7 fundies, 16 stocks, 1 message: The opportunity is now

Fear makes bad investors sell. It makes good ones shop. At last week's Wilson Asset Management (WAM) and Future Generation shareholder presentations, I watched several fund managers including: Geoff Wilson, Matthew Haupt, Catriona Burns and Ben Griffiths; do the latter, and they were generous enough to share exactly what they were buying.

The backdrop was hardly comforting. 

A Middle East conflict had knocked 10 million barrels of oil a day off global supply. 

The ASX had sold off hard. 

Consumer confidence was sitting at multi-decade lows. 

And yet these managers weren't defensive or evasive. They were specific. They named stocks, explained their positioning, and in several cases outlined exactly what they had bought in the preceding weeks. These weren't vague macro views or high-level themes. This was conviction with a ticker attached.

Nobody embodied that more than Matthew Haupt, Lead Portfolio Manager at Wilson Asset Management, who has spent weeks stress-testing the current environment against historical analogues.

"Volatility creates opportunities. We actually like volatility. We welcome it and we form our best from these periods because we go back through history. We have plans for these events. We're not just sitting there trying to react without a plan."

Against that backdrop, here are the stocks and themes the Wilson Asset Management and Future Generation fund managers are backing right now.

Energy and the LNG advantage

One of the clearest macro-to-stock calls of the day came from Haupt, and it landed on a simple idea: the market is underestimating Australia’s position in global energy markets.

His focus was LNG. In a world where Russia is effectively locked out and the Middle East is increasingly unreliable, Australia has quietly become one of the most trusted suppliers of long-term energy.

The mechanism worth understanding is the LNG slope premium – the price above oil that long-term contracts command. In normal times, it sits around 10–11%. In times of energy stress, it moves to 15–16%. Haupt put it in dollar terms, highlighting just how much leverage sits in that pricing.

“Every 1% over a 10 billion tonne contract over lifetime is around $1.2 billion.” 

His preferred way to play it is Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS). While oil prices may move around on ceasefires and headlines, his view is that the real story is the long-term repricing of LNG contracts, which could play out over decades, not months.

The second name he backed was Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG), but for almost the opposite reason. Where Woodside benefits from higher and more stable energy prices, Macquarie's commodities business profits from the volatility itself. 

As Haupt noted, daily swings of 30% in European gas prices are not uncommon, creating a favourable environment for the business. That division typically contributes around 25% of group earnings, but in peak periods it has been closer to 50%. “This is an amazing spot for Macquarie,” he said.

The broader takeaway is that energy is no longer just a cyclical trade. Geopolitics, a decade of underinvestment, and surging demand from electrification and AI have changed the nature of the opportunity, and in Haupt's view, the market hasn't caught up yet.

The AI stocks that got sold for the wrong reasons

Haupt opened the session with a number that puts the AI infrastructure opportunity in perspective. By 2030, AI alone will add the equivalent of Japan's entire electricity consumption to global demand. 

That's the demand backdrop Catriona Burns (WAM Global) was building her portfolio around. Her preferred play is Goodman Group (ASX: GMG), which is locking in 15–20 year contracts with hyperscaler clients. Slower to recognise revenue, but far higher quality assets as a result. It's a view shared by Haupt, who pointed to the contract structure as exactly what makes the business valuable. 

“They want to be able to sell these down at much higher valuation… they’re going for the long term,” Haupt said.

Burns also holds Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM) and ASML (NASDAQ: ASML) as core positions – the manufacturer of over 90% of the world's leading-edge AI chips and the near-monopoly supplier of the equipment that makes them. Beneficiaries, regardless of which AI applications win.

The more interesting opportunity she identified was in what's been sold alongside the AI winners. The software sector is down 30% on disruption fears, but the selling has been indiscriminate. 

Her standout example is Synopsys (NASDAQ: SNPS), whose software Nvidia, Google and Amazon use to design AI chips. 

"Clearly a massive beneficiary of AI and yet sold off in this industry selloff," Burns said. "That is absolutely the hunting ground that we have at the moment."

Global quality at attractive prices

The afternoon panel was where the stock tips came thick and fast.

Doug Tynan (Future Generation Global) leaned into what he described as “the highest quality monopolies in the world,” using recent volatility to add to positions.

Luxury names like LVMH (EPA: MC) and Hermès (EPA: RMS) dropped on geopolitical concerns that have no bearing on whether wealthy consumers keep buying. 

"If the market's doing anything stupid that day, we might be able to try investing smart."

He also highlighted Uber (NYSE: UBER), which he was emphatic is not a tech company but a network effects business operating in 10,000 cities. More drivers attract more riders, and more riders attract more drivers - the network compounds and is extraordinarily hard to disrupt.

“The reason no one can beat Uber… is because it’s got all the drivers,” he said. “It’s on 14, 15 times free cash flow, growing very quickly.”

In his view, even autonomous vehicles are more likely to strengthen Uber’s position than disrupt it. 

Vihari Ross (Future Generation Global) had a different kind of contrarian pick – Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS), priced like a dying media business when roughly 60% of earnings come from parks and cruises, which carry exceptional pricing power. Streaming is scaling toward profitability on top of that.

"You are getting paid to wait," she said.

The Australian opportunity

Ben Griffiths (Future Generation) built cash before the sell-off and has been carefully redeploying into gold names and infrastructure-style utilities, and named two specific Australian stocks.

Technology One (ASX: TNE) is a Brisbane-based SaaS business whose recently launched AI product is its fastest-selling ever, across 1,300 clients spanning government departments and learning institutions nationwide. It trades on around 55 times earnings, but the three-year EPS growth forecast of 18–19% and that's based on conservative assumptions around AI product adoption.

"It's the fastest and most successful product launch that business has ever had," he said.

Orica (ASX: ORI), the world's leading explosives manufacturer, is resolving a US supply chain issue, expanding into American quarry and construction markets, and undergoing a strategic review with capital management ambitions.

“We love management, we love the board… it looks like it’s in a good operating space,” he said.

Oscar Oberg (WAM) has a different lens on the opportunity. His two picks are consumer names, but the thesis behind both is structural rather than cyclical, a long-term shift in what people eat and how they think about their health.

Cobram Estate Olives (ASX: CBO) is Australia's largest olive oil producer, now with US exposure via California Olive Ranch, in a market where Americans consume just one litre per household annually versus two in Australia.

Bega Cheese (ASX: BGA) has transformed into the country's largest branded dairy producer, with 30% of revenues now in yoghurt and flavoured milk categories, booming on the back of high-protein diet trends.

Value hiding in plain sight

Geoff Wilson AO (WAM and Future Generation) closed with two names the market has largely forgotten about.

Next DC (ASX: NXT) is his picks-and-shovels play on AI infrastructure. His team rates it as one of the highest quality infrastructure assets on the ASX, a data centre operator that doesn't need to pick AI winners because every serious contender will need what it provides.

His second pick is Stockland (ASX: SGP) – unloved for years, but directly positioned for an environment where inflation persists and rates have peaked.

"If we have inflation, real estate assets are the best play," Wilson said.

What ties this altogether isn’t a sector or theme. It’s behaviour. Across energy, AI, global quality and small caps, the common thread was simple: act while others hesitate. Build cash when markets are strong, and deploy it when they’re not.

It’s not a new idea. But it gets harder to follow when volatility picks up. The best opportunities don’t arrive in calm markets. They show up when things feel uncertain and hard to price. This looks like one of those periods. The difference, as always, is who acts.