Livewire Markets Podcast-uri

At last count, there are more than 55,000 publicly-listed companies across the globe. That is a wealth of opportunity in anyone's language and it begs the question, how on earth does anyone decide what and where to invest in? This is where the value of a fund manager really comes into play. Not only do fund managers each have an investment style th…

When the investing landscape turns to custard, invariably one term gets bandied around - "quality". Quality is the investment style that is designed to see you through all the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle. Quality targets companies with consistent track records, strong management, dependable earnings, and healthy balance sheets. The styl…

Millions of dollars of shares are sold and bought each month by company directors. Often, investors watch these transactions as a signal that leadership teams know something we don't. So should you buy or sell if leadership teams are too? Firstly, there are a variety of reasons (or maybe excuses) why a director may sell stock in their company. Take…

Reporting season is now done and dusted. Of the fund managers this anonymous writer has spoken to, most seem to have had a surprisingly positive month. For others, particularly the holders of the month's portfolio bombs, it probably wasn't so soothing. So in this episode, Centennial Asset Management's Matthew Kidman was joined by Auscap Asset Manag…

It's been a volatile month for markets. Despite the S&P/ASX 300 only sinking around 2.3% in August, the dispersion of returns within some of the market's favourite, and now, its most disappointing stocks has never been so clear. According to FNArena, the worst-performing stock during the month was Mesoblast (ASX: MSB), followed soon after by Abacus…

With interest rates (currently) on pause, investors are once again looking for growth opportunities that can bolster their wallets and compound their cash faster than if they were to leave it in the bank. One way investors can gauge the probability of picking a winning stock is the growth rate in earnings per share (or EPS). For those not in the kn…

In the midst of reporting season, it's often easy to forget about the long-term potential of some of the market's great compounders. Last week, we saw stocks like Megaport (ASX: MP1) and Altium (ASX: ALU) soar 20% in one day on the back of their results, while stocks that disappointed, like Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC) and Iluka Resources (ASX: IL…

In this high-risk, high-inflation, high interest rate world, profitability has never been so important. Companies know this too, meaning they may go to incredible lengths to present the most positive picture possible of financial health or risk being beaten down by short sellers otherwise. One measure of financial health is return on equity, or ROE…

Some of the biggest stocks on the ASX started out as minnows. Take BHP Group (ASX: BHP) and CSL (ASX: CSL) for example, today two of the biggest stocks in the country. Once upon a time, these stocks were known as Broken Hill Proprietary Company and Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and very few people knew of them. It took years - decades even - of t…

While there are winds in the sails of the healthcare industry, such as an ageing and wealthy population willing to pay for healthcare services, building a great healthcare business takes a long time. Drugs and devices require huge amounts of R&D, often with astronomical price tags attached, and the regulatory process is arduous – as it should be wh…

What do we all want? To live long, healthy, and prosperous lives. Increasingly we’re able to fulfill the first two elements of that triumvirate given the advances in modern medicine and healthcare services. What’s more, is that we have an ageing population in many parts of the world that not only have the desire for longer and healthier lives, but …

It’s an age-old debate - technical or fundamental analysis to source stock ideas. Or put another way, do you prefer charts or balance sheets? The chartists out there will tell you that everything is captured in the price, so that and volume are all you need to pay attention to. On the other side of the debate, those who employ them will tell you th…

There is no perfect recipe for generating profits. Value, growth, quality, momentum, long, short, large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap, conservative, moderate, aggressive - the list of investment styles goes on. And the factors fund managers use to identify stocks that meet their investment style can be equally elaborate. So in this episode of Buy Hold Se…

For nearly 30 years, Martin Roth has published the book ‘Top Stocks’, highlighting 100 ASX companies that are considered to be financially sound. In conducting the analysis, the share price of a stock is ignored and the focus is on companies with strong balance sheets, profitability, low debt levels, and sustainable dividends. More specifically, a …

The most anticipated recession in history still hasn't turned up. All those calls about a US-led recession starting in 2023 have been pushed back. In some cases, those calls are being pushed as far back as the second half of 2024. Others, like Goldman Sachs, have just cut the odds of a US recession occurring altogether - it's now down to a 20% chan…

There are plenty of famous pairs in life. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Tom and Jerry, Mario and Luigi just to name a few. When it comes to investing and specifically investing in stocks, large cap stocks are generally paired with the term "quality". That's because these companies tend to have sturdier balance sheets, larger and more reliable cus…

It's been a remarkably volatile time in financial markets over the last 18 months in particular. Investors have been riding a wave that started with fresh highs for the index before the ASX 200 fell 13% in six months. Along the way, there have been astounding and outstanding share price moves. This volatility, the ongoing fear of a global recession…

Much has been made of the pending mortgage cliff, and fair enough. The RBA cash rate has gone from the pandemic low of 0.1% to 4.10% in a little over a year, and the central bank estimates half of all fixed rate loans that enjoyed that 4% buffer will expire this year. Whilst that sounds ominous, there are some things to remember. Only about one-thi…

In a high-inflation environment, energy stocks typically perform well due to the ongoing need for energy. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the energy sector began a strong rally in 2021 when inflation took off. That rally extended into early 2022, when the Ukraine war was added to the equation and energy security concerns, and prices, kicked even …

It's safe to say that mega-cap tech companies have carried global markets this year, with the NASDAQ 100 returning almost 40% this year. And most of that performance can be attributed to seven behemoths. This exuberance around tech has fed across into the Australian market. Year to date, the S&P/ASX All Technology Index has returned over 21%. Will …

The recent Income Series survey, in which more than 1000 Livewire readers participated, showed that investor hunger for income-generating equities remains remarkably high. Domestic equities are by far and away the most popular asset class for income investing, with 93% of respondents choosing this option. This is despite bonds having bounced back f…

Access to income-generating investment opportunities has grown exponentially in the past two decades. Long gone are the days when investors could only invest in high-yield dividend stocks to generate suitable returns. That was a bit like buying a chicken for its eggs – and hoping that the chicken didn’t cark it in the meantime. Today there are myri…

Income investing has undergone a renaissance in recent years. A poor cousin to growth investing for the best part of a decade, rising interest rates and higher yields, coupled with a desire to protect capital amid heightened inflation and uncertainty, has seen investors come flocking back to the investment style. While most of the conversation has …

With AI-related stocks soaring and central bank hikes continuing to take their toll on anything else in sight, it's easy to forget there are other companies making waves on the global stage. Take Teck Resources (NYSE: TECK), for instance, a coal, copper and zinc miner out of Canada which recently received a takeover offer from Swiss multinational g…

After a decade of Growth taking the market by storm, Value came back in a real way in 2022. Both locally and abroad, cyclical and economically sensitive stocks such as financials, materials, infrastructure and energy companies all saw their share prices soar. It was all thanks to rising interest rates, skyrocketing inflation, Russia's war in Ukrain…

There's this idea in dating that you shouldn't pursue beautiful people. Why? Well, thanks to their good looks, they haven't had to struggle their entire lives to be as outgoing, funny, and desirable as us mere mortals. And so, they will likely lack a certain je ne sais quoi... While I am not sure the proposition is entirely true, there is something…

There's something to be said of reliable compounders. While they may not double overnight as a growth darling can, these stocks definitely make it easier to sleep at night. Why? Well, reliable long-term compounders can continue to provide solid returns over the years to come without the volatility or downside risk that comes with more speculative s…

Following the GFC, the world embarked upon a monetary policy experiment the likes of which had never been seen before. Having read the history books and being aware of the economic and financial malaise that lingered for decades post the Great Depression, and like a bout of long-COVID, central bankers were desperate to ensure it didn’t happen again…

Since the beginning of the year, the total level of shorting on the ASX has risen 16.2%. According to Shortman.com, there is now $25.5 billion being borrowed today to bet against the country's 100 biggest shorts. Short sellers borrow shares in a company at the current market price in the hope they can buy back those shares (close a position) once t…

If there is one thing Livewire readers love just as much as lithium stocks, long-term compounders, and lithium stocks that are long-term compounders, it's dividend darlings. After all, Plato Investment Management has found that if investors had put $100,000 in the ASX in 1980, they would now be earning around $85,000 a year in income. In comparison…

According to S&P Dow Jones Indices research, the S&P/ASX 300 has a trailing 12-month dividend yield of 4.5%. This far surpasses the dividend yield of our developed market peers, with the UK boasting a 3.7% yield and the US just 1.7%. Last year, total dividends paid out to investors totalled a record $113 billion. S&P Dow Jones analysts found that o…

Since September last year, Australian investors have piled into defensive dividend-paying darlings in a bid to protect their capital. Think Aristocrat Leisure (ASX: ALL), which has seen its share price soar 23% year to date. Or ResMed (ASX: RMD), which has generated a return of 16% in just four months. Or Transurban (ASX: TCL) - which despite its r…

The music industry can be savage. The majority of artists work their entire lives to make hardly any money at all. And then there are those who produce a truly great song - only to become a one-hit-wonder. Come to think of it, Australia's resources and materials sector isn't so different. So in this episode, Tribeca Investment Partners' Todd Warren…

There have been very few market themes in recent years (perhaps apart from buy-now-pay-later) that have whipped the market into a frenzy quite like battery metals. The promise of widespread electric vehicle adoption and the demand it would create saw the share prices of producers and explorers alike surge. In 2022 it was the rising tide that lifted…

According to McKinsey, copper demand will increase to 36.6 million metric tonnes per annum by 2031. For context, production from all the copper mines around the globe was just 22 million metric tons in 2022. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs believes that copper prices will soar from US$8500/t to US$11,000/t this year. So how are fund managers investing in …

Typically less researched than their large-cap counterparts, small-cap companies can easily rise to 'market darling' status. We all know the stocks. They’re the ones that the bulls get hold of, causing them to rally to dizzying heights. They’re often the ones discussed in stock chat rooms where warnings about ramping are largely ignored. Very often…

It hasn't been easy being a small-cap investor over the past 12-18 months. Since December 2021, the ASX Small Ordinaries has nosedived around 18%, while the S&P/ASX 200 (which tracks the country's listed large-cap companies) has posted modest gains over the same time period. So, where to from here? Well, having rebounded from a fresh low in March, …

Australia's GDP growth has been on a steady decline for a while now. While the economy was still growing at a rate of 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022, that pace has slowed markedly from the 3.7% print seen in 2021. The December quarter of 2022 was the fifth consecutive period of economic growth, but it was also the smallest uplift of that period…

There are some of us that thirst for the adrenaline hit that comes with taking risks, whether it be cliff jumping, skydiving, or making questionable bets on the stock market. This may work for the daredevils among us, but for others, there could be nothing worse than putting their lives (and money) at risk. So where do you sit on the scale from ris…

With more than 280 exchange-traded products listed on the ASX, Livewire is on a mission to learn whether investors, like you, can build the perfect portfolio with listed products alone. A few quick stats for you: Over the past 12 months (to the end of February), the market cap of the Australian ETF market swelled 7.1% to $136.2 billion. The majorit…

There's something to be said about the wisdom of the crowd. Take your local coffee shop, for example. Sure, there are other options without a lengthy queue, but I am willing to make a bet that the crowded cafe is bursting with patrons for a reason. But could the same be said of markets? In this episode, Livewire's Ally Selby was joined by Pitcher P…

If there was one theme that stood out to this anonymous writer this February reporting season, it was that companies that missed earnings expectations were hammered by investors. Think Downer (ASX: DOW), which has seen its share price sink more than 16% after it missed consensus forecasts by -12% (and downgraded guidance by -18%, after already down…

As anyone who has worked under a manager knows, leaders can make or break a business. A good leader will bring out the best in their team, hone their skills, and inspire them to achieve more than they thought was possible themselves. Bad leaders, well, do exactly the opposite. Recently, one of our readers requested that we produce a refresher on th…

We are done and dusted with another reporting season, and what a month it was. Stocks were heavily sold off on earnings misses, soared on earnings beats, and ended up pretty much where they started once the dust settled. Throughout this earnings season, two themes stood out. Wages growth reigned supreme as a widespread headwind for many companies -…

There's a well-known maxim that all budding journalists are taught on their first day in a newsroom - bad news sells. Sure, it's nice to read about markets going up and the magic of compounding, or the wonderful contributions people are making in our communities, but really, planes crashing, corrupt companies, cyber hacks, and unfortunate public bl…

Lately, it seems like hopes of a central bank pivot have been quashed. The RBA recently made a surprise about-face to a more hawkish policy position, while the Federal Reserve continues to hint at rates staying higher for longer. As you'd expect, investors have been following central bank statements like gospel. But markets are forward-looking and …

According to Christian teachings, the Holy Trinity refers to the idea that God is one being but can be seen in three different lights. And although this anonymous writer is an atheist, there is another Holy Trinity I believe investors should get behind - the intersection of Quality, Value, and Growth. Instead of following just one factor (for examp…

Despite our good intentions, our behavioural biases can often get in the way of making good investment decisions. As Benjamin Graham wrote, "The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself." So how do you lessen the likelihood of a behavioural blunder? Just like everything in investing - there is no easy answer. Bu…

It takes a certain chutzpah to stick to your strategy in wildly volatile markets. And for these two managers, it certainly paid off. Merlon's Concentrated Australian Share Fund delivered a return of more than 22.30% over the past year, while its Australian Share Income Fund lifted just over 18.08%. Similarly, alternatives manager Totus Capital had …

Last year, metals, mining and energy stocks performed spectacularly well. Scan a list of the best performers from 2022, and it's really only coal, lithium, and oil and gas exposures that took out the top spots. Think names like Whitehaven Coal, New Hope, Core Lithium, Woodside Energy Group, Coronado Global Resources, Stanmore Resources, and Yancoal…