Two weeks ago I traveled to South Africa, in order to create a two-year economic and investment roadmap. After seven days of meetings, I returned with a bearish view for the economy both cyclically and structurally. Unlike previous visits over the past decade, I could find very few glimmers of hope. Gloom is hard to trade on, as the timeframe…
Investors have lost faith in Brazil, and rightfully so. The currency has lost 36% of its value against the U.S. dollar this year, plunging nearly 7% in the last week alone. Yields on its bond issues are spiking, as investors demand higher and higher rates to loan Brazil or Brazilian companies money. Just six years ago in November 2009, Brazil…
Back in the summer of 2013, when I was managing over US$10 billion in emerging markets (EM) fixed income assets, I looked around the industry at my fellow EM portfolio managers and saw a stunned group. In early May that year, Ben Bernanke shocked the world out of its complacency by announcing that the Federal Reserve was ready to taper its…
