For individual investors, one of the biggest challenges is uncovering new investment ideas. While fund managers have brokers and investment banks regularly knocking on their doors trying to sell their latest deals, other investors must be more creative. Here are 11 sources of stock ideas for the private investor. Show More

I have never liked the expression “Smart money.” It is demeaning to individual investors and used by commentators to imply they are smart and the rest of you aren’t. But a lot of supposedly smart professionals do some very dumb things, and a lot of non-professional investors, often our clients,... Show More

Some long-term Marcus Today followers will remember the story about a Member who used to work in a Collins Class submarine on weapons systems (computer whizz). When they surfaced he would download stock-market data. When they submerged he would spend many hours of idle time back testing numbers looking for... Show More

I keep a track of what some of the better fund managers are doing. It is all part of my "Flow Analysis" highlighted in this article. Below is a table from the AFR on 25/1/2018 listing the best and worst performing fund managers last year. One way to track what... Show More

A2M is up 9% in two days helped by the BAL earnings upgrade. It has also announced it will expand its brand throughout the North East of the US starting this month. The area is home to 60 million consumers which according to research from A2M accounts for 20% of... Show More

There is Fundamental analysis and there is Technical analysis. A lot of investors think it ends there. But there is another body of analysis that is essential to the process which is not so obvious, analysis that any fund manager in the small and mid-cap space must master and respect. Show More

There was an article on the Livewire website this week quoting a recent Kerr Neilson presentation, the billionaire fund manager at Platinum Asset Management. There were lots of good takeaways but the comment that interested me was this quote: Show More

Last week we saw BWX, BKL, A2M, WTC, NCK, NAN and BIN all up 7% or more. BAL is up 85% in three months, A2M is up 83%, WTC is up 55%, BWX is up 28%, BLA is up 46%. The mid-cap sector is having a dream rally. A lot... Show More

You may have seen an article recently about the head of the Dutch central bank, Klaas Knot, who is also a governor on the ECB, saying that “the picture resembles that of the period before the financial crisis”, that we are “about to witness a brutal collapse in asset prices”.... Show More

We are all flying through life. Busy busy busy. Important things to do. So very important. Can't talk, can't stop, can't go, can't come, can't make it, can't do it. Show More

As usual with a big fall you can analyse the overnight news and debate whether the drop is warranted, but when it comes to a free market that rides on sentiment the answer is not whether the market should fall 274 points because the National Economic Council director is going... Show More

OzForex (OFX) and GBST (GBT) have both had profit warnings - both are down 19% in a day. Aconex (ACX) fell 45% in a day on a profit warning earlier the same week. It is a $1.1bn stock (was $2bn). The alarm bells are ringing. In the same week, we... Show More

You may have noticed the rather pitiful performance of some of the infrastructure and utility stocks over the last 2-3 months. The utility sector is down 7.8% in three months, an underperformance of 12.4% relative to the All Ords index. This table shows the stocks we hold in the SMA... Show More

All eyes are on what the US markets are going to do tonight and whether Friday’s moves are the beginning of a downtrend or a blip in the uptrend. At the moment the US Dow Jones futures are down 46 (-0.25%), which is neither here nor there. My guess at... Show More

AMA operates a chain of collision repair centres and services workshops for brakes and transmissions. It is also a manufacturer and wholesale distributor of alloy vehicle protection equipment, automotive and electrical accessories. AMA has a strong track record for identifying and acquiring high-quality businesses and integrating them successfully. Supporting this,... Show More

You might have heard the expressions ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ applied to stock picking. Let me explain. Top-down research is what the economists and strategists do. They try and predict where the equity market will go by working out what earnings are going to do on average over some time period.... Show More

There’s a phenomenon known as Groupthink. It was defined by psychologist Irving Janis as ‘a mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action’. In other words, everyone gets carried away... Show More

A recent Fairfax article about the global banking system focused on the growth of impaired loans and the amount of stress out there. True, the amount of non-performing loans is now slightly above the 4.2% that it was pre the GFC with a read of 4.3%, but the trigger for... Show More

Interest rates are at a record low and although the markets had factored in a 68% chance of a rate cut, they didn’t take it well; the ASX 200 fell 50 points from its high on the day of the announcement. That’s a very short-term reaction, but an interesting one.... Show More

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks which is why despite all the financial logic you can’t get those stuck in the mud long term set and forget investors to use stop losses. Anyway, if your grandad had used stop losses he’d have sold those BHP shares back in... Show More