June 10, 2025 • 31 mins
The second term of Donald Trump has been marked by a roller coaster global sharemarket: Even the biggest players among Australian industry funds are openly debating whether it's worth sticking with Wall Street. But you have to make a decision...
Nick Griffin, chief investment officer at Munro Partners joins Associate Editor Wealth, James Kirby in this episode.
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In today's show, we cover:
* It's the earnings, stupid! - Trump or no Trump
* Why global software giants will keep winning
* The case against banks, airlines and consumer fashion stocks
* AI -It's the real deal for long-term investors
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello, and welcome to the Australians Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirby. Welcome aboard everybody. Now, for investors in shares,
the single biggest question I believe this year is how
you as an investor deal with the market, the share market,
the global market under the influence if you like, of
(00:30):
the US and Donald Trump. And if you get this right,
I think you will win in the market, as has
been the case for some time now since the election
of Trump. And if you get it wrong, your share
portfolio I think would be something of a sorry sight
in a few months time. And the same goes for
people who are professionals in the market, who are specialists
(00:52):
in the market. And my guest today is a specialist
in the market. It's Nick Griffin. He is the co
founder and chief investment officer at the Monro Group. The
Monro Group is a fund manager has about six billion
dollars under management at the moment. It's an active manager.
They are stock pickers. They select a relatively small amount
(01:13):
of stocks and go with it. How are you, Nick?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Good? Thanks James yourself?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Good? Thank you. Nice to have you on the show.
It's a funny thing as we sit here midyear, mid
calendar year on the show for all the dramas, and
I imagine a lot of traders or lost a lot
of money. But for all the dramas, things have almost
back to where they started. On Trump. By that I
mean shares. They're not greatly up or greatly down on
(01:40):
the market so far, but that's by no means indicates
that Trump has settled down. Is Trump and his administration
and their activities do they really, to a large extent
director affect how your outcomes will be this year and
going forward?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So great question, and yes, they obviously have some influence.
We have a tagline at Monroe Partner's which is called
invest in the Journey. We run global equity products that
invest in global growth companies, so any company outside of
Australia that we think can grow over time. And it
has been a journey in the first half of the year,
that's for sure. What we're seeing here is the share
markets sort of get used to the way Trump does business,
(02:23):
which is to, you know, do something really big and
see what breaks and then roll it back. We sort
of should know this because that's what he did last
time as well. But ultimately it's important for all the
listeners to remember that ultimately that the global equities and
stocks generally follow their earnings. And so what you've really
got to analyze out of Trump is he doing anything
(02:43):
that's going to change the earnings outlook for these companies.
And I would argue in some cases that's correct. Yes,
you know, if you're affected by tariffs, your earnings will
be affected. If you're expecting an economic recovery this year,
that may not happen. But in other cases, like for instance, Microsoft,
you know is a good example, it's not really going
to change how much money Microsoft's going to make this year,
and it's probably not going to change what they're going
(03:04):
to make next year. And so many people have used
this volatility as an opportunity to invest in things that
they feel confident to get to grow earnings regardless of
the environment. That's sort of how i'd frame the discussion.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, I see you as a fund manager, and I
see and you are an active fund manager. I won't
say old style, that's not because that's probably not what
you want to hear, but you're an active fund manager, right,
So your proposition to the investor is, look, I'm going
to charge you a fee and if I outperform beyond
what my benchmark is, I'm going to charge an extra
(03:36):
fee performance fee, and I am going to select from
you know, thousands and thousands of stocks a relatively small
amount twenty to forty in your two big funds, and
you have to come with me, as you say, on
this journey. This area has been a minefield of recent times,
and the big names that we all knew, Midgellen and Platinum,
(03:58):
they've all come undone to the uninitiated, you're doing something
awfully similar, but you are growing and have had good results,
particularly since your inception. So what is your approach? What
is your could you try and to steal your distinct
approach why you've managed to grow when others around you
(04:19):
are struggling.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. So I think a
lot of people look at the share market the wrong way.
A lot of people sort of and a lot of
those companies you mentioned, they would look at the share
market and basically say, this is what we think the
global economy is going to do, and we want to
be overweight certain countries because that country's economy is going
to do better and this other country economy is can
do worse, and this sector will be better, and this
(04:43):
sector will do worse. And we would say that's just
all noise and probably, quite frankly, a bit of a
waste of time. The reality is, in our opinion, the
equity market is made up of very few great companies
and thousand thousands of mediocre ones. The reality is the
S and P five hundred is not actually the it's
the best five hundred companies in the United States, and
it's made up of these exceptional businesses that are doing
(05:06):
exceptional things, and that exceptional things that they do create
strong earnings growth, and their earnings growth creates share price growth.
So when we look at the world, what we're trying
to do for our clients to say, we have the
entire world to choose from. There's more than thirty thousand
listed companies. We're going to do our best effort to
pick the most exceptional twenty to forty that we think
(05:27):
we can buy at good valuations, that they think can
grow structurally sustainably over a long period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So you're you're a bottom up, well, it's very much
bottom up and very much what you described that you
don't make is top down. Okay, so you're associated you've
had a good run beyond doubt by being involved in
the Magnificent seven stocks and they did very well for you.
If we take a long period of time in the
(05:52):
last few years as IF fund manager, that's what allowed
you to grow. And they are the outstanding sort of
champions of you. Like all of the arguments you're making,
will they continue to be.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah? And so to do this well, what you should
do is not look at the economy or the sectors,
look at the big structural changes and who's going to win.
So that's what we do. We try and identify the
big structural changes and you identify who win. You talked
about the Magnificent seven. They are the big digital winners. Okay,
So everybody on this phone call remembers, you know, when
we used to read newspapers on the train. We don't anymore.
(06:28):
We read our phone and generally we're looking at Facebook
or Instagram, or we're looking at Google, etc. And so
they have structurally won from digital advertising. There's no reason
why that one continue. They've structurally won by the shift
to the cloud. So anybody who hosts anything in the
cloud has to host it at three companies. Amazon Google
or Microsoft. They're the only cloud providers on the planet.
(06:48):
And so what's generally happening here is digitalization is creating
network effects around these companies, and they become the advertising
company for the world, they become the software company for
the world. And so all they're doing is taking share
from Channel seven, Channel nine, Fairfax, et cetera, and bring
that back to the US. So coming back to my point,
they're not really linked to the US economy. They're linked
(07:10):
to the point that digital takes share.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
From their their global they're global and they're base in
But I actually when I was asking you at the
start that Magnificent seven, they're all in your top what
top ten? Would that be fair?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Not all of them? No, So we would own four
of the seven today. And so we like in Video
a lot, we like Meta a lot, we like Amazon
a lot, and we like Microsoft a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Okay, Okay, So tell us that's who you like. And
maybe we could have guessed that to some degree. When
I looked at the top holdings in the fund, there
were some names that weren't at all tech or digital
that you like. Give us an example of some of those.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, So if you're investing in structural changes. There's lots
of structural changes in the world. They don't necessarily have
to be tech. The really simple one for the last
decade is being cashed to card. You know, you can
invest in MasterCard or Visa slightly taking but the reality
is everybody on this this podcast doesn't use cash anymore.
They benefited from that. But another great example for US
has been security. We've been investing in, for instance, European
(08:08):
defense companies for more than three years because we felt
that the war would cause a structural shift in defense spending,
and that's what's happened the Ukraine War. Yes, and we've
invested in things like homeland security, so we own companies
like Axel and Motorolo solutions that you help police with policing,
help with body cameras, et cetera, et cetera. So all
(08:29):
of these areas are basically you're basically trying to identify
the area structural change and identify the winner. Healthcare is
another obvious area where we've goun things like Lily and
Orice that producers and Munjara. So these are big structural
changes that occur in the world, and as a global investor,
we can identify the change and investor benefit for our clients.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
How do you get an edge on that you're sitting
in Australia, how do you say that drug in that
big farmer company is going to be the one that
moves the dial. And what competitive advantage could you possibly have.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's a great question. So what we think and Monroe,
in case you don't know, is a word for Scottish mountains.
Mountains over three thousand feet of Monroe's and I spent
a lot of my career living and working in Edinburgh,
and if you go to other places in the world
like Edinburgh, there are fund managers who sit in a
very far away place in the world and take long
(09:21):
term views of the world. When I looked at those
fund managers, that's what we wanted Monroe to be in Australia.
So we have roughly thirty one people here in Melbourne, Australia,
and we are just trying to solve one problem. Who
are these exceptional companies We look in these areas of
structural growth and obviously we do heaps of research and
we travel extensively.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, so your cultural training was in that well that
Scottish Aberdeen, Scottish widows, Bill Gifford, whoever. They're all in Edinburgh, Canny.
We know that, but that's your cultural context, correct.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, And so the word Monroe is you know, a
bit of homage, because that's how we want it to
be like them. And so to answer your question specifically,
we travel a lot, we talk to everybody in an area,
so we might know the whole world well, but these
areas of structural growth, we know them really well. And
so next week I'm off to see these states. I'm
off to see in Video Gain. I've been going to
see in Video for six years now. We've owned the
(10:12):
company since twenty eighteen. Every time we speak to them,
they tell us what they're doing. Every time we go back,
they're roughly achieving what they say. And so this just
comes from experience and research quite frankly, just extensive research
to help you find those few winners.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And you find getting in front of the companies still
very important. Do are you sitting face to face?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Sitting face to face for the companies and also with
their customers. So in in videos case, for instance, their
biggest customers are other companies we own, like Meta and
Google and Amazon. And they will tell us that in
Video's the best chips. They've been telling us in Video
is the best chips for ten years. So that just
checks out what the other companies told you. And this
is just again but I come back to the first point.
(10:55):
Different to our peers. This is all we're trying to solve.
We're not trying to solve the economy. I'm not trying
to solve what French retail sales are doing. I'm just
trying to solve who are the big structural winners and
as over time we just the more we do it,
the better we get at it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Okay, all right now. One of the things I'm really
interested and hear your view, which seems to be the
big question for the Australian investor this year and the
big question for the big super funds this year, and
they're talking about it on stage and they're giving different answers,
is whether you should stick with the US, whether after
all these years, it can keep doing what it's doing
because it's been so good. And there's been some big
(11:30):
fund address saying we're coming back to Australia, some saying no,
we're sticking with the US. They've been tested, that's for sure.
I want to come back to that after a break. Hello,
Welcome back to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby
(11:50):
here talking to Nick Griffin of the Monroe Partners Investment Group,
specialist really in global investing, offshore investing with a well.
As he's explaining the first part of the show, he's
really interested as picking companies bottom up based on their
numbers and their promise, if you like, of a structural
(12:10):
change which gives them a leap in profitability. I mean,
obviously you mentioned the video. Why wouldn't you. That's the
one that's everyone's favorite right now and it's staying up,
which is fascinating. But Nick, what about that issue then
that how could the US possibly continue to return the
level of returns. It's not that it's been better than
(12:30):
the ASEX, like it's been multiples better than the ASEX
for years and years. Do you think that's forever now?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So from our point of view over the medium term
the answers yes, over the medium term. Over the short term,
I can see why multiples in the US might be
too high and multiples in the UK and France are
too low and they should converge with each other for
a period of time, but in the end it's earning scritter.
As I said before, the Drivestock prices, And if you
want to invest in cloud computing, you have to invest
(13:02):
in the US. If you want to invest in semiconductive development,
you pretty much have to invest in the US. Outside
oft SA Tearsom see in.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Taiwan, there's the emergence of structural tariffs.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Tariffs, and I agree that tariffs are an issue, but
they are sort of a one time issue. So it's
a one time cost to these companies that will that
they'll deal with, but then they'll go back to doing
what they do before, which is, you know, be positioned
in these great areas. And it's not I want to
be clear on the call, it's not the Australian's fault
that this is happening in the US. It happens in
the US not because they're smarter than US. It happens
(13:36):
because they've just got more people and they've got more money.
And so if you think about it, and I've said
this example a lot, if Google was invented in Australia,
it still wouldn't have won. But when Google's invented in
the US, everyone looks at Google, so everyone has to
be on Google. So everyone looks at Google, so everyone
has to be on Google, and then Google becomes the
dominant search engine in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Someone just reminded me the other day that the Australian
company looks smart.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah poor.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Once upon a time met a bit for Google one time,
which would have been really good if Big got it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yes, well, you can have a lot of funny at
Alta Vista, ask Jeeves. Yeahoo, there was exortent. But now
Google has a ninety seven percent market share. That's network
effects at work. Microsoft does this as well. You're the
biggest software company, so everyone uses Microsoft server and has
to be on Microsoft server, news microphones Exactly. The same
thing's happening at Netflix. And so these network effects around
digitalization is concentrating wealth in companies that happened to be
(14:28):
listed in the US. Why because they were. They have
the biggest population based on money base to start with,
not because they're smarter.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you worry at all that the Trump and this
is the second term of Trump, and it's stronger obviously
than ever, more confident if you could imagine such a thing,
but more confident in his position in power, do you
worry that this core worry that the US itself, that
it's bond market, that it's currency may be at a
(14:59):
period where it's about to decline, Like all empires decline,
nothing lasts forever, and it's an empire and it's the
beginning of its decline, and Trump, in some ways is
the personification of that. What do you say to that view.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Of the world. That is a very good question. So
I think we can all agree that these companies are
clearly stronger and potentially more powerful and more likely to
grow than say a French supermarket or a Japanese trading company.
So I think most people can see that and they
want to invest in the US. But the point you
make is a good one. So, but the problem is
(15:31):
what happens if the currency goes down? What happens if
the bond market riots, etc. These are what we would
call exogenous shocks. The currency is less of an issue
because we can hedge that out for instance, and vice versa.
A lot of these companies are foreign earners, so they
actually end up their ownings going up as the currency
going down. But the bond market things a big issue
because if the bond market at it for in some
(15:52):
point then that would cause you know, a significantly bigger
economic slowdown, and I can see some reasons to diversify there.
The only last thing I'd say is, look, obviously, people
have been predicting this for twenty years, and that's twenty
years of great returns they missed out on. It could
and may happen one day, maybe today's day. Maybe it's not.
But obviously that's something we're watching very closely. But fundamentally,
(16:15):
the corporates in the US are growing faster, they're more dynamic,
they're more advantaged, and so ultimately we prefer at least
having at least a good chunk of our money there
because the companies we like the most there.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Okay, all right, well, fairly for some support for the
US market there, Okay, while we have you. For anyone
that's listening to you, what they love to hear from
someone like you is what you see as hotspots and
black spots basically in the coming year, well, this particular climate,
this market, what are the sort of companies and you
(16:48):
have to some extents illustrated what you do like, what
you've always liked. Is there anything new that are a
new theme that you are keen on and are there
themes that you keep away from?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Great And so just to clarify the last question, it
doesn't mean we don't just invest outside the US. We do.
We do. We do like companies like TSMC, for instance,
in Taiwan. And I already talked about European defense stocks earlier.
So if we can find structural growth in other parts
of the world, by all means, we'll invest in Okay,
going forward, this is an exciting time and I know
Trump is causing volatility, and I know it's hard to
(17:22):
keep track of. But in the background we have the
emergence of AI, and so artificial intelligence, we think is
probably going to be the biggest structural change in the
next decade. This is the fourth tectonic shift in computing,
if you think about it. So we went through a
mainframe era, we went through a PC era, we went
through a mobile era. We're now in an AI era.
And so what's going to happen is you're going to
connect every device on the planet to the Internet, and
(17:43):
AI is going to process that data to give us
better outcomes. The beauty of AI, which is really interesting,
is it doesn't just affect software and consumer application and
infects things like autonomous driving, robotics, like drug discovery, and
like security. And so we are finding today companies that
can harness this technology are seeing a massive structural shift
(18:04):
in their ownings growth at a big structural shift in
the attractiveness of their product.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Can you give me an example of somebody.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, So I'll give you a couple of examples. So
one example i'd mentioned is again those security companies I
talked about before. So if you're a company selling security cameras,
for instance, you sell security cameras, you can now put
software on those security cameras, and you can identify who's
at your front door. You can identify threat detection faster
and better, and so you sell hardware and now software
and software. That's quite frankly, everyone is cool. Everyone's podcast
(18:33):
can see is quite useful. That would be one example.
If you think about medical technology or MRI technology, you
can now get an MRI and potentially identify cancer.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Two years earlier diagnostics acceleration.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and so you basically and everybody would know that
finding cancer earlier is obviously what we'd all like to
do to stay live longer. So there's a general benefit
for using the technology and a reason why people would
pay for it. In both those examples, those would be
two i'd give you off the bat. But the last
one is obviously software. You know, we can summarize this podcast.
(19:06):
You can drop it into a GPT and it'll just
tell you what the summary was without having to listen
to the whole thing. You can summarize the good parts.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
If you do that, yeah, you're going to miss jokes.
Tell me about what you don't like.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So what we don't like. So honestly, just mediocre companies.
I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying that they're
stuck in competitive industries that that ultimately I don't have
an edge versus say someone else who's looking at it.
So i'd give you an example here is like banks.
I mean banks are great and obviously in Australia they
(19:40):
have done well, but they're not growing that much and
you rely on interest rates in the economy and a
whole bunch of things that I have a view on,
but I don't have an edge. I've got an edge
on AI I think we do, and that's how we're
making money. Other areas would be you know, a consumer
fashion is hard like, it's hard. I'm not very fashionable,
but I have people on my team who are fashionable.
(20:00):
But fashions change and so it's hard to get a
three to five year viewpoint. We've got some companies in
this area that we like, but it is harder those
And you know, I think you know, things like airlines
and stuff are rather anything that's a highly competitive industry. Lastly,
anything you know that the Chinese get into. If the
Chinese turn up, generally the profits leave.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That sounds like the car. That sounds like that sounds
like cars.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, cars, Cars is a terrible business, you know, basically
margins disappearing at speed in a massive technology race, environmental race.
It's hard and all these national champions that are quite
frankly going to disappear.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Okay, thanks cars, fashion companies. You heard it here first,
all right, I have some actually very I've kept a
couple of questions off my sleeve for you, Nick, and
the fact the very first one is on airlines. So
we will be back in a moment with some very
good questions for me. Hello, oh, and welcome back to
(21:00):
the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby and I'm
talking to Nick Griffin, fund manager at Monroe Partners, specialist
in overseas investing, primarily the US, but oh anywhere in
the world that he thinks he can find value over
and above what your ETF is going to do. And
your premise, Nick, which I didn't give you a chance
(21:21):
to explain, obviously, I mentioned that you have fees. But
your proposal, obviously is you're going to beat the benchmark
being probably been the Mogen Standy Capital Internationally INDICX or whatever.
And to what extent have you managed to do that?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So in our call long any product the manner of
concentrated Global Growth Fund, which is our relative return fund,
we've made it by five percent per annum since.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
In such Okay, all right, very good. Now, question Anthony.
I am interested in the airline sector. This is on
the ASEX I hold Quantus and they have had a
great recovery, Anthony, they have had a great recovery. I
had no idea. I hadn't watched them. You know, everybody's
obsessed with them during the allen joyce Vanessa Hudson. Maybe
you know it was a nice time to come in
(22:03):
to take over an airline in any event, I mean
quite just has tripled since the bad days of COVID,
and it's one of the better stops of the year. Now,
Anthony's question is this, what is your investment take on airlines?
And I mean he mentions obvious things nick like like
the price of aviation fuel, currencies, conflagrations around the world.
(22:27):
But in passing there on the second segment of the show,
you basically said you didn't like airlines.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, I'd put this, Yeah, so I'd put this in
the you know, it's in the hard camp because you
need to I think the viewer poses the question, Well,
you need to understand what's happening with fuel, you understand
what's happening with demand, you need to understand what's happening
with interest rates. These are things that are notoriously hard
to predict. And I'm not saying it's a bad investment,
and value investors could look at it and you can
(22:55):
trade it really well. I would just prefer to say that,
you know, software is going to be an increasing share
of my wallet over a long period of time, and
Microsoft's probably going to get it. And I just think
that's an easy event and a longer term bet. And
so I just encourage people to say, just as a screen,
if you're looking at a company and you can't tell
with extreme confidence what the earnings are going to be
(23:16):
three years from now, that it's probably not investment. It's
a train.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Do you actually believe someone sits in front of you
and says our earnings in three years time should be X.
Do you really take that seriously?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I think from many companies in the world you can
actually and this is where it helps to be global.
You can actually predict that they're in such a strong
competitive position and you know that demand will grow. You
can predict that whether you want to pay them multiple
that you have to pay for it to get that.
It's a different story.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So this will be utility types companies, and I don't
by that, I don't necessarily mean pipelines. I would imagine
Amazon to some extent is utility type.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Tru fact, Amazon is a good example of this. Amazon's
a good example of this. TSMC is a good example
of this. Companies that live in industries where they're oligobalistic, monopolistic,
you know the industry's going to grow, and yes there
might be bumps, but you can say with a reasonable
amount of confidence over the next three to five years,
that the earnings are going to be significantly higher, and
then you're just going to get her out in the multiple.
(24:12):
And the multiple is a different conversation, but that's more
of an investment. The ones where you can't predict it,
you're ultimately trading. And that's okay. People are really good
at that, and other people did. It's just not how
we do it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
The problem with bottom up investing is the course that
the on four that the black swan, the thing you
can't see coming. Like you mentioned t SMC and I'm
sure our listeners know that's Taiwan, the key semi conductor
company in the world, based in Taiwan. I'm sure it's
earnings are great, it's in Taiwan. There's political risks there.
Do you how do you factor that in?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, so obviously that's something I didn't say. I want
to say you sit here with confidence and say you
think that's going to happen. It doesn't mean it's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
And of course we presume you don't know the future.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But there's plenty of companies you can sit here today
and you say I can't actually predict this, but I'm
going to invest anyway, that's what we don't do. So
this is what we think will happen. So I mean,
Taiwan does not get invaded, semikin demand's going to go up.
TSMC's a monopoly and their earnings will go up all
over time and probably double over the next five years.
But obviously things can go wrong, and that's what liquidity
(25:12):
is for. That's what things like stop losses are for,
and because sometimes you're going to make mistakes and you
should be obviously aware of that.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Actually, the next question is on stop losses, which again
I've curated especially for you, Huie. He says capital protection
and position sizing is often mentioned as having a large
impact on investor returns. I was hoping you could discuss
the use of stop losses for your average investor. Now
here's something really interesting, Hue. And of course, as always, folks,
(25:39):
none of this is advice information, only that Nick I
saw reports a few months ago. I knew you. I
knew as a fund that you guys were well into
the US, and then I saw how the Trump there
was the Trump sort of scare, if you like. In
when was it February when the market's really tumbled when
he launched the tower. He launched the tower. Really, I
(26:01):
saw where you had stop losses and at one stage
that allowed your That meant your cash, which I imagine is
normally sitting at something like five to ten percent in
your funds, blew up to thirty percent of your fund
So I expect that was useful as long as you
applied it very smartly. Afterwards, I don't know how you did,
and I know, and I think it's worth putting on
(26:22):
the record that this last quarter, I mean, you haven't
matched the index in this quarter for because whatever you're
up to strategically, which I'm sure you're hoping will work
out better. But that's worth putting on the table in
an event for a Hue Week about stop losses. They're useful.
Can you explain, if you would, what you think about
them for the every day investor who's listening to the show.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah. So it's a great question, and it's very misdute. Okay,
So if you think about it, you're trying to find
the top twenty to forty companies in the world, and
you're looking at the universe of thirty thousand. Let's take
it statistically, you're probably going to make some mistakes. In fact,
take it to the bank. You are going to make
some mistakes. Every investor will, and to listening to this
podcast has probably got a company that they owned that's
(27:03):
sitting in the bottom drawer that they've lost ninety percent
of their money on and they can't bring themselves to
look at it. Seemed like a good idea at the time,
but they just and then they just kept hanging on
and hang in. We all o that, and trust me,
it's easy to do. So what a stop loss does
is you just basically pick a number minus ten, minus twenty, whatever,
and you force yourself to look at the company. So
(27:24):
you don't have to sell it. You just force yourself.
We force ourselves to repitch the investment case. And when
we repitch that investment case, we say, has anything changed?
And if nothing's changed, then you know our mass is
still right. We're still happy to own the company. But
often if you force yourself to look at it before
it turns into ninety percent, you might recognize that actually
something's changed. And in this case it was tariff's tariffs changed.
(27:45):
The tariff policy was much worse than everyone predicted, including us,
And if that has changed, for the company, and that's
going to change the earnings, then you should change your view.
And so what we're trying to do there is it's
a reaction function. We're trying to force ourselves to look
at it quickly to change our view. And you made
the point earlier. You know, there was eleven search engines once,
(28:05):
and I could have been sitting here with my Yahoo
stock saying, yeah, who's going to be the one. It's
going to be the one. But eventually, at some point
it would have stopped out or stop lost. I would
have forced myself to look at it. I would have
gone I probably shouldn't be in Yahoo, and then I
probably would have ended up at Google. So not only
does it not only does it force you out of
your mistakes, it can often force you towards the winner
that you missed the first time.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Right. And the stop loss is where you see to
the broker, if this stock goes under fifteen percent from
where it is, or pick a number ten twenty percent,
sell it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
So that's a direct that's how it can be interpreted.
But that's not what we do. So we're not forced
to sell it, We're just forced to review it.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Okay, So an alarm bell rings for you.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
And our alarm bell rings. Yes, and we're reviewing it
and then we can keep it. If we all decide
to keep it, we can keep it, but we can
only keep it for thirty days, and then you have
to review it again. And then in thirty days time,
you have to review it again, and eventually you realize
the mistake, you mate. And I think the simple way
to think about this, James, is, Look, the reality is
people spend all their time doing research buying stocks, and
(29:07):
then they buy them, but they don't do the same
amount of research when they're selling stocks. They just assume
every one of them is going to be great. But
statistically we know that's not what's going to happen. So
your cell decision is as important as your buy decision.
And so all we're doing is putting some discipline around
that rather than just assuming everything's going to be fine
the whole time, because as you pointed out earlier, everything's
(29:27):
not going to be fine the whole time. You know,
and you know, BlackBerry wasn't the smartphone winner, and eBay
wasn't the e commerce winner, and you know, and the
list goes on, and so you just got to be
wary that you're looking in the right place, but you
made a mistake, Accept the mistake, and go find the
next one. Otherwise it just sits in your bottom drawer,
it's away at your head, and it's stopping you from
making your next best decision. When mistakes is part of
(29:50):
this business. Everyone makes them, including us.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So it sounds like you think it's a damn good
idea really for someone like all the Hueyes of the
world out there to actively have stop last positions on
on not on all stocks, I imagine, but on volatile stocks, correct.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I think all you're saying is the price is potentially
forcing you to say question your view now often most
of the time, we decided to keep it Amazon, we've
owned for a decade. It would have stoped lost twenty
times over that period, and we never sold it. We
kept it the whole way. In Video, we've owned for
six years. It would have stoped lost twenty times over
the whole period, but we forced ourselves to requestion the
(30:25):
investment case and forever Nvidia, I can assure you there's
another five that didn't work out like that, where the
stop loss saved us a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Okay, terrific, very good, I'm very interesting. I think we
leave it there.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Nick.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We haven't had you on the show before. I'm delighted
we did hope to have you on again. Thank you
for your time.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Lovely to have you Okay, folks, keep the emails rolling.
Love to have some more on the markets too, because
we've been distracted by other issues of late particularly super etc.
But hey, you know you make your money in the markets.
Let's have some questions the money puzzle at the Australian
dot com dot Hey, you talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Servan
Hello, and welcome to the Australians Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirby. Welcome aboard everybody. Now, for investors in shares,
the single biggest question I believe this year is how
you as an investor deal with the market, the share market,
the global market under the influence if you like, of
(00:30):
the US and Donald Trump. And if you get this right,
I think you will win in the market, as has
been the case for some time now since the election
of Trump. And if you get it wrong, your share
portfolio I think would be something of a sorry sight
in a few months time. And the same goes for
people who are professionals in the market, who are specialists
(00:52):
in the market. And my guest today is a specialist
in the market. It's Nick Griffin. He is the co
founder and chief investment officer at the Monro Group. The
Monro Group is a fund manager has about six billion
dollars under management at the moment. It's an active manager.
They are stock pickers. They select a relatively small amount
(01:13):
of stocks and go with it. How are you, Nick?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Good? Thanks James yourself?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Good? Thank you. Nice to have you on the show.
It's a funny thing as we sit here midyear, mid
calendar year on the show for all the dramas, and
I imagine a lot of traders or lost a lot
of money. But for all the dramas, things have almost
back to where they started. On Trump. By that I
mean shares. They're not greatly up or greatly down on
(01:40):
the market so far, but that's by no means indicates
that Trump has settled down. Is Trump and his administration
and their activities do they really, to a large extent
director affect how your outcomes will be this year and
going forward?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So great question, and yes, they obviously have some influence.
We have a tagline at Monroe Partner's which is called
invest in the Journey. We run global equity products that
invest in global growth companies, so any company outside of
Australia that we think can grow over time. And it
has been a journey in the first half of the year,
that's for sure. What we're seeing here is the share
markets sort of get used to the way Trump does business,
(02:23):
which is to, you know, do something really big and
see what breaks and then roll it back. We sort
of should know this because that's what he did last
time as well. But ultimately it's important for all the
listeners to remember that ultimately that the global equities and
stocks generally follow their earnings. And so what you've really
got to analyze out of Trump is he doing anything
(02:43):
that's going to change the earnings outlook for these companies.
And I would argue in some cases that's correct. Yes,
you know, if you're affected by tariffs, your earnings will
be affected. If you're expecting an economic recovery this year,
that may not happen. But in other cases, like for instance, Microsoft,
you know is a good example, it's not really going
to change how much money Microsoft's going to make this year,
and it's probably not going to change what they're going
(03:04):
to make next year. And so many people have used
this volatility as an opportunity to invest in things that
they feel confident to get to grow earnings regardless of
the environment. That's sort of how i'd frame the discussion.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, I see you as a fund manager, and I
see and you are an active fund manager. I won't
say old style, that's not because that's probably not what
you want to hear, but you're an active fund manager, right,
So your proposition to the investor is, look, I'm going
to charge you a fee and if I outperform beyond
what my benchmark is, I'm going to charge an extra
(03:36):
fee performance fee, and I am going to select from
you know, thousands and thousands of stocks a relatively small
amount twenty to forty in your two big funds, and
you have to come with me, as you say, on
this journey. This area has been a minefield of recent times,
and the big names that we all knew, Midgellen and Platinum,
(03:58):
they've all come undone to the uninitiated, you're doing something
awfully similar, but you are growing and have had good results,
particularly since your inception. So what is your approach? What
is your could you try and to steal your distinct
approach why you've managed to grow when others around you
(04:19):
are struggling.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. So I think a
lot of people look at the share market the wrong way.
A lot of people sort of and a lot of
those companies you mentioned, they would look at the share
market and basically say, this is what we think the
global economy is going to do, and we want to
be overweight certain countries because that country's economy is going
to do better and this other country economy is can
do worse, and this sector will be better, and this
(04:43):
sector will do worse. And we would say that's just
all noise and probably, quite frankly, a bit of a
waste of time. The reality is, in our opinion, the
equity market is made up of very few great companies
and thousand thousands of mediocre ones. The reality is the
S and P five hundred is not actually the it's
the best five hundred companies in the United States, and
it's made up of these exceptional businesses that are doing
(05:06):
exceptional things, and that exceptional things that they do create
strong earnings growth, and their earnings growth creates share price growth.
So when we look at the world, what we're trying
to do for our clients to say, we have the
entire world to choose from. There's more than thirty thousand
listed companies. We're going to do our best effort to
pick the most exceptional twenty to forty that we think
(05:27):
we can buy at good valuations, that they think can
grow structurally sustainably over a long period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So you're you're a bottom up, well, it's very much
bottom up and very much what you described that you
don't make is top down. Okay, so you're associated you've
had a good run beyond doubt by being involved in
the Magnificent seven stocks and they did very well for you.
If we take a long period of time in the
(05:52):
last few years as IF fund manager, that's what allowed
you to grow. And they are the outstanding sort of
champions of you. Like all of the arguments you're making,
will they continue to be.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah? And so to do this well, what you should
do is not look at the economy or the sectors,
look at the big structural changes and who's going to win.
So that's what we do. We try and identify the
big structural changes and you identify who win. You talked
about the Magnificent seven. They are the big digital winners. Okay,
So everybody on this phone call remembers, you know, when
we used to read newspapers on the train. We don't anymore.
(06:28):
We read our phone and generally we're looking at Facebook
or Instagram, or we're looking at Google, etc. And so
they have structurally won from digital advertising. There's no reason
why that one continue. They've structurally won by the shift
to the cloud. So anybody who hosts anything in the
cloud has to host it at three companies. Amazon Google
or Microsoft. They're the only cloud providers on the planet.
(06:48):
And so what's generally happening here is digitalization is creating
network effects around these companies, and they become the advertising
company for the world, they become the software company for
the world. And so all they're doing is taking share
from Channel seven, Channel nine, Fairfax, et cetera, and bring
that back to the US. So coming back to my point,
they're not really linked to the US economy. They're linked
(07:10):
to the point that digital takes share.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
From their their global they're global and they're base in
But I actually when I was asking you at the
start that Magnificent seven, they're all in your top what
top ten? Would that be fair?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Not all of them? No, So we would own four
of the seven today. And so we like in Video
a lot, we like Meta a lot, we like Amazon
a lot, and we like Microsoft a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Okay, Okay, So tell us that's who you like. And
maybe we could have guessed that to some degree. When
I looked at the top holdings in the fund, there
were some names that weren't at all tech or digital
that you like. Give us an example of some of those.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, So if you're investing in structural changes. There's lots
of structural changes in the world. They don't necessarily have
to be tech. The really simple one for the last
decade is being cashed to card. You know, you can
invest in MasterCard or Visa slightly taking but the reality
is everybody on this this podcast doesn't use cash anymore.
They benefited from that. But another great example for US
has been security. We've been investing in, for instance, European
(08:08):
defense companies for more than three years because we felt
that the war would cause a structural shift in defense spending,
and that's what's happened the Ukraine War. Yes, and we've
invested in things like homeland security, so we own companies
like Axel and Motorolo solutions that you help police with policing,
help with body cameras, et cetera, et cetera. So all
(08:29):
of these areas are basically you're basically trying to identify
the area structural change and identify the winner. Healthcare is
another obvious area where we've goun things like Lily and
Orice that producers and Munjara. So these are big structural
changes that occur in the world, and as a global investor,
we can identify the change and investor benefit for our clients.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
How do you get an edge on that you're sitting
in Australia, how do you say that drug in that
big farmer company is going to be the one that
moves the dial. And what competitive advantage could you possibly have.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's a great question. So what we think and Monroe,
in case you don't know, is a word for Scottish mountains.
Mountains over three thousand feet of Monroe's and I spent
a lot of my career living and working in Edinburgh,
and if you go to other places in the world
like Edinburgh, there are fund managers who sit in a
very far away place in the world and take long
(09:21):
term views of the world. When I looked at those
fund managers, that's what we wanted Monroe to be in Australia.
So we have roughly thirty one people here in Melbourne, Australia,
and we are just trying to solve one problem. Who
are these exceptional companies We look in these areas of
structural growth and obviously we do heaps of research and
we travel extensively.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, so your cultural training was in that well that
Scottish Aberdeen, Scottish widows, Bill Gifford, whoever. They're all in Edinburgh, Canny.
We know that, but that's your cultural context, correct.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, And so the word Monroe is you know, a
bit of homage, because that's how we want it to
be like them. And so to answer your question specifically,
we travel a lot, we talk to everybody in an area,
so we might know the whole world well, but these
areas of structural growth, we know them really well. And
so next week I'm off to see these states. I'm
off to see in Video Gain. I've been going to
see in Video for six years now. We've owned the
(10:12):
company since twenty eighteen. Every time we speak to them,
they tell us what they're doing. Every time we go back,
they're roughly achieving what they say. And so this just
comes from experience and research quite frankly, just extensive research
to help you find those few winners.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And you find getting in front of the companies still
very important. Do are you sitting face to face?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Sitting face to face for the companies and also with
their customers. So in in videos case, for instance, their
biggest customers are other companies we own, like Meta and
Google and Amazon. And they will tell us that in
Video's the best chips. They've been telling us in Video
is the best chips for ten years. So that just
checks out what the other companies told you. And this
is just again but I come back to the first point.
(10:55):
Different to our peers. This is all we're trying to solve.
We're not trying to solve the economy. I'm not trying
to solve what French retail sales are doing. I'm just
trying to solve who are the big structural winners and
as over time we just the more we do it,
the better we get at it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Okay, all right now. One of the things I'm really
interested and hear your view, which seems to be the
big question for the Australian investor this year and the
big question for the big super funds this year, and
they're talking about it on stage and they're giving different answers,
is whether you should stick with the US, whether after
all these years, it can keep doing what it's doing
because it's been so good. And there's been some big
(11:30):
fund address saying we're coming back to Australia, some saying no,
we're sticking with the US. They've been tested, that's for sure.
I want to come back to that after a break. Hello,
Welcome back to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby
(11:50):
here talking to Nick Griffin of the Monroe Partners Investment Group,
specialist really in global investing, offshore investing with a well.
As he's explaining the first part of the show, he's
really interested as picking companies bottom up based on their
numbers and their promise, if you like, of a structural
(12:10):
change which gives them a leap in profitability. I mean,
obviously you mentioned the video. Why wouldn't you. That's the
one that's everyone's favorite right now and it's staying up,
which is fascinating. But Nick, what about that issue then
that how could the US possibly continue to return the
level of returns. It's not that it's been better than
(12:30):
the ASEX, like it's been multiples better than the ASEX
for years and years. Do you think that's forever now?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So from our point of view over the medium term
the answers yes, over the medium term. Over the short term,
I can see why multiples in the US might be
too high and multiples in the UK and France are
too low and they should converge with each other for
a period of time, but in the end it's earning scritter.
As I said before, the Drivestock prices, And if you
want to invest in cloud computing, you have to invest
(13:02):
in the US. If you want to invest in semiconductive development,
you pretty much have to invest in the US. Outside
oft SA Tearsom see in.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Taiwan, there's the emergence of structural tariffs.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Tariffs, and I agree that tariffs are an issue, but
they are sort of a one time issue. So it's
a one time cost to these companies that will that
they'll deal with, but then they'll go back to doing
what they do before, which is, you know, be positioned
in these great areas. And it's not I want to
be clear on the call, it's not the Australian's fault
that this is happening in the US. It happens in
the US not because they're smarter than US. It happens
(13:36):
because they've just got more people and they've got more money.
And so if you think about it, and I've said
this example a lot, if Google was invented in Australia,
it still wouldn't have won. But when Google's invented in
the US, everyone looks at Google, so everyone has to
be on Google. So everyone looks at Google, so everyone
has to be on Google, and then Google becomes the
dominant search engine in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Someone just reminded me the other day that the Australian
company looks smart.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah poor.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Once upon a time met a bit for Google one time,
which would have been really good if Big got it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yes, well, you can have a lot of funny at
Alta Vista, ask Jeeves. Yeahoo, there was exortent. But now
Google has a ninety seven percent market share. That's network
effects at work. Microsoft does this as well. You're the
biggest software company, so everyone uses Microsoft server and has
to be on Microsoft server, news microphones Exactly. The same
thing's happening at Netflix. And so these network effects around
digitalization is concentrating wealth in companies that happened to be
(14:28):
listed in the US. Why because they were. They have
the biggest population based on money base to start with,
not because they're smarter.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you worry at all that the Trump and this
is the second term of Trump, and it's stronger obviously
than ever, more confident if you could imagine such a thing,
but more confident in his position in power, do you
worry that this core worry that the US itself, that
it's bond market, that it's currency may be at a
(14:59):
period where it's about to decline, Like all empires decline,
nothing lasts forever, and it's an empire and it's the
beginning of its decline, and Trump, in some ways is
the personification of that. What do you say to that view.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Of the world. That is a very good question. So
I think we can all agree that these companies are
clearly stronger and potentially more powerful and more likely to
grow than say a French supermarket or a Japanese trading company.
So I think most people can see that and they
want to invest in the US. But the point you
make is a good one. So, but the problem is
(15:31):
what happens if the currency goes down? What happens if
the bond market riots, etc. These are what we would
call exogenous shocks. The currency is less of an issue
because we can hedge that out for instance, and vice versa.
A lot of these companies are foreign earners, so they
actually end up their ownings going up as the currency
going down. But the bond market things a big issue
because if the bond market at it for in some
(15:52):
point then that would cause you know, a significantly bigger
economic slowdown, and I can see some reasons to diversify there.
The only last thing I'd say is, look, obviously, people
have been predicting this for twenty years, and that's twenty
years of great returns they missed out on. It could
and may happen one day, maybe today's day. Maybe it's not.
But obviously that's something we're watching very closely. But fundamentally,
(16:15):
the corporates in the US are growing faster, they're more dynamic,
they're more advantaged, and so ultimately we prefer at least
having at least a good chunk of our money there
because the companies we like the most there.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Okay, all right, well, fairly for some support for the
US market there, Okay, while we have you. For anyone
that's listening to you, what they love to hear from
someone like you is what you see as hotspots and
black spots basically in the coming year, well, this particular climate,
this market, what are the sort of companies and you
(16:48):
have to some extents illustrated what you do like, what
you've always liked. Is there anything new that are a
new theme that you are keen on and are there
themes that you keep away from?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Great And so just to clarify the last question, it
doesn't mean we don't just invest outside the US. We do.
We do. We do like companies like TSMC, for instance,
in Taiwan. And I already talked about European defense stocks earlier.
So if we can find structural growth in other parts
of the world, by all means, we'll invest in Okay,
going forward, this is an exciting time and I know
Trump is causing volatility, and I know it's hard to
(17:22):
keep track of. But in the background we have the
emergence of AI, and so artificial intelligence, we think is
probably going to be the biggest structural change in the
next decade. This is the fourth tectonic shift in computing,
if you think about it. So we went through a
mainframe era, we went through a PC era, we went
through a mobile era. We're now in an AI era.
And so what's going to happen is you're going to
connect every device on the planet to the Internet, and
(17:43):
AI is going to process that data to give us
better outcomes. The beauty of AI, which is really interesting,
is it doesn't just affect software and consumer application and
infects things like autonomous driving, robotics, like drug discovery, and
like security. And so we are finding today companies that
can harness this technology are seeing a massive structural shift
(18:04):
in their ownings growth at a big structural shift in
the attractiveness of their product.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Can you give me an example of somebody.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, So I'll give you a couple of examples. So
one example i'd mentioned is again those security companies I
talked about before. So if you're a company selling security cameras,
for instance, you sell security cameras, you can now put
software on those security cameras, and you can identify who's
at your front door. You can identify threat detection faster
and better, and so you sell hardware and now software
and software. That's quite frankly, everyone is cool. Everyone's podcast
(18:33):
can see is quite useful. That would be one example.
If you think about medical technology or MRI technology, you
can now get an MRI and potentially identify cancer.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Two years earlier diagnostics acceleration.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and so you basically and everybody would know that
finding cancer earlier is obviously what we'd all like to
do to stay live longer. So there's a general benefit
for using the technology and a reason why people would
pay for it. In both those examples, those would be
two i'd give you off the bat. But the last
one is obviously software. You know, we can summarize this podcast.
(19:06):
You can drop it into a GPT and it'll just
tell you what the summary was without having to listen
to the whole thing. You can summarize the good parts.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
If you do that, yeah, you're going to miss jokes.
Tell me about what you don't like.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So what we don't like. So honestly, just mediocre companies.
I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying that they're
stuck in competitive industries that that ultimately I don't have
an edge versus say someone else who's looking at it.
So i'd give you an example here is like banks.
I mean banks are great and obviously in Australia they
(19:40):
have done well, but they're not growing that much and
you rely on interest rates in the economy and a
whole bunch of things that I have a view on,
but I don't have an edge. I've got an edge
on AI I think we do, and that's how we're
making money. Other areas would be you know, a consumer
fashion is hard like, it's hard. I'm not very fashionable,
but I have people on my team who are fashionable.
(20:00):
But fashions change and so it's hard to get a
three to five year viewpoint. We've got some companies in
this area that we like, but it is harder those
And you know, I think you know, things like airlines
and stuff are rather anything that's a highly competitive industry. Lastly,
anything you know that the Chinese get into. If the
Chinese turn up, generally the profits leave.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That sounds like the car. That sounds like that sounds
like cars.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, cars, Cars is a terrible business, you know, basically
margins disappearing at speed in a massive technology race, environmental race.
It's hard and all these national champions that are quite
frankly going to disappear.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Okay, thanks cars, fashion companies. You heard it here first,
all right, I have some actually very I've kept a
couple of questions off my sleeve for you, Nick, and
the fact the very first one is on airlines. So
we will be back in a moment with some very
good questions for me. Hello, oh, and welcome back to
(21:00):
the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby and I'm
talking to Nick Griffin, fund manager at Monroe Partners, specialist
in overseas investing, primarily the US, but oh anywhere in
the world that he thinks he can find value over
and above what your ETF is going to do. And
your premise, Nick, which I didn't give you a chance
(21:21):
to explain, obviously, I mentioned that you have fees. But
your proposal, obviously is you're going to beat the benchmark
being probably been the Mogen Standy Capital Internationally INDICX or whatever.
And to what extent have you managed to do that?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So in our call long any product the manner of
concentrated Global Growth Fund, which is our relative return fund,
we've made it by five percent per annum since.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
In such Okay, all right, very good. Now, question Anthony.
I am interested in the airline sector. This is on
the ASEX I hold Quantus and they have had a
great recovery, Anthony, they have had a great recovery. I
had no idea. I hadn't watched them. You know, everybody's
obsessed with them during the allen joyce Vanessa Hudson. Maybe
you know it was a nice time to come in
(22:03):
to take over an airline in any event, I mean
quite just has tripled since the bad days of COVID,
and it's one of the better stops of the year. Now,
Anthony's question is this, what is your investment take on airlines?
And I mean he mentions obvious things nick like like
the price of aviation fuel, currencies, conflagrations around the world.
(22:27):
But in passing there on the second segment of the show,
you basically said you didn't like airlines.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, I'd put this, Yeah, so I'd put this in
the you know, it's in the hard camp because you
need to I think the viewer poses the question, Well,
you need to understand what's happening with fuel, you understand
what's happening with demand, you need to understand what's happening
with interest rates. These are things that are notoriously hard
to predict. And I'm not saying it's a bad investment,
and value investors could look at it and you can
(22:55):
trade it really well. I would just prefer to say that,
you know, software is going to be an increasing share
of my wallet over a long period of time, and
Microsoft's probably going to get it. And I just think
that's an easy event and a longer term bet. And
so I just encourage people to say, just as a screen,
if you're looking at a company and you can't tell
with extreme confidence what the earnings are going to be
(23:16):
three years from now, that it's probably not investment. It's
a train.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Do you actually believe someone sits in front of you
and says our earnings in three years time should be X.
Do you really take that seriously?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I think from many companies in the world you can
actually and this is where it helps to be global.
You can actually predict that they're in such a strong
competitive position and you know that demand will grow. You
can predict that whether you want to pay them multiple
that you have to pay for it to get that.
It's a different story.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So this will be utility types companies, and I don't
by that, I don't necessarily mean pipelines. I would imagine
Amazon to some extent is utility type.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Tru fact, Amazon is a good example of this. Amazon's
a good example of this. TSMC is a good example
of this. Companies that live in industries where they're oligobalistic, monopolistic,
you know the industry's going to grow, and yes there
might be bumps, but you can say with a reasonable
amount of confidence over the next three to five years,
that the earnings are going to be significantly higher, and
then you're just going to get her out in the multiple.
(24:12):
And the multiple is a different conversation, but that's more
of an investment. The ones where you can't predict it,
you're ultimately trading. And that's okay. People are really good
at that, and other people did. It's just not how
we do it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
The problem with bottom up investing is the course that
the on four that the black swan, the thing you
can't see coming. Like you mentioned t SMC and I'm
sure our listeners know that's Taiwan, the key semi conductor
company in the world, based in Taiwan. I'm sure it's
earnings are great, it's in Taiwan. There's political risks there.
Do you how do you factor that in?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, so obviously that's something I didn't say. I want
to say you sit here with confidence and say you
think that's going to happen. It doesn't mean it's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
And of course we presume you don't know the future.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But there's plenty of companies you can sit here today
and you say I can't actually predict this, but I'm
going to invest anyway, that's what we don't do. So
this is what we think will happen. So I mean,
Taiwan does not get invaded, semikin demand's going to go up.
TSMC's a monopoly and their earnings will go up all
over time and probably double over the next five years.
But obviously things can go wrong, and that's what liquidity
(25:12):
is for. That's what things like stop losses are for,
and because sometimes you're going to make mistakes and you
should be obviously aware of that.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Actually, the next question is on stop losses, which again
I've curated especially for you, Huie. He says capital protection
and position sizing is often mentioned as having a large
impact on investor returns. I was hoping you could discuss
the use of stop losses for your average investor. Now
here's something really interesting, Hue. And of course, as always, folks,
(25:39):
none of this is advice information, only that Nick I
saw reports a few months ago. I knew you. I
knew as a fund that you guys were well into
the US, and then I saw how the Trump there
was the Trump sort of scare, if you like. In
when was it February when the market's really tumbled when
he launched the tower. He launched the tower. Really, I
(26:01):
saw where you had stop losses and at one stage
that allowed your That meant your cash, which I imagine is
normally sitting at something like five to ten percent in
your funds, blew up to thirty percent of your fund
So I expect that was useful as long as you
applied it very smartly. Afterwards, I don't know how you did,
and I know, and I think it's worth putting on
(26:22):
the record that this last quarter, I mean, you haven't
matched the index in this quarter for because whatever you're
up to strategically, which I'm sure you're hoping will work
out better. But that's worth putting on the table in
an event for a Hue Week about stop losses. They're useful.
Can you explain, if you would, what you think about
them for the every day investor who's listening to the show.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah. So it's a great question, and it's very misdute. Okay,
So if you think about it, you're trying to find
the top twenty to forty companies in the world, and
you're looking at the universe of thirty thousand. Let's take
it statistically, you're probably going to make some mistakes. In fact,
take it to the bank. You are going to make
some mistakes. Every investor will, and to listening to this
podcast has probably got a company that they owned that's
(27:03):
sitting in the bottom drawer that they've lost ninety percent
of their money on and they can't bring themselves to
look at it. Seemed like a good idea at the time,
but they just and then they just kept hanging on
and hang in. We all o that, and trust me,
it's easy to do. So what a stop loss does
is you just basically pick a number minus ten, minus twenty, whatever,
and you force yourself to look at the company. So
(27:24):
you don't have to sell it. You just force yourself.
We force ourselves to repitch the investment case. And when
we repitch that investment case, we say, has anything changed?
And if nothing's changed, then you know our mass is
still right. We're still happy to own the company. But
often if you force yourself to look at it before
it turns into ninety percent, you might recognize that actually
something's changed. And in this case it was tariff's tariffs changed.
(27:45):
The tariff policy was much worse than everyone predicted, including us,
And if that has changed, for the company, and that's
going to change the earnings, then you should change your view.
And so what we're trying to do there is it's
a reaction function. We're trying to force ourselves to look
at it quickly to change our view. And you made
the point earlier. You know, there was eleven search engines once,
(28:05):
and I could have been sitting here with my Yahoo
stock saying, yeah, who's going to be the one. It's
going to be the one. But eventually, at some point
it would have stopped out or stop lost. I would
have forced myself to look at it. I would have
gone I probably shouldn't be in Yahoo, and then I
probably would have ended up at Google. So not only
does it not only does it force you out of
your mistakes, it can often force you towards the winner
that you missed the first time.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Right. And the stop loss is where you see to
the broker, if this stock goes under fifteen percent from
where it is, or pick a number ten twenty percent,
sell it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
So that's a direct that's how it can be interpreted.
But that's not what we do. So we're not forced
to sell it, We're just forced to review it.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Okay, So an alarm bell rings for you.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
And our alarm bell rings. Yes, and we're reviewing it
and then we can keep it. If we all decide
to keep it, we can keep it, but we can
only keep it for thirty days, and then you have
to review it again. And then in thirty days time,
you have to review it again, and eventually you realize
the mistake, you mate. And I think the simple way
to think about this, James, is, Look, the reality is
people spend all their time doing research buying stocks, and
(29:07):
then they buy them, but they don't do the same
amount of research when they're selling stocks. They just assume
every one of them is going to be great. But
statistically we know that's not what's going to happen. So
your cell decision is as important as your buy decision.
And so all we're doing is putting some discipline around
that rather than just assuming everything's going to be fine
the whole time, because as you pointed out earlier, everything's
(29:27):
not going to be fine the whole time. You know,
and you know, BlackBerry wasn't the smartphone winner, and eBay
wasn't the e commerce winner, and you know, and the
list goes on, and so you just got to be
wary that you're looking in the right place, but you
made a mistake, Accept the mistake, and go find the
next one. Otherwise it just sits in your bottom drawer,
it's away at your head, and it's stopping you from
making your next best decision. When mistakes is part of
(29:50):
this business. Everyone makes them, including us.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So it sounds like you think it's a damn good
idea really for someone like all the Hueyes of the
world out there to actively have stop last positions on
on not on all stocks, I imagine, but on volatile stocks, correct.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I think all you're saying is the price is potentially
forcing you to say question your view now often most
of the time, we decided to keep it Amazon, we've
owned for a decade. It would have stoped lost twenty
times over that period, and we never sold it. We
kept it the whole way. In Video, we've owned for
six years. It would have stoped lost twenty times over
the whole period, but we forced ourselves to requestion the
(30:25):
investment case and forever Nvidia, I can assure you there's
another five that didn't work out like that, where the
stop loss saved us a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Okay, terrific, very good, I'm very interesting. I think we
leave it there.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Nick.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We haven't had you on the show before. I'm delighted
we did hope to have you on again. Thank you
for your time.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Lovely to have you Okay, folks, keep the emails rolling.
Love to have some more on the markets too, because
we've been distracted by other issues of late particularly super etc.
But hey, you know you make your money in the markets.
Let's have some questions the money puzzle at the Australian
dot com dot Hey, you talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Servan
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