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FISCAL 2026 – THE YEAR OF ROTATION, APOCALYSE AND WAR.

  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, ...
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GOLD STRATEGY Apr 26

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  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...
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HUB24-FH26 result-top 10 holding--Gaining share in strong industry

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  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...
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LOV FH26 RESULT --TOP 10 Holding--Launches a new brand, core strong

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  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...
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SUMMARY OF SPEC HOLDINGS RESULTS--Ok this time

  SPECULATIVE POSITIONS—C79, SPZ The vast majority of my holdings are quality growth companies. There is a small exposure to speculative holdings, which in aggregate have provided no alpha. In fact, after five years on the retail site Strawman, I am yet to be convinced that there is a repeatable process for adding value here, with business development risk being very high and adding a luck swing factor to the results. After much testing and as much heartache, I have come to the view that the three factors, that I will follow for investments are, firstly the company is profitable or near to it, the company has a product that has proven unit economics and thirdly, that there is a large TAM to grow into, which is probably international, so proven international expansion. That significantly cuts the field down. Summaries of the two largest spec holdings. C79 FH26 RESULT A strong half driven by more units deployed and an increase in utilisation. Revenues were 49% higher, and e...
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LIVE DIARY--FOLLOWING THE SPREAD OF AI ON MY INVESTMENTS

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  DAIRY ON THE SPREAD OF AI 16/2/26 I am writing this as an ad hoc diary as we progress through the world of AI’s impact on the investing markets. I plan to add weekly, but it could be anytime. The impacts of AI are difficult to accurately assess, and this diary, in part, is to monitor how my views change over time. The impacts on the portfolio are already large, volatile and surprising. Over the past few years, most of the gains in the portfolio have come from exposure to what I describe as “light” AI, being the hardware that builds the FABs and the hyperscalers that monetise the activity of token manufacture and delivery into use cases. The largest holdings have been TSMC, GOOG, AMZN, MSFT and ASML. The second driver has been specific Australian growth companies where the business is growing quite well and will certainly be much larger in 5 years, but the SP usually incorporates full value for these companies. Now and then, there is significant volatility, which allows oppo...
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