The Meb Faber Show

Today’s guest is Tina Vandersteel, who is the head of GMO’s Emerging Country Debt team. She’s been with GMO for almost two decades. In today’s episode, we dive into Tina’s teams’ recent piece about what they call a possible “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in emerging market local currency debt. Tina gives a great overview of the emerging market debt asset class and then we dive into the reasons behind her team’s call. She shares why today is reminiscent of 2004 and how she thinks about things like liquidity panics and sanctions risk. And you won’t want to miss her hot take on China. It’s not often you see the words ‘once-in-a-generation’ from a well-respected shop like GMO so I’m excited for you all to listen in. (1:27) - Welcome Tina to the show (2:08) - Overview of emerging market debt (4:27) - What are Brady Bonds? (7:53) - Delving into sovereign debt issues (11:29) - No Stone Unturned (12:58) - The overvalued US dollar (25:00) - China’s place in emerging debt markets (29:33) - Identifying countries at