Odd Lots

Jay Newman on the Coming Crisis for Emerging Markets

The long-time developing debt specialist sees trouble ahead.

A man counts Sri Lankan rupee banknotes at a wholesale market in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Monday, May 16, 2022. Sri Lanka has been rattled by power cuts, food shortages, and a currency in free fall, which fueled protests and pushed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign.Photographer: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts
Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify

There are a lot of challenges facing emerging markets right now. For a start, the dollar has been pretty strong, heaping pressure on governments that have borrowed in a foreign currency. Meanwhile, energy and food prices are soaring. These are two things that emerging markets often have to import, or subsidize for their citizens. Put it altogether and you have a toxic mix facing developing nations, and we've already seen acute problems emerge in Sri Lanka and Lebanon. On this episode, we speak with Jay Newman, a long-time EM debt specialist and a former portfolio manager for Elliott Management. Jay has a wealth of experience in emerging markets -- including successfully going head-to-head with Argentina after the country defaulted on its debt. In this episode, he describes how the world is in for one of the worst EM debt crises in decades, and gives us his thoughts on how foreign investors should approach these markets.