Marcus Padley is back in the hot seat - what do you want to ask him?

At the start of the year, we asked Livewire readers which experts they’d like to hear more from in 2025. The top-ranked Australian investor? Marcus Padley, founder of the popular Marcus Today investing newsletter.

Marcus has over 40 years of market experience and a unique ‘no-frills’ way of sharing his views on investing and the events shaping markets. He’s not afraid to challenge consensus thinking and put his own spin on what it takes to make money in markets.

I’ve invited Marcus into the Livewire studio for an in-depth discussion on the opportunities he’s seeing right now. In addition to my questions, I’m inviting Livewire readers to send through the questions you want Marcus to answer, helping shape the discussion.

You can submit your questions here or by leaving a comment at the bottom of this wire.

Timing the market

Padley has recently made some big calls, including a decision to go 100% cash as the tariff wars escalated in early April. At the time, he described Trump’s actions as those of a “naive politician” who was “dangerously pulling levers” on the economy that he didn’t understand.

Padley has been vocal about his market timing calls, which sit at odds with the vast majority of investment advice suggesting that timing markets is a fool’s errand. Time in the market versus timing the market is an age-old investing debate, with vast amounts of articles and research dedicated to the topic.

One of the main arguments against market timing is that some of the biggest rallies occur in the wake of significant market drawdowns. Sitting on the sidelines and missing out on these days can have a material impact on your long-term returns.

Human behaviour plays a role too, investors are prone to selling out when markets fall and sentiment is poor. The odds of successfully timing the top are just as low as picking the bottom.

Padley readily takes the other side of the argument. His latest forays out of, and back into, the market have brought him success. He recently declared that he had gone back into US equities via ETFs, telling the AFR that optimism has returned to the big US tech names and “there is a party going on in the US.”

Noticeably absent from Padley’s portfolio is any allocation to Australian equities, a call that mirrors much of how he invested through 2024. His view? The banking sector looks to have plateaued, and with China’s growth slowing, the resources space has fallen off the radar of global investors.

What comes next?

The challenge for market timers, Padley included, is that you need to maintain some level of foresight to stay ahead of the game. In my interview, I’ll be covering the consensus views that Padley disagrees with, the process behind his market timing strategy, and the thinking behind where he’s putting money to work right now.

If you’ve got a question you’d like to put to Marcus, please submit it via this link or leave a comment on this wire.

In the meantime, why not test your own market timing skills on this simulator - it’s a lot harder than it sounds.