Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said that the dollar may reverse its slump six months from now by jumping as much as 20 percent.

Roubini, who warned about the coming financial crisis in 2006, said in a television interview on CNBC today that investors are executing the “mother of all carry trades” by borrowing dollars to buy commodities and emerging-market assets for higher returns. When the boom turns to bust, the U.S. currency will quickly reverse losses, he said.

“It’s eventually going to occur, but it’s going to be six months from now, a year from now,” Roubini said. “When that snap back of the dollar is going to occur, it’s not going to be 2 percent or 3 percent, it’s going to be more like 15 or 20 percent.”

Jim Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, said today that he’s “pessimistic” on the dollar and disagreed with Roubini’s view that commodities and emerging-market stocks have developed into a bubble. The dollar has dropped 13 percent since the start of March against a trade-weighted basket of currencies.

Roubini said that U.S. interest rates will probably stay close to zero for a while, allowing the “carry trade” to continue. Federal Reserve officials may today indicate their $1 trillion injection into the economy is helping to revive growth without requiring an increase in interest rates, economists say.

‘Huge Bust’

“In the meanwhile, the bubble is going to become bigger globally, and the bigger the bubble, the bigger is going to be the crash,” said Roubini. “You could have this huge asset bubble going into an asset bust.”

Gold climbed to a record $1,095.40 an ounce in London today, a 24 percent gain this year. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index has increased 62 percent this year and crude oil has risen 47 percent.

“What bubble?” Rogers said in a Bloomberg interview today when asked if he agreed with Roubini’s view, arguing that many commodities are below their historical highs. “It’s clear Mr. Roubini hasn’t done his homework, yet again.”

“A good chunk” of the global rally “could be down to fundamentals,” Roubini said. “But it’s become so rapid and so correlated across the world that there’s evidence of it getting out of hand. There’s a clear case that part of these increases is the beginning of a bubble.”

The Fed will keep its benchmark interest rate close to zero at today’s decision due at 2:15 p.m. in Washington, D.C., all 96 economists in a Bloomberg News survey said.

“Given the dollar weakening, you can actually borrow at significantly negative rates, minus 15 or 20 percent,” Roubini said. “This asset bubble we have seen since March, where asset prices have gone up globally across the board in a perfectly correlated way by 60 percent or 100 percent more in emerging markets, is explained by this huge, massive mother of all carry trades.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Swint in London at bswint@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: November 4, 2009 09:27 EST