Jim Rogers: The Yuan Is the Future, but My Cash Stays in Dollars
HONG KONG — The 83-year-old man who called the commodities supercycle two decades ago stood before a room of investors here on Saturday and delivered a message that felt both contrarian and inevitable: the US dollar is a bubble, but he is still holding it. Jim Rogers, the legendary investor and former George Soros partner, made clear that his cash remains in dollars — not because he trusts Washington, but because the alternative, the Chinese yuan, is still not fully convertible. For anyone tracking the movement of capital in Asia, that split screen — a man decrying the dollar while clutching it — is the whole story of our era.
Rogers, who has long warned that US national debt — now approaching $40 trillion — will trigger a market crisis, said at an investor event that he is planning to sell equities and build up cash before what he calls an “extremely bad” crash. The global markets have enjoyed a rare long rally, and Rogers sees that as the calm before the storm. But here is the twist: when asked where he would park that cash if he could choose any currency in theory, he named the yuan. “The US dollar will get overvalued, and I have to figure out where to go next. In theory, it should be the renminbi,” he said.
The theory, however, collides with practice. China’s capital controls mean the yuan cannot be freely traded or moved across borders, a constraint that makes it impractical for a global investor like Rogers. He acknowledged that restrictions remain an obstacle, but he also predicted the yuan will eventually become fully convertible, driven by the sheer size and scale of China’s economy, which he said creates “huge pressures” on money flows. Until then, he will keep buying dollars — not because he believes in them, but because everyone else does. “It is not a safe haven, but people think it is. Therefore, I put my money in US dollars,” he explained.
For outsiders, it is worth understanding who Rogers is and why his words carry weight in Asia. He co-founded the Quantum Fund with Soros in the 1970s, then made a prescient call in 1999 to bet on commodities, a trade that minted fortunes for those who listened. In recent decades, he has moved to Singapore, embraced Asia, and become a sort of oracle for wealthy families across the region who remember his hits. When he speaks in Hong Kong, the city’s private bankers and family offices listen — and many of them are wrestling with the same dilemma he articulated.
Rogers’ remarks land in a region that is already rethinking its dollar dependence. Asian central banks have been quietly diversifying reserves, and Chinese policymakers have been pushing the yuan’s international use through bilateral swap lines and cross-border settlement schemes. Yet the reality is that the dollar still dominates global trade and finance, and even a skeptic like Rogers cannot escape it. His candid admission — that he is holding dollars despite believing they are overvalued — is a mirror held up to the entire system. It reveals how deeply entrenched the dollar is, not because of its intrinsic strength, but because of collective habit.
What does this mean for Asia’s wealthy? For now, the practical advice is unchanged: keep some cash, expect volatility, and watch the yuan’s convertibility like a hawk. Rogers’ belief that China’s economic mass will eventually force full convertibility is not new, but coming from a man who has been early — and right — before, it deserves attention. The day the yuan becomes as liquid as the dollar, the global financial order will shift in ways that Asia’s capital holders can already imagine. Until then, they, like Rogers, will live with the irony of betting on a currency they cannot yet fully trust.
