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Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Recently trending Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 356Baseline outlook for economic recovery is too optimistic Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 357Will our government embrace these three reforms?Don't invest just for yield: the smarter way to generate income
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At a time when value investing is under attack, a reminder that Benjamin Graham heavily influenced Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, and they have built his ideas into broad investing strategies.
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.
How does a small company fund manager identify customer loyalty, pricing power and network effects in a niche business trading at a high valuation, especially when so much value is in the future.
Although some domestic cyclical companies currently offer value, the attraction of offshore growth is a key factor for investors, including strong Australian companies with global aspirations.
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.
Few investors are as influential as Warren Buffett, although for the moment, the market is ignoring his caution. The annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway revealed Buffett did not use the heavy market falls in February to buy shares. Rather than 'buy when others are fearful', he was a net seller of US$6 billion for the quarter, disposing of all airline shares. Berkshire is sitting on US$137 billion in cash, suggesting he expects better buying opportunities to come.
We cannot throw our hands up in the air and say 'this time around, it's simply too hard'. Having no macro view is unhelpful, but many of the baseline scenarios are overly optimistic, says the former CEO of Westpac and now Chairman of Chi-X Australia.
There is a remarkable concentration similarity between the Australian and US stock markets that has delivered poor results for Australians and great results for Americans (and global investors). As the share prices of five Australian banks have tanked, the prices of five US technology companies have surged. Each group now represents 20% of their respective indexes, but the journey has been a disaster for many Australians.
COVID-19 is an opportunity for a crucial policy reset, but what does that really mean? Business is hoping for three big reforms, but there are massive barriers to be overcome.
Investors often overlook the capital risk in high-yielding stocks. It's better to ensure capital grows and investors can sell a portion each year to make up for the shortfall in income from dividends.
Everyone seems to be watching The Last Dance, a fascinating sports documentary about the pursuit of excellence by one of the greatest athletes of all time. Let's not stretch the business analogy too far.