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7 October 2025
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Investors underestimate the power of network effects, which increase the lifetime value of users and deliver high incremental margins with fixed operating costs. It's worth trawling the market for strong network effects.
It is better for management and regulatory bodies to work together to preserve the innovative engines of Facebook and Google, not impose painful government intervention.
Most S&P500 companies are doing well with recent reported earnings above expectations. In the tech sector, the Big Five (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet) have also diversified their income sources.
Read in their simplest form, it's surprising what rights people give up when they sign into any of the social media sites, and this year's Boyer Lectures highlight where society and social media are headed.
The claims that the leading tech companies are expensive overlooks the sustainable and growing earnings, plus they have new developments which have only scratched the surface.
Facebook, Google and Amazon seem already entrenched in our lives, but with the information they know about their users, their ability to target advertising and products has only touched the surface of change.
Facebook has changed the way we communicate, but more importantly, it knows our viewing and spending habits and can turn this into massive revenues.
The good news about negative media articles is that a story only needs to become slightly more positive to create an investment opportunity. Just look at Facebook and a bad news day.
Facebook, Tripadvisor and Alibaba - they’re great businesses because they require no inventory, have low capital costs, relatively few staff and their own customers generate the content.
This AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. Just like fibre in 2000, shale in 2014, and cannabis in 2019, the technology or product is real but the capital cycle will be brutal. Investors beware.
An explosion in low-skilled migration to Australia has depressed wages, killed productivity, and cut rental vacancy rates to near decades-lows. It’s time both sides of politics addressed the issue.
LICs are continuing to struggle with large discounts and frustrated investors are wondering whether it’s worth holding onto them. This explains why the next 6-12 months will be make or break for many LICs.
Australian housing’s 50-year boom was driven by falling rates and rising borrowing power — not rent or yield. With those drivers exhausted, future returns must reconcile with economic fundamentals. Are we ready?
Younger Australians think they’ll need $100k a year in retirement - nearly double what current retirees spend. Expectations are rising fast, but are they realistic or just another case of lifestyle inflation?
This week, I got the news that my mother has dementia. It came shortly after my father received the same diagnosis. This is a meditation on getting old and my regrets in not getting my parents’ affairs in order sooner.