Ignore emerging market fears, says Mobius

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Franklin Templeton’s emerging markets group, discusses the recent selloff, Chinese debt and his favourite themes.

These are interesting times for an emerging markets investor. What is your view on the recent selloff?
It is notable but not significant in the context of emerging markets history. What happened is that three years ago you had the [US Federal Reserve] lowering interest rates to almost nothing. So bond investors looked at the emerging markets and realised that the [credit] rating houses were upgrading them — because foreign reserves were growing, debt-to-GDP levels were lower than developed countries and economic growth was double or triple. But what was most significant, however, was that they migrated into local currency bonds, which in the past they never did... They always considered emerging market currencies too weak, too volatile or just too risky.


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