EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries (November 16, 2025)

I’ve written a bit about the AI bubble and am seeing more and more articles about the coming or ongoing “AI job apocalypse.” However, everyone might want to relax after reading this essay and the book it led to that were both written before anyone was talking about AI:

📰 On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant (Strike! Magazine) August 2013 🗃️

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it…

That essay went viral and was turned into a book (after the author solicited and collected “bullshit job” antidotes) that can be read/listened and/or downloaded (I am almost finished listening too it on my phone):

The “why the financial industry might be considered a paradigm for bullshit job creation” section had a couple of interesting takes:

On a superficial level, of course, the immediate mechanisms that create bullshit jobs in the FIRE sector are the same ones that produce them anywhere else. I listed some of these in chapter 2, when I described the five basic types of bullshit jobs and how they came about. Flunky positions are created because those in powerful positions in an organization see underlings as badges of prestige; goons are hired due to a dynamic of one-upmanship (if our rivals employ a top law firm, then so, too, must we); duct-taper positions are created because sometimes organizations find it more difficult to fix a problem than to deal with its consequences; box-ticker positions exist because, within large organizations, paperwork attesting to the fact that certain actions have been taken often comes to be seen as more important than the actions themselves; taskmasters exist largely as side effects of various forms of impersonal authority. If large organizations are conceived as a complex play of gravitational forces, pulling in many contradictory directions, one could say there will always be a certain pull in any of these five. Even so, one must ask: Why is there not a greater pressure pulling in the opposite direction? Why is this not seen as more of a problem? Firms like to represent themselves as lean and mean.

It seems to me that those creating, playing around with, and destroying large amounts of money in the FIRE sector provide the perfect place to begin to ask this question—in part because many who work in this sector are convinced that almost everything done in it is basically a scam.⁽¹³⁶⁾

Elliot: So I did a job for a little while working for one of the “big four” accountancy firms. They had been contracted by a bank to provide compensation to customers that had been involved in the PPI scandal. The accountancy firm was paid by the case, and we were paid by the hour. As a result, they purposefully mis-trained and disorganized staff so that the jobs were repeatedly and consistently done wrong. The systems and practices were changed and modified all the time, to ensure no one could get used to the new practice and actually do the work correctly. This meant that cases had to be redone and contracts extended.

And:

…The closest I was able to find to general insight came from a certain Simon, who had been employed by a series of large international banks in risk management, which basically, he says, means to analyze and “find problems in their internal processes.”

Simon: I spent two years analyzing the critical payment and operations processes at one bank, with the sole aim to work out how a staff member might use the computer systems to commit fraud and theft, and thereby recommend solutions to prevent this. What I discovered by chance was that most people at the bank didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing. They would say that they are only supposed to log into this one system and select one menu option and type certain things in. They didn’t know why.

So Simon’s job was basically to be the all-seeing eye that determined how different parts of a bank’s many moving parts fit together and iron out any incoherences, vulnerabilities, or redundancies he might find. In other words, he’s about as qualified to answer the question as anyone could be. His conclusions?

Simon: In my conservative estimation, eighty percent of the bank’s sixty thousand staff were not needed. Their jobs could either completely be performed by a program or were not needed at all because the programs were designed to enable or replicate some bullshit process to begin with.

In other words, forty-eight thousand of the bank’s sixty thousand employees did nothing useful—or nothing that couldn’t easily be done by a machine. These were, Simon believed, de facto bullshit jobs, even if the bank workers themselves were deprived of the means to assess or collectively analyze the situation, and expected to keep any suspicions to themselves. But why didn’t the bank’s higher-ups figure this out and do something about it? Well, the easiest way to answer that question is to observe what happened when Simon did suggest reforms:

Simon: In one instance, I created a program that solved a critical security problem. I went to present it to an executive, who included all his consultants in the meeting. There were twenty-five of them in the boardroom. The hostility I faced during and after the meeting was severe, as I slowly realized that my program automated everything they were currently being paid to do by hand. It’s not as if they enjoyed it; it was tedious work, monotonous and boring. The cost of my program was five percent of what they were paying those twenty-five people. But they were adamant.

I found many similar problems and came up with solutions. But in all my time, not one of my recommendations was ever actioned. Because in every case, fixing these problems would have resulted in people losing their jobs, as those jobs served no purpose other than giving the executive they reported to a sense of power.

Again, the book was written before anyone was talking about AI replacing jobs.

So the question becomes this: IF there are so many “bullshit” jobs that could be eliminated with pre-AI technology (but were not), why would AI suddenly eliminate these jobs? And why are we starting to hear about mass layoffs with AI being blamed? (I’m also starting to read stories about AI creating work for graphic designers and writers to clean up all the AI slop…). In other words, what’s really going on in the economy and is the “party” finally ending at certain big corporations where having so many “bullshit jobs” is no longer financially sustainable with blaming AI providing some cover?

I was also just listening to this podcast (it looks like you need to hear the whole thing on Rumble here as the hour long podcast itself still mostly paywalled on Substack):

The observation was made that Apple has already developed a considerable amount of new technology; but instead of releasing it all into one new phone model, they drip release it into several models over a period of time to force consumers to constantly upgrade their phones. IF this is Apple’s very successful business model for phones, why won’t AI providers do the same for AI technology?

As of the middle of November, more October fund updates (our continuously updated post containing all funds is here) have become available (we are also updating the other international funds section as their Q3 updates become available) along with plenty of new research starting with some AI pieces:

• 🔬🌐 Five critical conversations to test whether your asset manager’s AI adds value (Robeco) – Artificial intelligence is transforming every industry, and investing is no exception. But amid the hype, AI risks being used more as a marketing label than a genuine source of insight or performance.

• 🔬🌐 Is an AI bubble forming? Separating hard data from hype (Robeco) – As the artificial intelligence (AI) computing era continues to gain momentum, questions have emerged regarding the scale of investment and the valuations of companies involved. As with any investment cycle, periods of hyper growth can be accompanied by periods of consolidation. The AI era is likely to follow a similar pattern.

  • Valuation multiples have expanded, but remain well beneath prior peaks

  • AI has driven material growth for both AI infrastructure and software applications

  • Stretched valuations and risks extend beyond technology

• 🔬🌐 Surviving the AI Capex Boom (Sparkline Capital) – The AI revolution has reached a key inflection point, with the largest U.S. tech firms embarking on a massive AI infrastructure buildout. While the market has rewarded this spending so far, we find that historical capital expenditure booms have typically resulted in overinvestment, excess competition, and poor stock returns – both at the macro and individual firm level. With the AI arms race transforming Big Tech from asset-light to asset-heavy, a model we find associated with inferior returns, our value-based playbook suggests rotating toward a broader set of AI beneficiaries with lower capital requirements and valuations.

• Asian Frontier Capital had these updates:

  • 🗄️🌏 AFC Asia Frontier Fund’s monthly newsletter (detailed economic and portfolio) is from the end of October (AFC Uzbekistan Fund Gaining Momentum – October 2025 Update) note the drivers of performance were Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan while negative contributors were Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, and Georgia. Named or unnamed performers/transactions (that can be guessed) discussed or mentioned:

    • 📈🇵🇰 Pakistan Stock Exchange Limited (PSX: PAKS) – PSX constitutes of 40% shareholding by a consortium of Chinese investors (Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, & China Financial Futures Exchange), & 60% by general public. 🇼 🏷️

    • 📈🇱🇰 Hemas Holdings PLC (CSE: HHL) – Home & personal care brands, hospitals/pharmaceuticals, aviation & maritime services, etc. 🇼

    • 📈🇲🇳 Copper explorer

    • 📈🇲🇳 Gold producer

    • 📈🇲🇳 Convenience store operator (?🇲🇳 Premium Nexus Jsc (MSE: CUMN) – Convenience store operator. Korea’s CU owned by BGF Retail (KRX: 282330). 🇼?)

    • 📈🇻🇳 Vietnamese jewellery retailer

    • 🏧🇴🇲 Largest oil/gas producer

    • 🏧🇴🇲 Largest telecom operator

    • 🏧🇻🇳 Commodity transportation company

    • 🏧🇻🇳 Technology company

    • 🏧🇻🇳 Jewellery company

    • 🏧🇲🇳 Mongolian positions

  • 🗄️🇮🇶 AFC Iraq Fund’s October newsletter (economic and portfolio) discussed upcoming parliamentary elections, potential political stalemate and the theatrics of violence.

  • 🗄️🇺🇿 AFC Uzbekistan Fund’s October newsletter discussed the recent UzNIF Capital Markets Conference (Franklin Templeton and the government of Uzbekistan) and the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) via the capital markets and whether its a false start or if its “real” this time.

  • 🗄️🇻🇳 AFC Vietnam Fund’s October newsletter discussed Vietnam’s upgrade to emerging market status, Vietnam as an outlier in global growth and Vietnam’s exports to the US surging by 27% YoY. Stocks discussed or mentioned:

• 🔬🌏🚩 Beyond the AI rally (FSSA Investment Managers) – Asian equities have staged a robust rally in 2025. Yet beneath the headline figure lies a narrow driver of performance. In the year to date, almost two-thirds of the total return of the MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex-Japan index has been driven by technology and AI-related companies.¹ Outside of these sectors, many high-quality businesses – particularly in Southeast Asia, India and China’s traditional sectors – have not performed despite solid earnings growth, improving governance and attractive valuations.

  • 🇨🇳 Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) 🇼 🏷️

  • 🌏 Astra International (IDX: ASII / FRA: ASJA / OTCMKTS: PTAIF) – Largest independent auto group in SE Asia. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇮🇩 Bank Central Asia (BCA) Tbk PT (IDX: BBCA / FRA: BZG2 / OTCMKTS: PBCRF) – Largest private bank in Indonesia. Founded by Salim Group & sold to another conglomerate group Djarum. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇺🇸 Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO)

  • 🇨🇳 H World Group (NASDAQ: HTHT) – Leased & owned or franchised hotel models. Chairman was a co-founder of Trip.com (NASDAQ: TCOM). 🇼 🏷️

  • 🌏 Jardine Matheson (SGX: J36 / FRA: H4W / OTCMKTS: JARLF) 🇧🇲 – Subs. include Jardine Pacific, Jardine Motors, Hongkong Land, Jardine Strategic Holdings, DFI Retail Group, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Jardine Cycle & Carriage & Astra International. 🇼

  • 🇺🇸 NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA)

  • 🇰🇷🅿️ Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930 / 005935 / LON: BC94 / FRA: SSUN / OTCMKTS: SSNLF) 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇰🇷 SK Hynix (KRX: 000660) – Manufactures, distributes & sells semiconductor products in Korea, China, Asia, USA & Europe. DRAM, NAND storage products, SSD, MCP & CMOS image sensors for server, networking, mobile, PC, consumer & auto applications. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇮🇳 Tata Consultancy Services (NSE: TCS / BOM: 532540) – India’s largest IT services company. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇭🇰 Techtronic Industries (HKG: 0669 / FRA: TIB1 / OTCMKTS: TTNDY / OTCMKTS: TTNDF) 🇭🇰 – Cordless technology spanning Power Tools, Outdoor Power Equipment, Floorcare & Cleaning Products. Brands like MILWAUKEE, RYOBI & HOOVER. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇨🇳 Tencent (HKG: 0700 / LON: 0LEA / FRA: NNND / SGX: HTCD / OTCMKTS: TCEHY) 🇰🇾 – Technology & entertainment conglomerate & holding company. 🇼 🏷️

  • 🇹🇼 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) (NYSE: TSM) 🇼 🏷️