The Rules of Investing

For those who love equities, you’re in for a treat with the latest Rules of Investing podcast. This week's episode features First Sentier Investors’ Deputy Head of Australian Equities Growth, David Wilson. Wilson's bread and butter is picking high-quality growth companies - a role he executes every day as part of the team that runs the First Sentier Geared Australian Share Fund. He is not afraid to explain how he goes about doing this while acknowledging his missteps and sharing a handful of stocks he likes right now. When it comes to his process for picking stocks, Wilson says it’s all “pretty logical”. “We just try to invest in good businesses with management that are trying to do the right thing for you and with the right sort of balance sheet. It's pretty straightforward. You can overcomplicate these things, but generally, that's our approach”, says Wilson. Wilson adds that the team watches company management very closely:  “What they're trying to achieve, what their goals are, but also at their actions, particularly when they make an acquisition or divestment - that's a point where you get a real insight into how a company is thinking," says Wilson. Wilson points to Car Group (ASX: CAR) as a company with a solid acquisition history. The company is a recent addition to the portfolio, though Wilson acknowledges that he was a bit late to the party. Another stock he particularly likes right now is pallet-maker and logistics company Brambles (ASX: BXB), saying that “the new management team has brought in a real pricing discipline over the last five years”, which has allowed them to cement a dominant position as a global leader. In the following episode, Wilson also discusses the Fund's current overweights in tech and healthcare and names one stock from each sector that stands out (one of which is also the stock he would own if the market closed for five years). In terms of what Wilson doesn’t like right now, he talks about the shrinking position of consumer staples and explains why they haven’t been “quite so staple” over the past year. He also talks to sector underweights in energy, financials and materials – despite being overweight BHP Group (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO). For good measure, he also shares his thoughts on Rio’s takeover of Arcadium Lithium. Finally, in explaining how valuations matter, Wilson shares why he is underweight Cochlear (ASX: COH), despite it being a great business. Listen to the podcast to learn what keeps Wilson motivated after 40 years in markets, how he sees the current market conditions, and learn a little more about his process for picking stocks. For good measure, he'll even share with you which financial metric is a waste of time!   Note: This interview was recorded on Tuesday22 October 2024. 

In a world where artificial intelligence dominates headlines, few fund managers have harnessed it as boldly as Armina Rosenberg. For those who don't know her, "Arms" made a name for herself at Grok Ventures, the family office of Mike Cannon-Brookes. Now, she's paving a new path at AI-backed Minotaur Capital, alongside Perpetual alumnus Thomas Rice. The duo have developed Taurient, a software system that uses large language models for everything from idea generation to portfolio construction. In this episode of The Rules of Investing, Arms outlines how you can use AI to level up your own investment strategy, as well as a few stock ideas to get you started.  Note: This interview was recorded on Wednesday 9 October 2024.  Timecodes 0:00 - Intro  2:13 - Lessons learnt from managing the wealth of Australia's mega-rich  7:32 - Family involvement in investment in family offices  8:56 - Differences between how retail investors and mega-wealthy invest  10:01 - What makes Minotaur Capital different from its peers 13:23 - How Arms and Thomas met  15:26 - How Minotaur's AI system Taurient works  25:21 - Mix of fundamental investing and AI  26:30 - Can AI help to know when to sell a stock?  27:37 - Can investors develop an AI-backed system themselves?  29:04 - How investors can use ChatGPT to make smarter investing decisions  31:21 - The future of funds management in an AI world  34:32 - Where the team sees opportunity today i.e. exciting themes 37:13 - Energy companies making waves on the global stage  39:10 - AI winners - why Minotaur is backing smaller players over the behemoths  39:55 - Healthcare ideas - and an emerging oral GLP-1 winner in Japan  41:25 - Why Japan is a "once in a generation opportunity" 42:53 - An example of a company Minotaur is shorting  45:18 - What the market is getting wrong today - private credit  47:36 - Stories of wins and losses and lessons from these  51:51 - Two stocks for the next five years (if the market were to close in that time Thanks to our Sponsor AlphaSense This latest episode is brought to you by AlphaSense. See what AlphaSense can do for your investment research—visit alpha-sense.com/livewire to get started.

Today, we’ll be bringing all the insights from Livewire Live together with the help of one of Australia's leading financial advisers and one of the country's top wealth managers. Livewire’s James Marlay sat down with Alexandre Ventelon of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Charlie Viola of Pitcher Partners to answer our audience’s questions about asset allocation and give investors some tangible ideas on how to apply the lessons and insights from a full day of sessions covering multiple asset classes, themes and ideas.  This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

Today, you’ll be learning about the good, the bad and the ugly of equities markets - with the help of: Dr David Allen, Head of Long/Short Strategies, Plato Investment Management Ben Griffiths, Executive Chairman, Eley Griffiths Group James Hawkins, Partner & Head of the Catalyst Fund, L1 Capital Dushko Bajic, Head of Australian Equities Growth, First Sentier Investors This panel is hosted by Centennial Asset Management’s Matthew Kidman. They explore the stocks they are bullish on today, the themes they believe are likely to suffer, and the stocks they recommend investors avoid (or short, if they can) over the months ahead.    This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

Many of the best investing opportunities emerge when you think differently from the herd. This session will feature five high energy predictions that will challenge consensus thinking as inves­tors look towards 2025 and beyond. You’ll be hearing from five of Australia’s leading investment minds, including: Kellie Wood, Head of Fixed Income at Schroders  Vihari Ross, Portfolio Manager at Antipodes, Bob Desmond, Co-Portfolio Manager and Head of Claremont Global Josh Clark, Lead Portfolio Manager at QVG Capital Matthew Kidman, Chief Investment Officer at Centennial Asset Management.  This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

In this session you’ll be hearing a fireside chat with Todd Barlow the CEO of Soul Patts, Australia’s oldest listed company. Soul Patts is a diversified investment house often described as Australia’s answer to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. The company has established an incredible record of dividend payments to shareholders and today you’ll be getting an asset allocation masterclass from Todd and hearing about the opportunities he sees in the market today. This session was moderated by James Unger, Head of Corporate Finance and Bell Potter Securities. This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

Artificial Intelligence is surely the hottest topic right now powering returns in stock markets and capturing our attention with its promise of productivity and innovation. But with such spectacular interest and returns I’m sure many investors are wondering if the opportunity has passed.  Our next panel will be picking the eyes out of the AI opportunity. How big is it and where are we in the cycle for this industry? Who will be the winners? And who will get crushed? The panel features: Nick Griffin, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Munro Partners Jun Bei Liu, Lead Portfolio Manager, Tribeca Investment Partners Jacob Mitchell, Chief Investment Officer & Lead Portfolio Manager, Antipodes This session was moderated by Livewire’s Deputy Managing Editor Ally Selby.  This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

In this episode, you’ll be hearing a panel exploring a number of big topics dominating conversations around markets right now. From the changing macro backdrop and debate over the merits of public vs private markets to the implications of ageing populations, the energy transition and digital innovation these are Seismic Shifts and we’re going to hear about the opportunities they present for investors. The speakers in this session are: Matthew Haup, Lead Portfolio Manager at Wilson Asset Management Srdjan Dangubic, Partner at Five V Capital James Abela, Portfolio Manager at Fidelity Andrew Lockhart, Managing Partner at Metrics Credit Partners You moderator is Livewire’s managing editor Chris Conway This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

In this episode, you’ll hear from Scott Kleinman, the co-president of Apollo Global Management, as he sits down with Livewire’s James Marlay. Kleinman shares his views on why he believes markets are getting ahead of themselves with rate cut expectations, where he sees value across various sectors, and how Apollo is positioning to take advantage of mega trends such as digital transformation, the energy transition, and ageing populations. This episode is part of our special mini-series of The Rules of Investing, giving you a front-row seat to discussions from Livewire Live 2024, our flagship investor event. Whether you’re after big-picture market insights or actionable investment strategies, this series offers exclusive insights to help shape your investment decisions. We hope you enjoy this special 7-part series. We’ll return to our regular programming with the next episode of The Rules of Investing. ________________ This series is proudly sponsored by Bell Direct Advantage. Bell Direct Advantage is a premium trading platform designed for active and sophisticated investors. Offering access to Bell Potter research, exclusive IPOs, and advanced trading tools, it’s built to give you a competitive edge. Whether you’re a frequent trader or a high-net-worth individual trading shares, options, or warrants, Bell Direct Advantage delivers tailored solutions and superior service to sharpen your investing edge. [Find out more here]

Behavioural economics explains why we make such stupid decisions with our money. Unfortunately, the study has found that behavioural biases are very hard to control and, even if you are aware of them, no one is immune from poor decision-making when it comes to both life and our finances.  This is where quantitative or systematic investing comes in - a realm of investing typically reserved for institutional investors like super funds and the ultra-wealthy.  Quantitative investing removes emotion and behavioural biases from investing. Instead, it relies on some of the smartest people in the world to put together hundreds to thousands of signals and data points for a large language model to make decisions. Humans are involved but just for oversight, in case the model does not truly understand a situation. For example, it may not understand that airlines were not a fantastic short-term opportunity amid a significant sell-off during the COVID-19 crash.  This is a far cry from fundamental investing, which relies on a fund manager or investor analysing macroeconomic and stock-specific factors, meeting with management teams, trying out products and services and reviewing a business's balance sheet before making an investment decision of their own.  The gains from quantitative strategies are typically small, but they're consistent over time. You are not going to have years of 10-20% plus outperformance over an index, but equally, you shouldn't experience huge drawdowns either. And over the long term, this small amount of alpha adds up.   Interestingly, Macquarie Asset Management was one of the few firms that saw its funds achieve 100 batting averages - for both the large-cap and small-cap categories - over a 10-year period. This means that these funds, which are all quantitative strategies*, have outperformed the benchmark 100% of the time in every three-year rolling period over the past decade.  So, to learn more about quantitative investing, quantitative ETFs and the major trends shaping ETF markets, Livewire's Ally Selby was joined by Blair Hannon, ETF Strategist at Macquarie Asset Management.  We discuss some common misconceptions surrounding quantitative investing, the signals that have worked over the last few years, and the magic of compounding over the long term.  Plus, Hannon also shares why he strongly believes that passive investing is not creating a bubble in markets - despite what some of the world's most famous investors (like The Big Short's Michael Burry) would have you think.  Note: This interview was recorded on Tuesday 24 September 2024.  Timecodes  0:00 - Intro  1:54 - Difference between fundamental and quantitative investing  5:28 - Removing the emotion from investing  6:55 - Signals that are used to avoid behavioural biases  8:56 - Do we need human touch on quant funds 10:31 - Common misconceptions of quant investing  14:44 - The signal that has been working over the last year  18:20 - Turnover of stocks in the portfolio 20:10 - The signal that has worked over the long term  21:32 - Why 1% alpha is attractive over the long term  24:38 - Macquarie's batting average scores over 10 and 5 years  27:37 - Why ETF popularity will continue to soar  29:57 - Why active fund managers need to innovate on ETFs 32:50 - Innovation in the US - and what we can expect in Australia  35:08 - Why ETFs aren't the death of managed funds  37:10 - Why passive investment isn't creating a bubble in markets 39:07 - Something that worries Blair about the direction of ETF markets  41:21 - One ETF to hold for the next 5 years if markets were to close Disclaimer:  Product Disclosure Statements and Target Market Determinations for Macquarie ETFs can be found at etf.macquarie.com and should be read before making a decision to invest.  *The Macquarie Australian Shares Fund, Macquarie Australian Equities Fund and the Macquarie Australian Small Companies Fund’s investment strategies changed effective 18 December 2017. Until 17 December 2017, the strategies were managed with a fundamental approach. From 18 December 2017, the strategies were restructured such that they are managed with a quantitative, systematic investment approach.