Friday, June 10, 2011

Bob Rodriguez: The man who sees another crash

You have to see it from Bob Rodriguez's perspective. Twice he has spotted an approaching storm. Twice he has warned the world. Twice he has been pooh-poohed and seen investors abandon the two mutual funds he managed. Twice he has taken steps to shield his clients from the coming crisis.

And twice -- first with Internet stocks in the 1990s, and then with the financial crisis of 2008 -- Rodriguez has been right.

As the latter cataclysm unfolded, the man once mocked for missing out on the hottest markets of his lifetime was anointed as a seer. The Wall Street Journal pronounced Rodriguez one of the "doomsayers who got it right." Barron's labeled him a "prophet." MarketWatch described him as one of the "four horsemen of the market."

Rodriguez, the CEO of $16 billion money management firm First Pacific Advisors, isn't the type to be satisfied with being right (though he's certainly not above that particular pleasure). He's seemingly compelled to share the hard truth. It's as if he has this terrible gift, and with that comes the obligation to tell the world when calamity is on the horizon. [Read on]