Buy Hold Sell: 6 naughty and nice stocks for the year ahead

As 2025 winds to a close, it’s only fitting that we take stock of the names that dazzled investors this year, as well as those that landed squarely on the naughty list. 

 Markets delivered no shortage of surprises, with some companies shooting the lights out while others tested even the most patient shareholders.

On the “nice” list sit Regis Resources (ASX: RRL), Codan (ASX: CDA), and Charter Hall (ASX: CHC) - three stocks that managed to push through volatility and reward investors handsomely along the way.

Meanwhile, the “naughty” list features Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX: BEN), WiseTech (ASX: WTC), and Bapcor (ASX: BAP), each facing its own set of challenges.

To make sense of it all, Livewire’s Vishal Teckchandani brings together two trusted voices: Hugh Dive from Atlas Funds Management and Jun Bei Liu of Ten Cap. They break down what went right, what went wrong, and whether any of these names deserve a spot in portfolios heading into 2026.

Note: This episode was recorded on Wednesday, 3 December 2025.

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Edited Transcript

Vishal Teckchandani: Hello and welcome to Buy Hold Sell. My name is Vishal Teckchandani. And in this episode, we're running the ruler over those stocks which have been naughty and nice this year. To do that, we're joined by Jun Bei Liu from Ten Cap and Hugh Dive from Atlas Funds Management. Thank you both of you for being here.

Hugh Dive: Thanks, Vish.

Jun Bei Liu: Thank you. Thank you.

Vishal Teckchandani: Hugh, let's kick off with you. Regis Resources, up 187% this year. Not bad, not bad for a gold miner. Buy, hold, sell?

Regis Resources (ASX: RRL)

Hugh Dive (SELL): I'd be selling here. Had a great year. Everything went right that could possibly go right. The metal itself is up 60% versus up 190%. Invariably the production issues. If I was going to be buying gold miners, I'd buy ones that have trailed the metal price rather than them. You look through their book, there's no hedging. That's great when the price is going vertical, but that doesn't always stay the same. A production issue could see that's a bit of turnaround. It's hard to see them replicate 190% in 2026.

Vishal Teckchandani: Jun Bei, can the luck continue, or the strong run in gold prices keep benefiting Regis Resources? Buy, hold, sell?

Jun Bei Liu (SELL): That will be a sell. So there are many questions there. So I think the gold prices are still well underpinned and everything else. I always believe every portfolio has to have a bit of everything. You have to have gold in your portfolio, but because it's done so well recently, I will be selling small cap gold and put into more of the larger cap names because they have done a little bit less as well as these ones. And then the larger cap will have this tailwind because they have longer dated contracts. And then their prices that are not spot price. So over time, the money they make will gradually get higher. So they have the next tailwind. And because they haven't done as well, they will give you a little bit more benefit. So we'll be going to the Northern Star or Newmont.

Vishal Teckchandani: Staying with you, Jun Bei, Codan up more than 90% this year. It's been a fantastic ASX smaller or mid-cap. Buy, hold, sell?

Codan (ASX: CDA)

Jun Bei Liu (HOLD): It's a hold for me. I like the company and we've been shareholder for quite some time, but it's done incredibly well. The company really diversified their sales from the metal detector business into other areas, the communication space. And it's well played into that whole defence thematic where countries really go into spending a lot and then the communication played right into it. I think it's a really interesting thematic. It's just becoming a little bit more expensive. Great management team though, so I'll stick with it for the hold.

Vishal Teckchandani: Hugh, same question to you. The defence thematic continues to run hot, but is the stock a buy, hold, sell?

Hugh Dive (SELL): I have to say a sell here. Agree with Jun Bei, the military and the communication is very solid, and that's really improved the high quality of their earnings. But a bit of the icing on the cake of Codan is the gold detection business. Selling a lot of retail gold detectors, the bleep, bleep, bleep over there. A lot of that being sold into West Africa. Historically, that has been very correlated with the gold price. And if we do see a fall off, we'll see some of that cake come off at 45 times forward earnings. There's not a lot of margin of safety for that.

Vishal Teckchandani: Our final nice stock, Charter Hall, up 73% this year. Buy, hold, sell?

Charter Hall (ASX: CHC)

Hugh Dive (HOLD): They've executed on whatever they've done. They've benefited also quite well for that rotation out of Goodman, growing the funds management business. Been a very perfect year. If we still ... I do not own this stock, but if I did own it, I'd probably still be holding it, but I wouldn't be buying anymore at these current levels. They've executed well, but a lot of it is predicated on expectation of falling rate cuts, which may or may not happen, causing investment flows into listed property and seeing some property revaluations upwards.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. Jun Bei, it is a market darling right now. Great upgraded guidance, strong inflows, property market booming, as it always does in Australia. Buy, hold, sell?

Jun Bei Liu (SELL): Look, it's a sell for me. It's done so well, as Hugh mentioned. It's done very well. A big part of it is because the interest rate cuts. Remember, the property trust companies are benefiting a lot from lower cost of interest costs because they borrow a lot of money and they gear up a lot and interest is lower, so earnings grow. So generally, a lot of earnings upgrade just simply on lower interest.

And then secondly, a lot of their property exposure is commercial properties. And then so the valuation, lower interest rate, valuation is going higher. Now 2026, I don't have the crystal ball, but every economist tells me there's no rate cuts anymore. So if anything, someone is saying rate rise, but let's say no rate cut. I think property trust companies are done in terms of valuation expansion.

So is the office market really going to turn around in a big way to drive the earnings upgrade? I don't know. Look, I still see empty offices. I think Barangaroo is still pretty tough in Sydney moving to the different area. So I think offices not coming back in a big way. Slowly perhaps, but there are cheaper offices you can buy. So for me, it is too expensive. I'll sell it to buy other, probably more residential exposed property trust that's even better value.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. So turning to the naughty stocks now, we begin with Bendigo Bank. Had a little issue recently with money laundering. Buy, hold, sell?

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX: BEN)

Jun Bei Liu (SELL): Oh, that's a sell. I'll sell more. Look, I think it's going through a lot of issues now. When you have the money laundering issue, then you have regulators overlooking you. Then you've got to pay big fines. All of these will take a very long time for the regulator to go through what sort of real problem is and companies to investigate themselves. That's all distraction to the management. We've never seen a company outperform during these times. It's absolutely a sell.

Vishal Teckchandani: Hugh, if I think about Bendigo Bank, it's just been among the flattest performers in banks. It just kind of sticks around that $10 mark eventually. Buy, hold, sell?

Hugh Dive: I think when I moved to Australia from Canada 20 years ago was at $10 and that's where it is now.

Vishal Teckchandani: There you go.

Hugh Dive (SELL): Fundamentally, in addition to the problems that Jun Bei has talked about, regional banks are a competitive disadvantage. They have a high cost of capital, low ROEs. Bendigo's market share is roughly about 2.5% to 3%. They have lower tech spend, which results in higher, perhaps some of the money laundering issues we have. I'd rather pay an extra couple of PE points and own ANZ. Regional banks, just hard to get very excited about. And as Jun Bei talked about, going through regulation fines we've seen with Westpac, that was not good. I'd rather sit this one out and watch it from the sidelines.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. Fair call. Staying with you, Hugh, WiseTech Global. Bit controversial as well over the past year. Buy, hold, sell?

WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC)

Hugh Dive (SELL): I think it's sell. I know that Jun Bei quite likes it, but I perhaps don't have her appetite for risk. Also in my portfolio, we do own Mineral Resources, so there's probably kind of two bad boys in the same portfolio. There's been a range of issues. In addition to the salacious details covered in the financial press, not Livewire, but other salacious details.

They've had share trading issues with the directors. The outlook looks relatively opaque. They seem to just keep on coming and just too expensive for us trading on 78 times earnings with a microscopic yield. I don't know how much this keeps on sort of going there. I mean, perhaps Jun Bei has got a better insight into me, but it's going to be tough work and it seems to be just keep on coming.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. Now, Jun Bei, you love your contrarian stocks. It's been hammered, but is bad news, good news. Buy, hold, sell?

Jun Bei Liu (BUY): Yeah, it's a buy. Look, it is a high risk buy. Not for the fainthearted and you stole my thunder there. It could have been a sell. Putting aside other issues, I just think it's quite an amazing business and there's been a lot of skepticism over the years and they've proven them wrong. And it's one of the very few business... it's actually quite rare to find an almost SaaS-like business that growing that fast and that profitable around the world. So that has a global market share. That's just been incredible. And hence why I think it's very, very unique. It's something that we always look for. It's unique, it's addressable market, and then execution.

Now, of course, there's other issues that are relevant, personal issues with Richard and others that'll come into fold. That simply means probably it's not a big position in the portfolio. But I do think that there's a lot of bad news in the share price, bad news that's not relevant to the company. They are moving into ... They see in the future, they're moving into a more sort of transaction linked in terms of pricing model and it seems to be tracking well at this stage.

And analysts don't have these in their numbers, which is great because you want to outperform people's expectations. So I think expectation is reasonable and I think the company has given many opportunities, not really downgrading the earnings. So I think the business is holding up pretty well. If anything, it might be outperforming expectations in the next six month. I think it looks pretty good.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. The final stock on the naughty list, Bapcor. I think it's lost about half its value this year. Weaker consumer spending, lower auto parts demand. Buy, hold, sell?

Bapcor (ASX: BAP)

Jun Bei Liu (SELL): Oh, that's a sell. Look, sometimes a company is a previous market darling, but when the company goes through its structural issues, it becomes significantly more competitive in the category they're in. I just don't think it's going to return to its former glory. It's a sell.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. Hugh, is this a dog you want to touch? Buy, hold, sell?

Hugh Dive (SELL): Unfortunately, I've touched this dog during the year. I owned this for a large chunk of this year, not for the full 50%. I think the mistake that we made with that is thinking the trade was going to come back on. There was a private equity bid. And just ignore the extreme level of corporate turmoil.

We saw three directors walk out the door in July with not a great level of expectations. Since then with the corporate, we sold it right after reporting season. The corporate turmoil continued. We've seen another director left yesterday, two key management personnel left about a month ago - far too hard. And particularly after enduring some of the pain in 2025, I'm not signing up for another year in 2026 with Bapcor. Sell.

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay. Well, there you have it. My friends, enjoy your Christmas, some nice stocks that deliver joy in 2025 that can continue the momentum in 2026 and a few naughty ones that left some coal in your stockings. Hugh, Jun Bei, thank you so much for your time.

Jun Bei Liu: Thank you.

Hugh Dive: Thanks, Vish.

Vishal Teckchandani: I hope you enjoyed that episode. Please don't forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel. Again, good luck in 2026. Have a good day.