Investor Insights

Chinese payments and fintech giant Ant Group is expected to IPO in October at a valuation exceeding US$200 billion. Being investors in Alibaba Group, which owns 33 per cent of Ant, it was imperative for us to form a view on the Ant business.

In November 2019, Saracen Mineral Holdings (ASX: SAR) acquired 50 per cent of the Fimiston Open Pit, known colloquially as the Kalgoorlie Super Pit, from Barrick Resources for US$800 million. A month later Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) bought Newmont’s 50 per cent stake for US$750 million.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) providers, like Afterpay and Zip, are all the rage. But do their soaring share prices reflect their real value and future earning power? Or are we just witnessing the latest incarnation of tulip mania? I sometimes wonder how we will look back on the rise of profitless growth stocks.

Corporate Travel Management (ASX:CTD) announced last week the US$200 million acquisition of US-based Travel & Transport (T&T) which transforms the company’s North American business and positions the company as the global leader in mid-market corporate travel services.

  In this week’s video insight Roger discusses cloud computing and a small cap opportunity in the space. We currently believe companies within this sector will see a long runway for growth. One company delivering the framework on which this innovation cycle is being built is Macquarie Telecom. The Montgomery Small Companies Fund  owns shares in Macquarie Telecom.

Just last week, the Federal Government decided to loosen lending requirements for Australian banks – a move that’s completely at odds with the recommendations of the Commissioner, Kenneth Haynes.   Sure, investors seemed to like the decision, pushing bank stocks higher. But will this all end badly, once again?

  In this week’s video insight Roger discusses how to position for the possibility of a vaccine and reopening. When the global economy reopens further, there will likely be many more sectors returning to growth. We are looking for companies that are winners in sectors that have had their outlooks impacted.

Since the market bottom of the Global Financial Crisis in March 2009, the Russell 1000 Growth Index (R1G) has outperformed the Russell 1000 Value Index (R1V) by over 300 per cent cumulatively.

Globally, investors have hitherto been blissfully optimistic about the end of hard lockdowns, the development of a potential vaccine and broad economic re-openings. But all that may be about to change. The share price of cruise line operators such as Carnival Cruises is perhaps one of the better indicators of how realistic such optimistic sentiment is. Figure 1.

Digital transformation is accelerating due to COVID-19, presenting investors with compelling investment opportunities. In part two of our whitepaper series, we discuss why the very best businesses are often undervalued by public equity markets and what this means for investors. For example, in 2006, Salesforce was trading at 104 times earnings, which many thought was far too expensive.

One of the thematics from the last few months has been the material change in retail spending. With COVID-19 related lockdowns and restrictions on population movement and activity, the ability to spend on services such as out of home entertainment and activities has been significantly curtailed.

With so many economies and businesses on their knees, numerous market commentators are pessimistic about the near-term future of global share markets.   But Macquarie Bank’s Chief Economist and Global Head of Macro Strategy, Ric Deverell, is not one of them. He’s just released a chart pack that offers three reasons to be optimistic.