The Conversation
A Contrarian Edge: Latin America, Tangible Assets, And The Commodity Supercycle
Tavi Costa in conversation with Henning Stein
Investment leadership demands a clear account of where capital is going, what it must buy, and which businesses can turn that spending into durable economic value. The debate over artificial intelligence often centers on technology valuations. Tavi Costa brings a different question to the discussion: what happens to the resources, energy systems, and productive assets required to support the technology? His perspective challenges leaders to examine the physical economy behind a powerful market narrative and to judge opportunities through business fundamentals.
In the 1FinanceWorld session “A Contrarian Edge: Latin America, Tangible Assets, And The Commodity Supercycle,” Tavi Costa, Founder & CEO of Azuria Capital, discusses that perspective with host Henning Stein, identified in the publisher’s recording description as Partner & Chief Innovation Officer at 1BusinessWorld. The session appears on the September 15, 2026 conference agenda. Their conversation connects sovereign financing pressures, the AI buildout, Latin American markets, and the operating realities of mining.
Costa’s central distinction concerns relative opportunity. He acknowledges that technology equities could continue rising and says that identifying a market peak is not his priority. Instead, he describes looking for businesses whose valuations, investor positioning, and underlying prospects appear out of balance. Mining and tangible assets are his chosen focus within that assessment. The leadership implication is an analytical one: a compelling growth story can create opportunities throughout its supply chain, including in businesses that attract less attention than the most visible beneficiaries.
The Physical Economy Behind Artificial Intelligence
Costa characterizes AI investment as an urgent competitive race. Companies and nations, he argues, face pressure to commit capital because falling behind could threaten their position. His analysis begins with the financing capacity of large technology businesses and extends to the infrastructure that their spending requires. He sees the buildout as a process involving data centers, automation, electrification, and onshoring. In his account, these commitments link a digital growth narrative to a substantial demand for physical inputs.
That connection shapes his challenge to the idea that AI should be understood primarily as a deflationary force. Costa focuses on the construction and deployment phase, when electricity, metals, and infrastructure must support new capacity. He expects power constraints to become an important consideration and argues that regions with available energy could gain strategic relevance. His assessment does not establish where bottlenecks will occur. It does explain why the productivity promise of a technology and the cost of building its supporting systems belong in the same discussion.
For business leaders, an editorial implication is that infrastructure strategy benefits from a wider view of dependencies. The value of an AI project rests partly on access to reliable power and the ability to secure physical capacity. For investment leaders, the corresponding question is which businesses can translate demand into cash generation after their own costs and capital requirements. Costa’s argument directs attention toward that chain of economic relationships. It offers a way to examine the beneficiaries of technological change beyond the companies selling its most recognizable products.
Monetary Pressures And Relative Opportunity
The monetary side of Costa’s thesis begins with his assessment of sovereign debt and the pressure to contain borrowing costs. He expects policymakers to favor measures that suppress yields, and he anticipates a weaker dollar as part of that adjustment. He links those expectations to his preference for precious metals, hard assets, and markets outside the United States. These are his policy and market forecasts. The conversation presents an investment framework built around them, without establishing that the forecast path must occur.
Stein probes the distinction between currency weakness and the erosion of purchasing power, asking whether exchange rates alone capture the relevant change. Costa responds by discussing both currency relationships and the supply-and-demand fundamentals of commodities. He also accepts the possibility that technology and tangible assets could benefit within the same inflationary environment. His thesis therefore accommodates more than a market-collapse scenario. He evaluates assets by their sensitivity to the conditions he expects, then asks whether their prices adequately reflect that potential exposure.
The exchange about safe havens adds an important qualification. Costa argues that investment analysis should consider different historical environments instead of assuming a single crisis pattern will repeat. His broader point concerns the relationship between inflation, policy constraints, and asset behavior. For leadership teams, the editorial lesson is to make the assumptions behind portfolio resilience explicit. An asset described as defensive in one scenario may play a different role in another. The session supports a discussion of conditional behavior, rather than a promise of protection.
Latin America As A Strategic Resource Region
Costa places Latin America within the resource and energy dimensions of his thesis. He discusses differences among the region’s economies, describing Chile through its copper exposure and Brazil through a broader mix of metals, agriculture, and energy. His outlook also draws on what he sees as underexplored resource potential. The argument is that a commodity-led investment cycle could increase the region’s relevance. He presents that outcome as his assessment of the opportunity, while acknowledging distinctions among individual markets.
Political and jurisdictional risk remain part of the conversation. Costa recounts an investment in a private silver mine in Bolivia and explains that nationalization was an important concern when the investment was made. He believes the political risk is changing, but expressly allows that his assessment could be wrong. His experience provides context for his position; it does not establish that an entire region has become safe. The discussion is most useful when resource potential and country-specific operating conditions are considered together.
The editorial implication for investment and business leadership is a more discriminating regional analysis. A broad Latin American theme leaves unresolved the particular economics and risks of any asset. Costa’s discussion invites attention to commodity exposure, energy availability, currency effects, and the political conditions affecting development. Those factors connect the regional narrative to an operating business. They also help explain why an attractive macroeconomic thesis still requires careful assessment of the jurisdiction and the project through which capital would be exposed to it.
Mining Economics Beyond The Metal Price
When Stein asks about currency risk, Costa moves from the regional outlook to mine economics. He describes revenues linked to metal prices and costs that may be incurred in local currency, while also noting the complications created by fuel and other operating inputs. His account of the Bolivian mine emphasizes the relationship between production costs and selling prices. The point is about the business model: a favorable commodity environment matters through its effect on margins, and those margins depend on the operation’s actual cost structure.
Energy makes that dependence particularly clear. Stein asks why an investor might favor both energy and mining when higher energy prices can increase a miner’s costs. Costa describes energy exposure as a possible hedge within his broader portfolio thinking. The discussion highlights a relationship between two businesses that might otherwise sit together under a general commodities theme. The editorial implication is that shared thematic exposure can conceal opposing operating effects. Evaluating the connection requires an account of inputs, revenues, and the particular circumstances of each business.
Costa’s longer-term mining outlook also rests on his assessment of constrained supply. He argues that discoveries and mine development have been insufficient relative to the demand he expects from monetary pressures, strategic resource interests, and infrastructure construction. Yet his approach includes watching for new supply and remaining willing to change his opinion. That qualification is central to the leadership value of the discussion. A thesis becomes more useful when its supporting conditions can be examined, tracked, and reconsidered as the underlying business environment changes.
Capital Discipline Across The Mining Lifecycle
The conversation distinguishes producers, developers, explorers, and royalty businesses as different parts of the opportunity set. Costa describes a preference for a core of producers and developers, with a more limited exposure to exploration. He emphasizes that exploration can be highly risky and illiquid. He also discusses the potential for operating cash flow to finance further resource development. His approach links the source of capital to its intended use, while recognizing that the uncertainty of discovery differs from the economics of an existing operation.
His discussion of royalties brings management judgment into sharper focus. Costa considers ownership and capital structure, asset quality and growth potential, and the ability of a team to structure deals and obtain financing. These criteria connect a resource thesis to the people and decisions that determine its commercial expression. For leaders, the editorial implication extends beyond mining: access to an attractive market is only part of the investment case. The way a company finances, selects, and develops its assets is equally important to understanding the business.
Costa closes his argument by returning to valuation and growth, the combination he sees in selected mining businesses. For investment leadership, the lasting value of the session lies in the discipline of connecting a macroeconomic view to physical demand, operating economics, management quality, and the evidence that could change the thesis. A contrarian position becomes more useful when it can be explained at each of those levels.
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A Contrarian Edge: Latin America, Tangible Assets, And The Commodity Supercycle
Tavi Costa and Henning Stein
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