I explicitly began my investing education by reading what is considered the bible to value investors: Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham. To be honest, I couldn't and still haven't finished the book as I found it fairly dry and uninspiring; especially for a young, new investor. Thankfully, there are a... Show More
It’s rare to see investors agree on a topic, but when Livewire recently reached out to Roger Montgomery, Ben Rundle, and Jason Teh to find out which ‘super investor’ had influenced them the most, they all agreed: Charlie Munger. Perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising, given Munger’s influence over his... Show More
Tech - it’s a sector that local investors just love to hate, but if you didn’t own a handful of these high PE names of late you missed out on some stellar price action. In August just four technology stocks generated ~60% of the returns for the small ords. Show More
A lot has been written about investors’ behavioural biases. But are the types of experienced investors who visit Livewire really biased? If so, what specific investment decisions are impacted? And by how much? And, given that we’re all human, are Livewire subscribers convinced that asset managers can overcome their own... Show More
One of the biggest problems facing retail investors is accessing quality information. Sure, you can look through the last five annual reports and manually extract the data, but this is tedious and time consuming. Free services like Yahoo Finance offer some help, but the data quality is often low, and... Show More
Selecting investments solely on return falls squarely into the “buyer beware” bucket. However, when comparing the plethora of fund investment opportunities in the market, the majority of us tend to focus solely on historic investment performance to rank each of the available investment opportunities. Show More
It’s 4am on a dark and rainy morning back in 2000. A lone, frustrated figure is running around Chatswood Golf Course. It’s a young David Paradice. He has just left the security of a large established firm believing he can achieve superior returns by investing in small caps. But things... Show More
Mark Landau, Joint Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at L1 Capital, is familiar with protecting against the downside. His Long Short Fund has outperformed the ASX200 in every market sell off since it launched in September 2014. 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
If you’re a know-something investor, then you’ve likely been expecting or hoping for a correction with increased volatility for a while. Corrections are normal, what’s been abnormal is the 59% increase in the S&P500 from the low of 1,810 in February 2016 without a 5% correction. Clearly this blissful period... Show More
Reading the latest stock tips and macro calls is fun and useful for generating new ideas, but educational articles offer real long-term value. As the proverb goes: “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a... Show More
It’s ‘World Investor Week’ this week, and ASIC have put out some practical tips that are worth keeping in mind, even for experienced investors. “Smart investors don't rely on good luck; they plan, research and understand their investments and how they fit with their financial goals”, was the message from... Show More
Martin Conlon is Head of Australian Equities at Schroders and oversees the investment of over $10billion in assets. Conlon’s formative years were during the tougher economic times of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. In this exclusive interview, we learn how 30 years of experience shapes how he invests today. Show More
When it comes to investing in today’s market, a strong underlying foundation is vital to forming the core of success. Steven Glass, from the Pengana International Equities Fund provides his 6-point checklist that separates the good from the bad, allowing him to invest with confidence in an overly noisy environment. Show More
New global leaders don’t come up very often, so identifying them relatively early can have a huge effect on a portfolio. The iPhone came out ten years ago, and investors that bought Apple in 2007 are now sitting on a ~1000% return before dividends. So, how do you get one... Show More
A stock in your portfolio has fallen 30% since you bought it; is the market telling you something, or is it just better value than before? This is one of the most important questions an investor faces on a regular basis. Averaging down is when an investor buys more stock... Show More
In January, we were reviewing the Fund numbers for the 2016-year-end and there looked to be an error: the percentage return for the year was higher than the dollar change in the Funds Under Management and didn’t reconcile. After scratching our heads, we realised what the issue was, and it... Show More
Alex Duffy, Portfolio Manager of the Fidelity Global Emerging Markets Fund, sees some common characteristics among the management teams of great companies. Show More
Risk Management is a key part of our framework at Morphic Asset Management. In today’s post, Morphic’s head of Macro and Risk, Geoff Wood, discusses five essential steps in their risk management process. Show More
In prior editions, I’ve explained some common, straight-forward terms. Today, we take a dive into a more complex idea: Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). While it may sound slightly esoteric, it’s potentially one of the most important concepts both in investing and corporate finance. Investment decisions are made on... Show More