EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries (August 31, 2025)

Our July 27th post noted Charles Hugh Smith’s (OfTwoMinds blog) and investor Ed Dowd’s (Phinance Technology) thoughts about the AI bubble which are now being echoed by this recent Kuppy’s Korner (Praetorian Capital) piece entitled Global Crossing (for those who don’t remember that company and bubble, per Wikipedia: “…In 1999, during the dot-com bubble, the company was valued at US$47 billion, but it never had a profitable year…”):

🔬 Global Crossing Is Reborn… (Praetorian Capital) August 2025

Remember when I pointed out how cannabis companies were terrible investments?? Usage is up dramatically since that posting, but the share prices have collapsed as no one has made any money off of it. This AI bubble is similar, but with more zeroes attached—so many zeroes, that between their capex spending, and the wealth effect that they’ve engendered, they have now effectively become a very disproportionate percentage of the growth of our economy.

And:

At the end of the day, this AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. I’ve seen this story before—fiber in 2000, shale in 2014, cannabis in 2019. Each time, the technology or product was real, even transformative. But the capital cycle was brutal, the math unforgiving, and the equity holders were ultimately incinerated. AI will be no different. The datacenters will be built, the chips will hum, and some of the capacity will eventually prove mind-blowingly useful. But the investors footing the bill today will regret ever making the investment. That’s how bubbles end—not with a bang of innovation, but with the slow, grinding realization of negative returns, for years into the future. When shareholders finally wake up to the fact that AI isn’t generating cash flow, only burning it, the guillotine will fall—on management, on the stocks, and on the broader market that bet its future on a fantasy.

And now NBC News has this piece:

📰 Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy (NBC News) August 2025

In the age of automation, human workers are being brought in to fix what artificial intelligence gets wrong.

The same technology that was supposed to put graphic designer Lisa Carstens out of business is now keeping her busier than ever.

Carstens, a longtime freelancer based in Spain, spends a good portion of her day working with startups and individual clients looking to fix their botched attempts at artificial intelligence-generated logos.

The illustrations clients bring to her are commonly littered with unclean lines and nonsensical text, and they look like a mess of pixels when blown up beyond a certain size.

Finally, I had seen this piece some weeks ago:

📰 Amazon-backed Anthropic rolls out Claude AI for financial services (CNBC) July 2025

Anthropic announced Claude artificial intelligence tools for the financial services sector.

The AI tools can help financial professionals make investment decisions, analyze markets and conduct research, Anthropic said.

The startup’s Claude models and AI assistant have exploded in popularity as more businesses work to incorporate generative AI.

Once again: I have been using free Chinese AI services to help extract and organize data/info for this Substack which they do relatively well (but with some hiccups or annoyances). Beyond that, I have had mixed experiences/results (e.g. a January post described my experience with DeepSeek seemingly hallucinating about widely held Korean stock suspending dividends…). These experiences and the NBC News piece have me leery of relying too much on AI at this point in time…

As of the end of August and the long Labor Day weekend in the USA marking the “end” of summer, more July fund updates (our continuously updated post containing all funds is here) plus new research is available starting with some non-EM pieces again pushing Europe:

🔬🇬🇧 Beyond buybacks: UK firms find new ways to close the valuation gap (Janus Henderson Investors) – The post-Brexit valuation gap has left UK companies searching for ways to realise their true worth. Laura Foll, co-manager of Lowland Investment Trust, looks at how a growing number of UK firms are going beyond buybacks to unlock value hidden within their own business.
- 🇬🇧 Spectris
- 🇬🇧 Johnson Matthey
- 🇬🇧 TP ICAP
- 🇬🇧 Parameta (subsidiary of TP ICAP)
- 🇺🇸 Honeywell
🔬🌍 Chart to Watch: Month by month, European equities make their case (Janus Henderson Investors) – European equities outperformed the U.S. in the first half of 2025, but the region’s track record extends farther back, with the share class increasingly outperforming U.S. stocks since late 2022. Though plenty of downside risks exist, there’s also reason to believe the asset class is just getting going.
🔬🌍 Have tariffs inadvertently set Europe on a path to renaissance? (Janus Henderson Investors) – As the dust settles on the EU-US tariffs deal, Portfolio Manager Robert Schramm-Fuchs considers how a strategy of fiscal stimulus and regulatory easing can help to transform competitiveness for industries across Europe.

New Asia Fund Documents & Research

🗄️🌏 Abrdn Asia Focus PLC (LON: AAS)’s July monthly factsheet (detailed economic and portfolio for a high conviction portfolio of Asian small caps) discussed or mentioned:
- 📈🇹🇼 Taiwan Union Technology Corporation (TPEX: 6274) – Value-added materials & advanced mass lamination service to the global electronics industry.
- 📈🇹🇼 Accton Technology (TPE: 2345) – Open hardware platforms for data center, carrier access, campus, SD-WAN networks & IoT. 🇼 🏷️
- 📈🇹🇼 Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry (TPE: 2421) – Cooling systems. Motors, fans, cooling modules, ventilation fans & air purification solutions.
- 📉🇨🇳 Yantai China Pet Foods Co Ltd (SHE: 002891) – Pet food manufacturer.
- 📉🇰🇷 Classys (KRX: 214150) – Medical aesthetics technologies w/ market share positioning in 55+ countries (Europe, Australia, Brazil & Singapore). 🏷️
- 📉🇮🇳 Kfin Technologies (NSE: KFINTECH / BOM: 543720) – SaaS based end-to-end transaction management, channel management, compliance solutions, data analytics & digital services to asset managers. 🏷️
- 📉🇮🇳 Newgen Software Technologies Ltd (NSE: NEWGEN / BOM: 540900) – Enterprise content management software
- 📉🇮🇳 Cholamandalam Financial Holdings (NSE: CHOLAHLDNG / BOM: 504973) – Vehicle finance, loan against property, home, SME loans + secured, business & personal, & consumer & small enterprise loans + general insurance services. Subs. of the Murugappa Group. 🇼
- 🏧🇨🇳 Hesai Group (NASDAQ: HSAI) – Lidar products for autonomous mobility, robots, etc. Three-dimensional light detection & ranging (lidar) solutions. 🏷️
- 🏧🇮🇳 CapitaLand India Trust (SGX: CY6U / OTCMKTS: ACNDF) formerly Ascendas India Trust – First Indian property trust in Asia. World-class IT business parks, industrial facilities, logistics parks & data centre developments. 🇼 🏷️
- 🏧🇮🇳 KEI Industries Limited (NSE: KEI / BOM: 517569) – Manufactures, sells & markets wires & cables. 3 segments: Cable & Wires; Engineering, Procurement & Construction; Stainless Steel Wire. 🏷️
- 🏧🇭🇰 Dah Sing Financial Holdings Limited (HKG: 0440 / FRA: DSR / OTCMKTS: DAHSF) – Banking, insurance & other financial-related services. 🇼
- 🏧🇨🇳 Hangzhou Robam Appliances Co Ltd (SHE: 002508) – Premium kitchen appliance maker.
- 🏧🇹🇼 SINBON Electronics (TPE: 3023) – Integrated design and production services for electronic components. 🏷️
- 🏧🇹🇼 Sporton International (TPEX: 6146) – Product testing & certification services. Testing lab for regulatory bodies (BSMI, NCC & TAF) & acquired professional certificates (PTCRB, GCF & CTIA). Largest test lab specializing in EMC/Safety tests. 🏷️
- 🇹🇼 Chroma Ate Inc (TPE: 2360) – Taiwanese automated testing company. Semiconductor testing for AI-artificial intelligence. 🇼 🏷️

New Asia Fund Documents & Research

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