defying the expectation (especially in Asia) that investment managers should look conventional.
Marc Faber has an excellent library of first editions of works on economics and stock market cycles in various European languages, as he is a multilingual Swiss. And he has a collection of a quarter of a million Mao badges. What he says is usually impeccably argued, but it is the way he delivers it that makes him a sought-after speaker: he is a master of rhetoric with vivid examples from everyday life. His very dry sense of humor and heavy Swiss accent make for an irresistible mix. (He himself describes his writing as “Swiss German pidgin English,” but is actually one of the most articulate and grammatically sound people around).
It is amazing how much hostility the mention of Marc Faber’s name can provoke, especially among dealers with a limited sense of historical perspective. He is well aware of this reaction. He wrote, “Nobody likes a killjoy, and as long as the stock market orgy continues, the naysayers will be shunned almost as much as AIDS carriers. The more intelligent professionals in town and on the trading floor pay him far more respect, even if they don’t understand the details of his operations. Some assume he says one thing and invests another. Others think he is a simple-minded and public-spirited contrarian. Many consider him “Dr. Doom,” the congenital pessimist.
Marc Faber plays with this image, or at least he is amused by it and lets it run its course.