“They are more and more worried about their re-election than growing their economies,” he said. “Also, certain European Banks still have issues particularly in the Benelux region, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. It will take many more years to sort them out.”

Telecommunications, Oil

Vladimir Evtushenkov, the founder and largest shareholder of Moscow-based investment company AFK Sistema, said he wasn’t sure if stocks would rise this year.

“For many stocks in general and for AFK Sistema, particularly, 2013 was not a bad year, I am very cautious about their short-term growth prospects,” he said in an e-mail.

Evtushenkov, who’s the world’s 132nd-richest person, according to the Bloomberg ranking, said he would prefer to invest in new companies in sectors that are not affected by changes in central bank policies.

The 65-year-old billionaire, whose publicly traded company maintains interests in OAO Mobile TeleSystems, Russia’s biggest mobile-phone operator, and OAO Bashneft, an oil production and refining company, said the biggest risk to the world’s economy are anti-global attitudes.

“The opponents of globalization are becoming stronger,” he said. “In many countries, we see the growth of nationalist sentiments, which causes serious damage to the sustainable development of the whole world’s economy.”

Solaire Resort

Enrique Razon, a casino and cargo terminal billionaire who doesn’t gamble and says he feels more comfortable operating a port crane than he does glad-handing a crowd of high-rollers, said he’d invest $100 million in Nigerian companies instead of stocks, Picasso paintings or Bitcoins.

“I believe there will be a correction coming” in the stock market, he said in an e-mail. “I’m not certain if this will happen in 2014.”