Peter Schiff on Fox Business News on February 2, 2009.

Peter Schiff defends himself against recent attacks by internet bloggers and the Wall Street Journal:

They’re trying to find a way to discredit me by saying people who followed my investment advice in 2008 lost money. Well, pretty much people who followed anybody’s investment advice lost money.

The bottom line is, if you look at all my accounts, which i really can’t do because I don’t manage them. But even in the Wall Street Journal story, one of the accounts that they mentioned as being down outperformed the US market. But of course they’re not giving me any credit at all for all the money we have in gold. We have alot of money in gold for our clients. None of that is in their statements because its owned in separate accounts. But a guy might have had 50% of his portfolio in gold and 50% in stocks and they’re looking at the half that went down. They’re not looking at the half that went up.

Look at Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway stock has dropped 40% in the last 13 months. The Wall Street Journal isn’t saying that Warren Buffet made minced meet out of his clients. And my clients in general aren’t doing that bad.

Peter Schiff discusses the reasons his investments and client portfolios didn’t perform as expected:

The main thing that happened that undermined a lot of my strategy, which is buying foreign stocks is that the US dollar rallied significantly, instead of declining, which is what I had anticipated would have happened.

Now, I think the rally in the dollar is  phony, I don’t think it’s going to last, I think it’s going to collapse, and I think a lot of the losses that many of my clients have in their accounts now are going to be replaced by profits.

Reasons why Schiff cannot report client performance:

When I don’t manage the money I can’t report on performance. I can’t come out and say here’s how my accounts performed, here’s the percentages, because I’m not allowed to say that.

On his investment strategy:

I’ve had a buy and hold strategy. I’m a long time buyer and value for dividends. Kind of like a Warren Buffet. I’m not trying to hold myself out as a market timer. So even if I think the market’s going to go down, I’m not necessarily going to tell people to sell their stock.

David Ashman: Isn’t investment — doesn’t it always come down to a matter of timing.

Well not if you’re buying stocks that are paying 8 or 10 percent dividends.

I’m investing for the long-term. I’m investing for the way this is going to finally play out.

Schiff goes on to discuss his theories on where we might see the Dow, it’s relation to gold, and inflation.

Watch the Peter Schiff video below: