Reporting season begins – Macquarie Group and SGH Limited

This week’s Investment Matters will concentrate on two large holdings Macquarie Group and SGH Limited (formerly Seven Group Holdings) and reporting season begins.
Macquarie Group is one of our largest portfolio holdings. Along with Judo Bank, it is our preferred way to gain access to the Australian Banking sector rather than holding prohibitively expensive shares in the four major banks.
Read as Craig Shepherd, CIO, explains long-run returns and outlook for Macquarie Group and SHG Limited.
In addition, we provide comments on the Beach Energy result, one of the first portfolio positions to report updated earnings. In this update, we hope to provide some nuance surrounding the competing factors to emerge.

Our view of Global Equities and Beach Energy result

This month Craig Shepherd, CIO provide our view of Global equities. Our positioning reflects our views on the relative value of different global markets and the outlook for the Australian dollar when its value against the USD is extremely dispersed from long-term averages.
In addition, we provide comments on the Beach Energy result, one of the first portfolio positions to report updated earnings. In this update, we hope to provide some nuance surrounding the competing factors to emerge.

Strong start to the year, EarlyPay, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek

The ASX market is off to a hot start in January 2025 with a range of themes we noted at the end of 2024 being realised. We remain excited about how the market is set up for calendar 2025; for the first time since 2019, we can see large and straightforward sector dispersion.
This week’s Investment Matters will touch on relevant news items related to the portfolio and macroeconomic conditions.

We also touch on news surrounding Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, and its impact on global markets.

2024: The year in review and looking ahead

© 2025 First Samuel Limited Photo ©pixelshot from Via Canva.com The Market The week: ASX and Wall Street FYTD: ASX and Wall Street Strong year – soft ending As we expected at the beginning of the year 2024, it has been a good year for investing in markets around the world. Global equities, especially in […]

Winding down the year, with a bit of RBA Christmas cheer

© 2025 First Samuel Limited Read the previous Investment matters. Photo ©pixelshot from Via Canva.com The Market The week: ASX and Wall Street FYTD: ASX and Wall Street RBA’s Bullock delivers a hint of good news for households in 2025 Investment Matters has noted over the years that markets for the past two decades have […]

GLP drugs, Generative AI and Aurelia metals

© 2025 First Samuel Limited Read the previous week’s Investment matters. Photo © phonlamaiphoto from Via Canva.com With First Samuel’s 2024 CIO Events fast approaching, we were interested to see how the two topics discussed last year, GLP drugs (i.e. weight loss drugs) and Generative AI, had progressed over the past 12 months.  The Market GLP […]

The rotation begins

Rotation begins

Firstly, for the past nine months global flows into Australian investments from Chinese investments have contributed to the rising share prices of Australian non-mining large capitalisation companies (especially the banks). This is because global managers wanted to avoid a weakening Chinese economy. 

Most obviously, this led to CBA becoming the most expensive bank in the world.Although foreshadowed by others and market reaction earlier in the week, the decision to reduce rates for the first time since Covid-19 will have a significant impact on Australia in due course.
Plus, this week, Craig discusses some interesting new research on Newmont mining and results from Emeco and Catalyst Metals.

What interest rate cuts in the US might mean for Australia

The biggest economic news of the week was not in Australia. In the spirit of the hype associated with interest rate decisions of the GFC and those surrounding Covid 19, commentary by Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell was once again vital to market sentiment and the future direction of economics around the globe.
Although foreshadowed by others and market reaction earlier in the week, the decision to reduce rates for the first time since Covid-19 will have a significant impact on Australia in due course.
Plus, this week, Craig discusses some interesting new research on Newmont mining and results from Emeco and Catalyst Metals.

Profit Reporting Season Concludes – Steadfast, Johns Lyng, Healius/ACL and Bapcore

This week, the Q2 ABS National Accounts data were released on Wednesday. Although a little backward-looking, the National Accounts can provide corroborative evidence of the trends we see from the company reporting season.
In this week’s Investment Matters, we will briefly discuss interesting trends from the reporting season and outline the results for Steadfast Group (SDF), Bapcor Group (BAP), and the new portfolio positions in Healius (HLS) and Australian Clinical Labs (ACL).

Finding the crunch point – RBA raising rates? What? 

In our recent communications, we have suggested that the RBA, while it can reduce interest rates and mortgage costs through 2024, could benefit significantly by following the rest of the world’s lead in reducing rates. This approach would result in a longer pause at current rate levels, particularly in the face of higher or persistent domestic inflation. 

Read as our CIO explains how interest rate increases can disproportionately affect different segments of the economy.

Profit Reporting Season – Ventia, Johns Lyng, Earlypay and Nanosonics

Read key company results as the reporting season winds down. On balance, market strategists have noted that earnings revisions have been neutral across the board, which is a better than historic outcomes of net negative earnings revisions by optimistic investment banking equity analysts.

Early profit reporting season and news update

In last week’s Investment Matters we concentrated on the confession season, the period in which companies make early announcements to the market surrounding material changes to upcoming earnings.

This week’s Investment Matters will also concentrate on news flow and early reporting season results.

Confessions of a corporate earnings season

Most ASX-listed companies in Australia have a June fiscal/financial year-end. Accordingly, those with June and December balance days will tend to present their (half-year/annual) financial results to the market in each of the months of February and August.

Perpetual – finding a way to unlock value

In the past year, we have often commented that we’ll exhibit due patience as part of our investment approach. This is required as we often seek to invest in businesses that are significantly unloved and misunderstood and where assets may, therefore be mispriced.

Premier Investments – A deep dive into a new opportunity

In recent weeks, clients will have seen the addition of Premier Investments to their Australian equity sub-portfolios. Famously partly owned and operated (whether formally or informally) by Solomon Lew, Premier Investments is amongst the most successful discretionary retailers in Australian history.

Steadfast in its approach

© 2024 First Samuel Limited The Markets This week: ASX v Wall Street FYTD: ASX v Wall Street Steadfast Group Limited is an Australian insurance broking network that provides insurance broking services to businesses and individuals across Australia and New Zealand. The company was founded in 1991 and has become one of Australia’s largest insurance […]

Growing – in two very different ways

In recent weeks, we heard the mildly alarming statistics that the ASX had fallen to a low in October 2023 of 6703.2, lower than the levels seen in the broad market index at the close of October in 2007 (6770).

Inghams: laying golden eggs

Inghams is the dominant supplier of chicken products in Australia. It is also amongst the largest positions in client portfolios. In the past week, it delivered an update on progress within the business across the first half of the fiscal year.

Misstep or side-step? 

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is currently an impasse. Will it continue to hike interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve? Or will it choose to take a divergent path? And what might the consequences (of either approach) be?

The end of globalisation? How your investments will be managed.

The global supply chain landscape has shifted significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic. As trade stagnates, countries are implementing protectionist policies and focusing on local production. Australia, once a beneficiary of global trade, needs to adapt by developing domestic industries, strengthening ties with allies, and investing in local supply chains. 

This month, Craig Shepherd explains how trends, such as “friend-shoring,” are driven by technological advancements and a desire for greater control over supply chains.