Legendary investor Jim Rogers predicts that asset prices will plummet and economic disaster is coming, and plans to profit by shorting stock market darlings like Tesla and Nvidia when the time comes. "Bonds are a bubble, real estate is a bubble in many countries, and stocks are bracing for a bubble," Rogers said in a recent interview.


Rogers has sold off many of his stocks and bonds in anticipation of a painful plunge, but he "hasn't gone short yet because usually there's a plunge at the end and things get really crazy," he said.

He pointed to "warning signs" that a crash was coming, including a handful of stocks driving major indexes higher this year and novice investors bragging to all their friends about how easy it is to make money in stocks.

The investment guru said he is eager to short the "Big Seven" stocks, namely Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia.

"When the market ends, the stocks that end up flying high are the best short bets," he said. "My hope is that those stocks that are doing really well and are very expensive are the smart picks for me to short next time."

Rogers, 81, also predicted that the U.S. economy would soon be in trouble due to ballooning debt.

"I suspect things are not going to look that rosy next year," he said. Rogers noted that he wasn't sure whether there would be a recession or a mild recession in the future, but he was "concerned" that there hasn't been a prolonged recession since the 2008 financial crisis and that global debt loads have been swelling since then.

"The next problem is going to be the biggest problem I've ever had in my life because the debt is just unbelievable," he said.

Rogers recommends holding onto precious metals because they tend to hold their value better than other assets during times of panic.

"Everybody should have some gold and silver under their bed," he said. "Look, all of us farmers know that when there's a serious disaster, you better have some gold and silver in the closet, and that's what I did."

Rogers also predicted that inflation, which has cooled significantly over the past year, will accelerate again to painful levels. In addition, he accused the Fed of not knowing what it was doing and believed that all but a few of its leaders over the past century were stupid "bureaucrats and academics."

In recent years, Rogers has been predicting the worst economic crisis of his lifetime, but markets have ignored his dire warnings.