Suburban office buildings sport high vacancy rates and are thought to be obsolete since younger people seem to prefer settling in cities and much capital is needed to bring these buildings up to contemporary levels of comfort and efficiency, he says. But suburban office buildings, on average, are changing hands at 9% capitalization rates (net operating income divided by property value), while core office buildings are trading at 4%—a gap that has been called unprecedented.

Grant’s sees value in northern New Jersey. Although net absorption (total square footage leased less total space vacated) has been negative or anemic for a dozen years and vacancy rates top the national average, new construction has been lacking and buildings can be purchased at attractive prices (per square foot) in today’s low interest rate environment. Cap rates are also much higher than in nearby New York City.

Grant is very bullish on gold and gold stocks. This legacy monetary asset is an insurance policy, he says, against the “almost certain failure of our current policies of ultra-low interest rates and of heavy-handed credit creation.” Gold prices snapped in 2013 after rising for nearly a dozen years. Sentiment for gold is low, which he says has been reflected in the deep bear market for gold-mining equities.

Most of his gold stock investments are in the Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX). He says many people are attracted to the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), the world’s largest exchange-traded fund (EFT) backed physically by the metal. But Grant, a longtime gold lover, prefers investing in Krugerrands, South African-issued gold coins, which he keeps in a safe deposit box in Brooklyn. “For my money, as long as you own the stuff you ought to own it and not have a claim on it,” he says.

In private equity, he remains keen on the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (NYSE: KKR). “I admire greatly the imagination that the people, especially at Blackstone, bring to looking into areas of the investment markets that most people are not comfortable looking at,” he says.

According to Grant, Blackstone was an early leader in buying single-family houses and renting them out. It has one of the best records, if not the best, in commercial real estate investing. Its hedge funds do very well, and its leveraged buyout operation is quite successful. “If you want one-stop shopping for what most people would define as alternatives, I think Blackstone is a pretty good way to go,” he says. Its shares were trading at approximately 15 times earnings when he spoke, which he did not think were overvalued.

Grant sees plenty of pariah countries, such as China, Thailand and Egypt, shunned for their international aggression or other injustices. “But only one, as far as I can tell, is actually being punished in the financial markets for being a pariah,” he says. And that is Russia.

Year to date through mid-May, the MICEX Index (composed of the 30 most-liquid stocks of the largest and most rapidly developing Russian companies) had fallen 13.2% in U.S. dollars, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has gained 1.3%.

In one of its recent articles, Grant’s emphasizes that it is neither bullish nor bearish on Russia. The intentions of the Russian government, it said, are “all rather murky.” But the journal is bullish on Russian stocks, where it sees value.

For instance, Grant’s likes Russian energy companies Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil, which in mid-May were all trading at roughly three to six times earnings—well below U.S. and emerging market oil companies—and offered dividend yields of as much as 4.5%. The Russian government owns most of Gazprom and Rosneft but holds no acknowledged equity interest in Lukoil, he says. Jim Grant owns all three names, which are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Grant’s also likes Sberbank, successor to the old Soviet Gosbank. It holds 45% of the country’s retail deposits, and the Russian central bank holds a 50%-plus share interest in Sberbank. “By the numbers, Sberbank is a picture of good health,” Grant wrote in a recent article, referencing equity capital, nonperforming loans and reserves for loan losses. While the journal says it’s hard to know the true condition of any bank, Grant’s is encouraged that Sberbank survived the 2008 crisis-induced collapse of crude oil prices (to $36 a barrel from $146 in six months).