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Media Contact: Brandon Lausch, 215-204-4115, blausch@temple.edu
Legendary investor Jim Rogers retired at age 37 after growing his investment portfolio 4,700 percent. Since then he’s spent years traveling through nearly every country, written four acclaimed books on investing and, on June 13, visited the Fox School of Business to share his insights at a Talk Radio 1210 Financial Literacy Series event.
After opening remarks from Dean M. Moshe Porat and Fox alumnus and WPHT host Steve Cordasco, Rogers entered the packed Alter Hall auditorium donning a trademark white suit, pink suspenders and bow tie.
“I’ve read all his books, watched all his videos and even sent him a few emails,” said attendee Tony Kypreos, a co-partner at a local investment advisory office. “So it was very cool for me to see him in person.”
Rogers kicked off the evening – the fourth WPHT event held at the Fox School in recent years – with a PowerPoint presentation with photos of him and his wife laughing with a group of Namibian soldiers, setting up camp in the Sahara, and plowing their 4×4 through feet of Arctic snow.
Rogers’ advice for future world travelers: “When driving through war zones, it’s often best to spend the night near a police station – unless you’re in a country where the police aren’t any safer. Then it’s just best to remind yourself that if you die living your dream, you’ll have died much happier than if you were working in your office.”
Then Rogers passed the mic to audience members seeking advice on a different matter: investments. If you want your portfolio to grow 4,700 percent in the next decade, Rogers suggested, invest in agriculture, help solve the looming water crisis, buy real commodities and learn Chinese – which may be a key language of commerce in the 21st century.
“I wouldn’t give you any advice that I haven’t taken to heart myself,” Rogers said, before calling his daughter to the stage and requesting she share – in Chinese – a poem she learned at her elementary school in the Rogers family’s new home, Singapore.
