Marcus Padley reveals the secret sauce of timing markets

“Time in the market, not timing the market." It’s the investing cliché everyone knows, and Marcus Padley is here to tear it apart.

The veteran stockbroker and founder of investment newsletter, Marcus Today, says this mantra does more to keep investors passive than it does to grow their wealth. In his view, timing the market isn’t just possible, it’s essential if you want to make serious money and sleep easily.

“You can’t take advantage of the bottom of a market if you’ve sat there the whole way through,” he says.

In this wide-ranging chat, Padley shares his honest views on how to think about markets, positioning, and the narratives we're told to believe. He covers five key areas:

1. Why “time in the market” is a dangerously oversimplified mantra
2. How investors are kept passive in a Matrix-like system
3. Why he abandoned individual stock picking for ETFs
4. Why Australia is off the table for growth
5. The biggest theme he’s backing — and the stock to play it

Watch the video below; the written summary can’t capture Marcus’s delivery (or bluntness) quite like the real thing.

#1 - Why “time in the market” is a dangerously oversimplified mantra

Padley doesn’t just believe markets can be timed, he walks the talk and implements this approach within the same client portfolios he's got most of his money in.

“We are hypervigilant every day. We react, not predict," Padley says.

He explains what he watches and how investors like you can do the same in our discussion.

#2 - How investors are kept passive in a Matrix-like system

Padley makes some colourful comments about the current state of how many of us invest.

He believes most of us are trapped in a "Matrix" like world where we're told to keep calm and stay the course despite what happens in markets.

“Most strategists or economists are there to pacify the client base," he says.

While this mantra works well for the masses, its preventing those of us who want to make serious money from exploiting major inflection points in equites.

#3 - Why he abandoned individual stock picking for ETFs

After decades recommending stocks, Padley has gone all-in on ETFs. Today, he runs his entire portfolio using just 5–10 of them. The reason?

“ETFs are safer... it takes the announcement risk away. And it also takes the fundamental analysis of individual stocks — which is almost always highly flawed — away as well," Padley says.

Padley also shares how he used ETFs to exploit opportunities in the recovery rally after Trump paused reciprocal tariffs for 90 days.

#4 - Why he believes Australia is off the table for growth investors

When asked about where he’s allocating for growth, Padley doesn’t mince words: not in Australia.

Between fully priced banks and lacklustre resources, he sees no compelling growth narrative.

“We are a backwater economy — 26 million people and we’ve got no AI. So what’s our theme? There isn’t one," he says.

Until China meaningfully stimulates its economy or a new growth catalyst for commodities stocks appears - like it did in the 2000s - much of his growth capital is going overseas.

#5 The biggest theme he’s backing — and the stock riding it

While others rotate sectors or chase short-term signals, Padley has his eye on one big theme: artificial intelligence. He believes we’re still early in what will be a long-term structural shift, and he’s positioning accordingly.

He shares how he’s expressing the theme through ETFs, but also names the one stock he’d back with all his capital, if he had to pick just one.

“If you told me I had to put all my money in one stock, it would probably be...”

We’d usually give it away in the transcript, but in this case, we suggest watching the video. Padley’s explanation, tone, and delivery give it the kind of context only he can provide.

Hit play below — it’s classic Marcus, and it’s well worth your time.

Stay tuned! We’ll be releasing a follow-up video where Marcus answers questions submitted by Livewire readers.