Trending On Livewire: Weekend Edition - Saturday 13th September

Good morning,

It’s been a huge week at Livewire as we hosted our flagship event - Livewire Live – at the Art Gallery of NSW. We’ll be rolling out recaps and videos of the full sessions in the weeks ahead, but coverage has already kicked off on the website.

Macquarie Capital’s Viktor Shvets nearly stole the show with his trademark big-picture thinking, blending sweeping ideas with deep data that had the room contemplating not just the future of investing, but the very world we’ll be living in. The Australian and global equities panels brought plenty of debate about the companies everyone will wish they owned 10 years from now.

On the markets, the ASX 200 barely moved but in the US it was a different story. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow all closed at record highs on Thursday. Oracle shocked Wall Street with a 35% one-day surge after reporting a staggering 359% YoY jump in booked cloud orders and clinching a $300 billion deal with OpenAI. The rally propelled Oracle into the S&P 500’s top 10, while founder Larry Ellison is now vying with Elon Musk for the crown of the world’s richest man.

Closer to home, lithium stocks were crushed midweek as news broke that a Chinese mine, whose recent shutdown had supported prices, will restart production sooner than expected.

And in the US, August CPI was mostly in line: headline inflation came in a touch hot at 0.4% (vs 0.3% est), but not enough to shift expectations of a 25 bp Fed cut next week. That move looks all but locked in.

Enjoy the weekend.

Chris Conway, Managing Editor, Livewire Markets

Anna Milne: 4 steady performers, 2 fallen angels and the 'must-own' commodity right now

Since joining Wilson Asset Management, Anna Milne has risen through the ranks to become Deputy Portfolio Manager of WAM Leaders, a $1.9 billion listed investment company focused on the ASX 200. While large caps are often seen as steady, the latest reporting season has shown they can be every bit as volatile as their smaller peers. “Large caps are considered stable, but the dispersion of returns shows you can’t just hold miners and banks and expect a market return,” Milne says. In this episode of The Rules of Investing, Milne shares how WAM approaches large caps, the fallen angels they’re backing, the bread-and-butter stocks quietly compounding away, and the one company she’d hold if markets shut for five years.

LISTEN | READ

The cost of a comfortable retirement just topped $75,000: Can you afford it?

The US and global economy are slowing, so investors should position for two more interest rate cuts from the US Federal Reserve this year, according to Adam Grotzinger, a senior fixed income portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman. In this wire, the investment expert also outlines why investors should watch out for rising yields on longer-dated bonds as a sign of stress in the global economy and a clue that all the associated problems with inflation may return. Grotzinger also details why investors should think about the impacts of a potentially weaker US dollar on their future investment returns.

FIND OUT MORE

Top 3 Wires this Week

Here are the weeks top viewed or liked wires by our subscribers:

Equities

4 stocks we favour as large caps shrink and small caps shine

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Funds

Four scenarios shaping the fate of small caps

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Macro

Australian growth on the mend - implications for profits and interest rates

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Our Experts

Some of the best wires from our Contributors this week:

Equities

The 5 "high conviction" ASX stocks two expert investors are backing for the long term

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Equities

Small and mid-caps shine. Here are Macquarie’s top picks

View

Equities

10 years from now, these are the companies everyone will wish they owned

View

Chart of the Week: Australian exceptionalism? Look to dividends

Weekly Poll

Which type of returns do you prefer?

a) I’ll take steady ASX dividends
b) Forget dividends, I want S&P 500 growth
c) A balance of both is essential
d) If it’s income, I’d rather buy property

VOTE NOW

LAST WEEKS POLL RESULTS

The poll shows 31% said they stick to tried-and-tested funds like VAS and IVV, 29% see most new ETFs as gimmicks, 28% are open to using interesting new products, and 11% admit discipline is harder with so many new options.

SEE RESULTS BREAKDOWN

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