The Rules of Investing

The hottest investment theme on Earth

Guests: Tom King, OAM; Simon Holmes à Court.
When Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was released 13 years ago, it brought the issue of climate change to the fore of people’s minds around the world. It might surprise you then, that the effects of greenhouse gasses have been known since 1896. However, despite the huge progress made over the last decade or more, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report released in 2018 showed that at the current rate, warming will reach 1.5 degrees by 2052. Avoiding this will require the largest globally-synchronised effort the world has ever seen.
This week’s guests on The Rules of Investing are Tom King OAM, and Simon Holmes á Court. Tom is the co-founder of Nanuk Asset Management, which is focused on investing in industries that contribute to improving global sustainability and efficiency. Simon is an energy transition specialist who founded Australia’s first community owned wind farm and is a senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne.
In the latest podcast, we debunk some common myths about the role of solar and wind in the energy grid, discuss the investment case for sustainability, and why some people still deny the science of climate change.

Investing in Global Disruption with Jeff Cole

This week’s guest on the podcast is Jeff Cole, Founder and Director of The Center for the Digital Future, and a member of the investment committee for the E&P Global Disruption Fund. While Jeff’s is far from a household name, his work has been at the core of the media industry over the past three decades. He founded the World Internet Project 19 years ago and has presented his insights to the White House, the FCC, and the Department of Defense. He's testified before congress, he's held a joint press conference with President Bill Clinton, he even produced two films with Vice President Al Gore. This week on The Rules of Investing, we'll discuss the current media landscape in Australia and how it's changing, the bleak future for employment, and what went wrong for MoviePass, which caused its parent company to fall more than 99.999%.

Padley: The problem with buy and hold

Guest: Marcus Padley, Director, Marcus Today.
Popular wisdom from the likes of Warren Buffett, Jack Bogle, and Burton Malkiel (author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street) states that it's near-impossible to consistently time the market, so why even try? Just buy and hold for the long term, and collect your dividend cheque every six months. Marcus Padley, Director of MarcusToday, disagrees.
"You can't just sit in the market long-term, which is what everybody wants you to do. You have to time it."
Marcus points out, that the average annual capital return over the last 75 years, after inflation, taxes, and costs is close to zero. In this week’s episode of The Rules of Investing, he explains his process for getting the timing right, why he thinks the housing market is close to the bottom, and his top candidates to surprise to the upside this reporting season.

Cooper reviews the Cooper Review

Guest: Jeremy Cooper, Chairman of Retirement Income, Challenger Ltd.
10 years ago, Jeremy Cooper, now Chairman of Retirement Income at Challenger, Chaired the Federal Government’s Super System Review, commonly known as the Cooper Review. With the final report from the Banking Royal Commission due to be released in a couple of days, we took the opportunity to talk to Jeremy about the current state retirement in Australia.
“Retirees are well aware of increasing life expectancies, and we’re in an environment where self-provision is the order of the day. There are not a lot of people who aspire to living solely on the aged pension. So, they’re underspending – they’re being too frugal. They’re doing this because in our system, we’re effectively asking them to self-insure.”
In this episode of The Rules of Investing, we discuss what worked and what didn’t from the Cooper Review, his take on the Banking Royal Commission, and the investment risks that matter to retirees.

Platinum: The opportunity of a generation

Guest: Andrew Clifford, Chief Investment Officer, Platinum Asset Management.
Host: James Marlay, co-founder, Livewire Markets.
If you’d invested $20k with Platinum Asset Management when the firm opened in 1995 you’d be sitting on around $320k today, a return of ~12.6% per annum*. However, the journey to these returns may have tested your nerves. The active style at Platinum means that periods of exceptional performance are, at times, accompanied by periods underperformance versus the market. Right now, is one of those periods for Andrew Clifford and the team at Platinum. In this exclusive interview, Clifford takes you inside the investment process at Platinum and applies it to the challenges of today’s volatile environment.

Chris Stott: One last call

Guest: Chris Stott, former CIO of Wilson Asset Management.
Host: James Marlay, Executive Director & Co-founder of Livewire Markets.
At age 37 Chris Stott has called time on his investment career at Wilson Asset Management. Given the current state of markets I took the opportunity to have one final chat to hear his views on the year ahead. He presents a bearish outlook for the Australian economy fuelled by falling house prices and weak consumer sentiment.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t find good companies to invest in and make a return...
Tune in to hear about the attributes that Stott seeks out in difficult markets, lessons from his best and worst trades and one last call on a stock that can deliver regardless of the economic backdrop.

Fresh ideas from Future Generation

This week on The Rules of Investing podcast, we've got a special episode featuring three guests from Future Generation (ASX:FGX & ASX:FGG). The Future Generation companies are set up to provide charities with an annual stream of donations, with providing shareholders with exposure to the best fund managers without fees. The first guest is Louise Walsh, CEO of both Future Generation companies, she'll talk about some of the company's achievements, both on the charitable and investment fronts. Then Jun Bei Liu from Tribeca Investment Partners and Tony Waters from QVG join us for a special panel discussion discussing some of the key issues facing Australian investors today.

The value in being contrarian

Guest: Tim Hillier, Allan Gray
Contrarians can be a lot like teenagers: they think they’re all different but end up looking the same. This however, is not true of this week’s guest, Tim Hillier from Allan Gray. Case in point: when asked what stock he’d own if the market were to close for five years, Tim spent longer explaining the issues with his stock of choice than the positives. At Allan Gray, their contrarian streak even extends beyond their investment decisions to their hiring policies; as a rule, most of their hires come from outside the funds management industry.
In this week’s episode of The Rules of Investing podcast, he tells us how financial statements tell a story, he explains the dynamics of a changing Australian media landscape, and he shares his thesis on two truly contrarian stock ideas among Australian large caps.