Livewire Live: Bold calls, big ideas and market-moving insights

This live blog has now ended but you can still check out the coverage from today's event below. Thanks for tuning in. 

[3:28 pm] Viktor Shvets, who arguably stole the show in his fireside chat earlier today, has just delivered the last of our 5 shocking predictions for 2026 and beyond. Unsurprisingly, it was a good one.

But that also means Livewire Live 2025 has sadly come to an end. Thanks again for reading.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be publishing more in-depth coverage of all of today’s action on the Livewire website in the days and weeks to come. 

Have a good afternoon.

[3:03 pm] Here's a quick catchup with Livewire managing editor Chris Conway, fresh off hosting today's global equities panel.

[2:57 pm] That concludes our penultimate session for Livewire Live 2025. Thanks everyone for tuning in so far.

But we've also saved the best for last. Our final session for the day will be on 5 shocking predictions for 2026 and beyond. 

We'll be hearing predictions from Antipodes' Vihari Ross, Challenger's Stephen Martin, Dexus' Dania Zinurova, Janus Henderson's Darko Kuzmanovic and Macquarie's Viktor Shvets. 

It's a firm fan favourite and was voted the most popular session at last year's Livewire Live. 

But unfortunately for those at home, you'll have to wait to hear the predictions. We'll be posting in-depth coverage of all sessions (including this one) on the Livewire website in the near-future, so make sure you check back in.

[2:45 pm] On Australian equities, both Barlow and King see better value outside of the large caps. 

Phil King says Aussie large caps have some of the highest multiples and lowest growth rates of any global equities.

Barlow says if he had a top-heavy equity fund he'd be nervous right now. 

The panel suggest that super funds have arguably driven this by selling small caps to buy these large caps. 

It means there's now opportunities lower down the food chain, and that's what they're looking at. You can’t index small caps, you have to stock pick them, as Kidman suggests.

[2:36 pm] Private credit has been mentioned a few times today and it's getting a run out again here.

Both Regal and Soul Patts have moved into that space and see opportunities there going forward, especially as it can potentially deliver double-digit returns without the volatility of stocks.

As Todd Barlow says, people only talk about the risks of credit but the upside of equities. 

[2:26 pm] We'll bring you some of the insights from the current session soon. In the meantime, here's a clip of Plato's Dr David Allen talking about European defence spending.

[2:20 pm] We're just about to hear from two of Australia's leading investors - Soul Patts' Todd Barlow and Regal's Phil King. They'll be talking to Centennial Asset Management's Matthew Kidman about how they construct their portfolios and how they're positioning for what comes next. 

[2:10 pm] The panel was also asked about some more "exotic" picks for the future:

• Qiao Ma: A Silicon Valley-based data and memory connectivity solutions company
• Dr David Allen: A US software company that services government and commercial clients
• Joshua Cummings: A "boring" insurance company
  
  

[2:07 pm] This panel is all about picking the stocks that you'd want to own 10 years from now. Again, to respect those who joined us at Livewire Live, we’ll keep stock mentions in today’s blog intentionally broad. Here's what the panel reckon will become the mega caps of the future:

• Qiao Ma: A chipmaker
• Dr David Allen: A European defence manufacturer
• Joshua Cummings: A music streaming platform
  
  

[1:50 pm] Qiao Ma, Partner and Portfolio Manager at Munro Partners shared her four key traits of future leaders.

[1:33 pm] We're back from lunch. (And Domino's Pizza was the answer to the below stock pick).

In 2015, Nvidia was a mid-cap gaming company few people were talking about, today it’s the largest stock on the NASDAQ. The rewards are compelling for investors willing to venture beyond today’s proven performers. We’ve assembled a panel of global stock pickers who are actively scouring the market for the mega caps of the future.

[12:35 pm] The portfolio managers are putting forward some sensible stock picks, companies trading on reasonable valuations with dependable earnings outlooks. But the pick from Jun Bei Lu might shock you.

Try and guess the stock based on the below key points:

[12:26 pm] If you thought I was joking about Mawhinney being handed actual pins — I wasn’t.

[12:13 pm] Here's a clip from Arnie Selvarajah and the need to rethink how advice is delivered before the jaws of demographic change bite down. 

[12:11 pm] Here come some fresh faces and fresh ideas. We’ve got four emerging leaders to pitch their best investment ideas, spanning small-to-large caps on the ASX to undiscovered global companies.

[11:59 am] To respect those who joined us at Livewire Live, we’ll keep stock mentions in today’s blog intentionally broad.

Landau is bullish on copper (ex-ASX), uranium and a local mining technology company. While Mawhinney is constructive on aluminium and select healthcare names.

[11:54 am] The latest reporting season marks a real "changing of the guard," says Landau. 

Many once-beloved blue-chip stocks (Ramsey, CSL, Sonic, IDP, Reece, Domino’s, etc.) are now struggling due to macro headwinds, regulatory pressure, or tougher competition.

Health care, once a resilient high-margin growth sector, is facing margin pressure and more difficult conditions.

The lesson: today’s market darlings may not remain leaders in five years, and unloved stocks can become the next winners.

[11:39 am] Landau's L1 Capital has little exposure to Australian markets at the moment: "All of our long exposure is expressed overseas."

His key takeaways include:

• Australian equities are trading at historically high multiples (~20x earnings), well above the 40-year average of <15x, despite relatively modest ~6.5% earnings growth.
• Market performance has been driven disproportionately by a handful of large-cap names (banks, Wesfarmers, Goodman), with price gains far exceeding earnings growth.
• Compared with global peers, Australian stocks look expensive on a PEG basis (≈3), while markets like the NASDAQ (~2) and Europe (~1.5) offer stronger growth at lower valuations.
• The fund has near-zero net exposure to Australia, preferring opportunities overseas (e.g., UK banks, infrastructure, Canadian resources) with better growth, valuations, and balance sheet strength.
  
  

[11:35 am] Simon Mawhinney, the Chief Investment Officer of Allan Gray said  that he'd "rather put pins in his eyes" than buy CBA shares a few months ago.

Matthew Kidman has just offered Mawhinney a bag of pins: "I wonder if Simon's run out of pins. So I scurried around the house and I was able to find a handful of pins. So you take that just to get your inventory levels up,"

[11:29 am] We asked the audience: "Where do you think the best long-term opportunities lie on the ASX."

It looks like mid caps outside the top 20 is a clear crowd favourite. 

[11:28 am] You’re going to love what’s coming up next – Stock picks.

These picks and opinions land at a pivotal time, with the market’s price-to-earnings ratio pushing ~20x, back at the highs of the 2021 post-pandemic boom. Valuations are clearly stretched, especially with ASX 200 earnings down about 3% in FY25. But the outlook is brightening, with consensus pointing to 4.5% growth in FY26.

If that growth outlook keeps improving, the market’s premium starts to look justified. So let’s see which pockets of the market the panelists are keen to park their money in.

[11:26 am] Arnie Selvarajah has wrapped up his talk. 

I’ll now be handing over to my colleague Kerry Sun, who will be taking you through the rest of today’s sessions.

Thanks to everyone who’s been following the blog so far. Make sure to stick around, there’s some absolutely cracking sessions coming up. Over to you Kerry.

[11:12 am] Australia is facing a growing crisis around its ageing population. With a shrinking taxpayer base and skyrocketing aged pension and healthcare costs, it’s more important than ever to help assist self-funded retirees. Yet the number of financial advisors has halved.

Bell Financial’s Arnie Selvarajah is about to take the stage and offer his thoughts on the need to rethink how we deliver advice. 

[10:52 am] Here's a clip from the session with Macquarie's Viktor Shvets and Livewire's James Marlay.

[10:48 am] Viktor and James have wrapped up what was a great session and Livewire Live will now be breaking for a 30-minute morning tea.

But don’t go anywhere. We’ll be bringing you more clips and reaction from inside the room before the second session kicks off again around 11:15 am with a talk from Bell Financial Group CEO Arnie Selvarajah.

[10:42 am] This has been an extremely illuminating, and wide-ranging, talk from Viktor Shvets. It's impossible to keep up with all of his insights (and we only got a handful of questions in) but the audience is lapping it up. 

Here are just some of the most interesting ideas:

• He believes AI is "reaching escape velocity" and says that "industrial revolutions changed the world. And all they did was to displace muscle. Information revolution is displacing a lot more than that."
• Younger people deciding whether to study computer science should only pursue it if they're in the top 5% in the field, otherwise they'll simply be "plugging the cables in at the office".
• The concentration of returns will stay high, the winners will take all the spoils and the losers will get nothing. 
• "The whole essence of eliminating economic and capital market cycles means there is no mean reversion. Because mean reversion is based on the presence of those cycles. If they're no longer there, there is no mean reversion. There's no point in saying this is expensive because it's two standard deviations against the mean when the mean doesn't exist."
• Increasingly complex financial systems make things more uncertain than ever. "The only thing you can do is explain what happened yesterday, but you have difficulty seeing forward. That’s why Central banks are data-dependent, which is another way of saying they have no idea what’s going on."
• Wealth inequality is creating an explosive social political climate. "You either become the 0.1% or you'll be peasant forever."
• He sees gold as "insurance" against the slightly-dystopian future Shvets says he has described here.
  
  

[10:22 am] Here's a clip of Kipp deVeer from our first session.

[10:17 am] Viktor Shvets opens the chat with a fascinating explanation of what he considers to be a global Fujiwhara effect. 

The Fujiwhara effect is when two cyclones converge, producing an even more powerful storm.

We're seeing a societal Fujiwhara effect at the moment, says Shvet, as forces like financialisation, AI, climate change, pandemics and technology interact with each other, producing even greater impacts.

[10:05 am] That ends our opening session with Ares' Kipp deVeer. 

Up now is Viktor Shvets, Macquarie Capital’s head of global desk strategy. 

He’s talking to Livewire’s James Marlay about how investors can lean into the current market chaos.

Whether it’s trade wars, AI, geopolitical instability or rate cuts, Shvets is here to answer why it’s happening, when it’ll end and most important, what it means for you.  

[10:00 am] Our chat with Kip deVeer is wrapping up with a discussion around their investments in sporting organisations. 

They've invested in Rugby Australia and have interests in many global sporting brands like the Miami Dolphins, Inter Miami, Atletico Madrid and Chelsea. 

[9:55 am] In terms of finding opportunities in private credit, deVeer says APAC and Australia is a big focus for Ares. 

"The Australian market is showing a really significant opportunity. The traditional banks are becoming fewer and larger. Small, mid-sized borrowers are finding it harder to procure loans," says deVeer.

It's a $2 trillion addressable market and getting bigger. They're looking to grow their presence using the same playbook that worked in building their market-leading US and European businesses. 

Elsewhere, they're seeing a "shining moment" in secondaries.

"We've seen 30% growth in AUM in our secondaries business in the last 12 months. That's pretty remarkable," he says. 

[9:48 am] Kipp deVeer is sharing the story of Ares' journey to global private market heavyweight. 

On Ares' stellar growth, deVeer says "being an early mover is a great, great advantage".

Getting "boots on the ground" and putting real resources into portfolio and risk management were key, he says.

[9:35 am] We're about to kick off the first session of Livewire Live.

Livewire co-founder James Marlay will be hosting a virtual fireside chat with Kipp deVeer, co-President of Ares Management Corporation, who is joining us live from New York. 

Ares is a global alternative investment manager with more than US$500bn AUM.

Kipp will be sharing his insights on how private markets have evolved and where Ares is looking to grow. 

A strong start to what will be a great day. 

[9:30 am] Livewire co-founder Tom McKay is about to give his welcome address and then we'll be straight into the action. 

[9:15 am] While we wait for Livewire Live to officially start, a quick market update:

• The ASX is set to open lower today, with ASX 200 futures down 0.24% in premarket. 
• US shares rallied overnight as expectations grow over a US rate cut when the Fed meets next week. The Nasdaq was up 0.45%, with the S&P 500 up 0.21%.
• Gold was also up 1.02% to US$3,629.18.
• ANZ announced it would be cutting 3,500 jobs over the next 12 months.
  
  

[9:03 am] Hello and welcome to the Livewire Live 2025 live blog! (Try saying that three times fast).

I’m Tom Stelzer from Livewire and I’ll be taking you through the first half of today’s action-packed schedule.

This is the 9th time we’ve put on Livewire Live and it could be the best lineup we’ve ever assembled.

Here are some of the names that are going to be speaking or presenting today:

• Viktor Shvets, Macquarie Capital 
• Kipp deVeer, Ares Management
• Mark Landau, L1 Capital
• Phil King, Regal Investment Partners
• Todd Barlow, Soul Patts
• Simon Mawhinney, Allan Gray
• Dion Hershan, Yarra Capital Management
• Jun Bei Liu, Ten Cap
• Qiao Ma, Munro Partners
• Matthew Kidman, Centennial Asset Management
• Anna Milne, Wilson Asset Management
• Dr David Allen, Plato Investment Management
• Joshua Cummings, Janus Henderson Investors
• David Lloyd, Ausbil Investment Management
• Vihari Ross, Antipodes Partners
• Jessica Farr-Jones, Regal Investment Partners
• Darko Kuzmanovic, Janus Henderson Investors
• Arnie Selverajah, Bell Financial Group

You can see the full agenda here.

On this blog, we’ll be sharing some of the biggest insights and ideas from today’s expert lineup, so make sure to check back in regularly (and make sure to refresh the page).

We’ll also be bringing you live reaction from those in attendance, sharing photos and video from inside the room and also updating you on any big news from the markets over the course of the day.

We’ll be kicking off today with a welcome keynote from Livewire managing director Tom McKay at 9:30am.