2021 is almost in the books, and it’s once again time to have a quick review of how markets fared. While noticeably less “historic” than 2020’s record breaking year in terms of market volatility and extraordinary events, there were enough developments to keep market participants on their toes.
If you haven’t already heard about the looming shortage of AdBlue, you soon will. You see, AdBlue, is needed to run the diesel engines of trucks and farm machinery and hospital generators. And, according to some industry players, Australia will run out in February 2022.
Regulatory uncertainty has been a material overhang for EML Payments’ (ASX:EML) share price since back in mid-May 2021 when the FinTech first informed the market that the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) had raised significant regulatory concerns relating to the recently acquired Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) business’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML & CTF) risk and controls.
In this week’s video insight David interviews portfolio manager of the Montgomery Small Companies Fund Gary Rollo to discuss Megaport (ASX:MP1). Megaport has a market capitalisation of around 3. 4 billion and the share price has increased 33 per cent in the past 6 months.
When it comes to home lending, most of the attention is put on the big four banks. But what about the non-bank lenders like Liberty Financial, Resimac, Pepper Money and AFG? It seems they are faring pretty well, and picking up new customers as the majors re-set their focus on the highest quality borrowers.
Despite the world speeding along on the road to electrification, we think the humble petrol station will still be needed for some years to come, particularly here in Australia. Which is why the Montgomery Small Companies Fund has invested in both Waypoint REIT (ASX:WPR), and mining companies producing the lithium that goes into electric vehicles batteries.
