Shawn Burns is Solve the Riddle

  A review of 13Fs Q1 26 The 13Fs are regulatory requirements for certain fund managers that require disclosure of the US listed shares held in their funds. The disclosure is some 6 weeks after the close of the quarter. I have curated a list of 24 fund managers that most closely follow my style. That is, I am most likely to buy shares that they hold. Each fund is equally weighted and combined into a list that ranks the largest investments and movements from last quarter. (see below) Q1 26 was interesting in that it includes their reaction to the first wave of the SaaS apocalypse. Conclusion The managers have shown little stomach to take on AI risk so far. There were some signs, some quite tentative, in position-taking. The biggest moves are a large reduction in exposure to MSFT. The reasons, IMO, are that the MSFT Office suite is exposed to AI, it has also made less progress on models and chips, and finally, the OpenAI arrangement is raising more uncertainty. In fact, ele...

  VISA FH26 RESULT Good result with six-monthly numbers being, net revenue +15.8%, GAAP net income +22.5%, non GAAP +14.3%, operating income +19.7%. marking the strongest revenue growth for Visa since 2022. Revenue and net income for the six months were 50% and 53% of my full-year expectations, implying some upgrades to full-year expectations. The numbers are muddied a bit by litigation and regulatory provisions. Visa’s business is transforming from traditional credit card swipes on the rails to a broader range of activities. The revenue chart below shows that these new businesses fall within data processing, which is growing well above the traditional segments. Visa commented that weakness due to the ME war was more than made up for in strength in other geographies; ME comprises 6% of volumes. US spending remains firm. The result was better than management anticipated due to better demand for services, like VAS, higher volatility and flat incentives. In Q2, Visa bought back $7.9 b...

  FISCAL 2026 – THE YEAR OF ROTATION, APOCALYSE AND WAR. There is little doubt in my mind that 2026 has had significant challenges, especially for my style of investing. Every style has its time in the sun and in the shade, but this year seems a bit different to the usual outcome of being out of favour every three or four years. My style, quality growth had its last difficult year, in 2022, the post-C19 hangover, when interest rates were jacked up after the Central banks kept interest rates too low for way too long, in their infinite wisdom. Fair enough, if every style continued to outperform every year, it would get overbought and overheld and preclude favourable investing. So, every style needs a clean out of the momentum guys and camp followers, etc., again, fair enough. With all that in mind, 2026 has had a bit more to it than usual, and that’s what I want to comment on here. So, 2026 is a year for the mean-reverting value guys to do well, and they have been waiting a while, ...

  GOLD STRATEGY APRIL 2026, Gold, FNV and WPM Summaries are from NotebookLM, sourcing transcripts, company presentations and filings; my commentary is added . Gold price The charts below, the top two courtesy of Auscap, show a story of the relative strength of the gold price. In real terms in is almost twice as high as the dramatic 1980 peak. Of course, my framework on gold is that the price is mainly determined by growth in the money supply of the major economic blocs (G3). I use M2, but I could use other definitions. M2 seems a reasonable money supply measure to follow. The theory is that over the long-term gold will follow the aggregate growth in the money supply. The time lags and correlation are not that tight, which is common in the real world. The graph below (from Gemini) shows a correlation of 0.58, which is not bad for real-world correlations, but it does imply that we should expect sustained deviations from the trend, in both time and magnitude. The red dashed lin...

  HUB24 FH26 Strong results from HUB, with group revenues +26%, driven by Platform +30% and Tech +10%, EBITDA +35%, with platform +40%, Tech 2% and group NPAT +80%. Clear operating leverage that we have seen for some time. FUA was $152.3B, +26%, which was already reported. Net flows $11B, very good (already reported), and the surprise was HUB increased their guidance for FUA from the last guide only 6 months ago, by +$12B to Fy27 $160-170B . For several halves, Hub has been ahead of my numbers. FUA comprises platforms $128b and PARS $25B. The most profitable segment is driving the flows. As at 9/25, market share 9.3% (my est 10% 6/26). Interestingly, Hub saw the largest increase in market share, +1.5%, over the last 12 months. HUB said that the average FUA by advisor on the HUB platform was $24m, whereas the average advisor FUA is $85m; most gains are coming from existing advisors switching more FUA. Likely to continue. Advisor numbers +8%, yoy, and HUB has 34% of advisors us...

  LOV FH26 RESULT There were two negative surprises in the LOV result and a couple of positive ones. The first negative surprise was the size of the losses at the start-up Jewells, being $11m for the half. The second negative surprise was the poor showing of sales in Australia. The positives were the rate of store rollout and the GM. Overall, the core franchise did very well, driven by growth in Europe and the Americas. LFL sales +2.2%, imo, good enough. Americas increased stores by 18 and Europe by 39. There was a strong showing in the Americas, which LOV described as driven by a buoyant consumer, in-store execution and good product range. The core business reported sales up 23%, GM up 23%, ebit up 20% and NPAT up 22%, all very good numbers. Store count ended the period at 1095, a better run rate than my expectations, with acceleration mainly in Europe. 85 new stores were opened, and 17 closed, 7 moved. Active management of the store inventory remains a core feature of LOV a...