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What Emerging-Market Pioneer Mark Mobius Would Do With $100,000

It’s a “great opportunity” to invest in Zimbabwe right now, said Mark Mobius.

What Emerging-Market Pioneer Mark Mobius Would Do With $100,000
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group. (Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Wondering where Mark Mobius would invest $100,000 right now?

A third in commodities, a third in African stocks and a third in Vietnam -- that was the pioneering emerging-market investor’s response to a question at a Q&A session at Bloomberg’s Year Ahead Asia conference in Jakarta.

Palladium, which has rallied 45 percent this year, and platinum are the “most notable” commodities and are attractive given that they’re used in catalytic converters in automobile engines, said Mobius, the executive chairman of Franklin Templeton’s emerging markets group.

In Africa, Mobius said he was keen on stocks from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe. It’s a “great opportunity” to invest in Zimbabwe right now as he expects the market to be opened up and foreign-exchange reserves to rise after the toppling of former president Robert Mugabe.

Mobius described Vietnam, where the benchmark VN Index has climbed 41 percent this year, as “one of the most dynamic” Asian markets. “It’s a small market, a frontier market, but it’s exciting,” he said in a separate interview at the conference.

--With assistance from Haslinda Amin and Mark Dawson

To contact the reporters on this story: Lilian Karunungan in Singapore at lkarunungan@bloomberg.net, Yvonne Man in Hong Kong at yman9@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tomoko Yamazaki at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net, Andrew Janes

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.