Narratives vs Numbers: Brendan Ahern on EM Growth, Dollar Flows, and What Investors Miss

Lead-Lag Live

In this episode of Lead-Lag Live, I sit down with Brendan Ahern, Chief Investment Officer at KraneShares, to separate narrative from data on non-U.S. and emerging markets.
From index-construction quirks to the impact of a weaker dollar, Brendan lays out why headline EM returns can hide powerful growth — and how investors might be looking in the wrong places.
In this episode:
– Why headline EM returns can mask strong tech-led performance
– How stripping out banks/energy/SOEs changes the EM picture
– What a weaker dollar means for global rebalancing out of U.S. equities
– Where growth actually lives: names like TSMC, Alibaba, Tencent, Mercado Libre
– How to think about EM “growth factor” exposure alongside broader EM allocations
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챕터

1. Narratives vs Numbers: Brendan Ahern on EM Growth, Dollar Flows, and What Investors Miss (00:00:00)

2. The US Equity Domination Narrative (00:01:17)

3. Extracting Growth from Emerging Markets (00:04:07)

4. Dollar Weakness Changing Global Dynamics (00:09:20)

5. KEMQ Performance and Differentiation (00:12:48)

6. Where to Find CraneShares Research (00:14:27)