Investor Insights

During the depths of the market’s reaction to the Coronavirus outbreak I listened in on company and journalist conference calls and held multiple webinars and Microsoft Teams sessions with clients, planners and brokers.  Quite often I heard comments along the lines of, “this will change the way we live, work and travel forever”.

After 30 years of investing, I’ve learned that three or four times each decade a market reaches a historic level, either high or low, that investors shouldn’t ignore. Right now, the most obvious opportunity is the historically low oil price. Investors seeking to profit from an oil price recovery have several avenues to consider.

Among the more obvious victims of the COVID-19 pandemic have been the world’s airlines. In Australia, Virgin Airlines in April became one of the first large businesses to enter administration, and Qantas (ASX:QAN) has scaled back its operations to a tiny fraction of normal capacity and loses money every week while this continues.

At the weekend Warren Buffett led the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway, the company that he has led for more than half a century, in front of an unpacked stadium and without his business partner and vice chairman, Charlie Munger, at his side. That is not all that was different about this year’s event.

After a few tough months, Australia is starting to come out of hibernation, and investors are looking ahead – as reflected in our rebounding sharemarket. But they’ll need to be selective in their stock selections, because some businesses will do far better than others in our post-lockdown world.

Much has been written about the unprecedented size and scale of the actions taken by the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank in recent weeks to support the U. S. economy and markets. Starting with cutting interest rates by 150 basis points to 0 per cent, promising to purchase an “unlimited” amount of U. S.

Whether you’re currently on the bear case or the bull case for global and Australian equities, we think investors need to be using this once-in-a-decade sell off to reset portfolios towards quality businesses, like some of the ones we discuss below. Exclusive Content This is exclusive content to subscribers on rogermontgomery. com.

States around the US have begun putting their hands up to be some of the first to trial reopening their economies. Nationally, the US leads the world in infections and deaths due to COVID-19, and by some margin.

It should come as no secret that Australian companies are paying very high dividends in comparison to international companies.

With the Australian market rebounding strongly, some investors could be experiencing a fear of missing out. But an analysis of economic conditions tells me there’s no rush to dive in. With the market looking expensive, so many uncertainties in the world, and a growing list of dilutive capital raisings, is it a good time to sit on your hands?

Every quarter when reporting season rolls around, there are always new insights gleaned that can provide a broader read-through on emerging trends. Perhaps with the uncertainty from the COVID-19 (C19) pandemic, this reporting season will be watched for clues more eagerly than usual.

Now that governments are talking about re-opening the economy, investors can start thinking about the businesses that might provide the best returns as we emerge from economic hibernation. Here, I give a quick appraisal of the investment landscape, and identify the key attributes of businesses that I think will rebound the hardest.