The Meb Faber Show Sep 25, 2026 37m · 19m saved
With Dave Iben, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Kopernik Global Investors
The US makes up about two-thirds of the world stock market while producing a fifth or less of the world economy, and Dave Iben expects that gap to close.
Most American investors own the S&P 500 and little else. Iben's firm has spent the past few years buying what that index leaves out: Korean phone companies at a third of book value, Ukrainian farmland, platinum below the cost of a new mine, and a Chinese nuclear operator.
"Does one fifth or less of the economy deserve to trade at 65% of the market? I think history will prove no."
Dave Iben, CIO and founder of Kopernik Global Investors, on The Meb Faber Show, has been in the business for almost 45 years and has visited 108 countries. Before Kopernik he co-founded Tradewinds Global Investors and was its CIO when it managed $38 billion. The host put Kopernik's own assets at over $10 billion.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 37 minutes of audio, 18 minutes of reading.
Here are the 14 calls that matter.
Key Takeaways
Investors ignore scarcity, even after the money supply rose 111 times in Iben's lifetime
Oil, gold and copper are still a single-digit share of the indexes
Miners with long-lived reserves are the cheapest, because analysts assume commodity prices fall every year
Platinum trades below the price needed to build a new mine
Ukrainian farmland companies trade at 80–90% discounts to Midwest land values
The US is two-thirds of the world market and, in Iben's view, the most expensive it has ever been
Korea's split index status leaves good companies at a third of book value
Today looks most like the end of 1972, when a few expensive stocks dominated the market
AI is real and still a bubble, because bubbles form around real things
Brazilians are not bullish on their own market at all, with interest rates of 12% to 14%
AI should research, not decide, and Iben told his analysts their jobs are safe
1. Scarcity Is Ignored
The host asked whether scarcity still matters in a world of money printing. Iben said investors have swung to the opposite extreme from when he started.
When he began, resources were half the index
"And I came into the business it's almost forty five years ago and it was the opposite of now all people cared about was scarcity. Everybody wanted to own oil, natural resources, gold and it added up to about half the index." — Dave Iben
"Bonds were considered certificates of confiscation." — Dave Iben
Back then nobody could imagine interest rates falling below 15%, he said. The mood reversed completely by 2021, and he said investors still can't imagine inflation lasting or rates rising.
Money and debt have grown more than 100-fold in his lifetime
"I did some calculations since I was born. I think the money supply has gone up with a 111 times and the debts gone up I think a 135 times." — Dave Iben
"The dollars lost more than 99% of its value and as you would expect things that can't be printed have gone up a lot in price. Gold's gone from 35 to 4,000 something." — Dave Iben
Resources are still a sliver of the market
"If you look at oil and gold and copper and everything else, it's still just a single digit percentage of the indexes." — Dave Iben
