Investment Themes Articles

What if I told you of an investment sector in which you could pay 80-90 cents for each dollar worth of assets? Welcome to the current state of affairs in the Listed Investment Companies (LICs) and Listed Investment Trusts (LITs) sector. The question is: do these discounts represent an opportunity worth pursuing, or a risk worth avoiding?

Multifaceted geopolitical and economic tensions threaten to disrupt the delicate balance of the world order. Economic forecasts, once predictable, now fluctuate like erratic cyclonic winds. The threats of recession are delicately balanced with interest rate policies that continue to reduce inflation. The threat of tariffs, like an unexpected frost, is decimating established supply chains, creating trade wars. The slowing growth of China casts a long shadow over commodity prices, easing our local markets into the shade. Finally, we have The Trump Effect, whereby long-held economic and geopolitical policies are being upended to create a new world disorder.  Altogether, there is a deep sense of unease amongst investors. It’s a stark warning that we may be facing significant and unpredictable headwinds in 2025. Hence, many investors want predictability and investment safe havens that provide protection from future storms.

Welcome to 2025’s investment style match: between growth versus value stocks. The audience are fired up and ready for an exciting competition. Some of you may remember that last year’s winner, value stocks, ended up underperforming in 2024. You may feel tempted to blame the referee. Fair dues. But that’s the nature of the investing game. You can make the right call based on the data, and still be wrong. Short term market sentiment is often the over-riding swing factor and is hard to predict. So this year’s match will once again be based on the best available data — with all the usual caveats. The two teams will be tested against one another on four key factors for a steer as to which investment style is best positioned to outperform during 2025…

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day details of investing, which means it’s also easy to lose sight of the bigger picture trends which are likely to continue driving investment returns. With long-term outperformance in mind, here are three investment trends worth befriending for the coming decade…

2024 was a bumpy ride for global healthcare investors with the sector lagging most economically sensitive sectors. There were also sector-specific challenges to navigate in the form of margin pressure, workforce shortages, and digital disruption. But at this juncture, the global healthcare sector’s fundamentals are stronger than ever thanks to a step-change in recent innovation as well as favourable demographic changes. Investors should arguably position themselves for a sector recovery…

Does going woke mean going broke in 2025? ESG investors have certainly had their challenges to contend with in recent years, not least of which has been the global pushback against diversity, equality & inclusion (DEI) as a core ESG strategy. We investigate why the DEI backlash has happened and what it means for ESG investors looking forward.

Does the acronym AGI inspire the same mix of excitement and terror in you as AI does? Probably not, but that may change soon. AGI stands for Artificial General Intelligence. The difference between AI and AGI is that Artificial General Intelligence is at least as good as human intelligence for a wide range of tasks that require intelligence. According Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, AGI is coming this year which means that, for the first time in history, ‘computers will be able to automate the great majority of intellectual labour’. In other words, many of us were right to worry that artificial intelligence is indeed coming for our jobs. The ramifications are also significant for investors…

Are you happier working in an office or working from home? This is the question millions of Australian workers have been voting with their feet on in recent years. It’s fair to say the work from home (WFH) revolution has been one of the biggest social shifts we’ve witnessed in modern history. It’s brought with it profound changes in the way many of us work, as well as workers’ confidence in requesting WFH as an option.

It’s tempting for investors to believe that their personal experience of the world’s emotional state allows them to accurately assess the global zeitgeist. However, the reality is most investors are only exposed to a miniscule fraction of the global population, and it can be challenging to understand others’ emotions at the best of times. Reading the world’s emotional tea leaves is easier said than done.

Happy new year! We hope it’s a healthy and happy one for you. While no one knows exactly what’s coming in the year ahead, most investors will be asking themselves similar questions as the new year begins. For example, will 2025 be a repeat of 2024’s US-led market resilience and euphoria? Or will markets follow a different playbook this year which requires investors to make tactical adjustments? With these questions in mind, it’s time to do our best at crystal ball gazing to help investors make sense of what may be coming in 2025…

Most investment portfolios have limited exposure to agriculture, but this under-represented sector is as an attractive asset class, driven by rising global food demand, shrinking arable land, and resource scarcity. While the global trends of population growth and a rising Asian middle class have long supported agricultural demand, supply constraints—exacerbated by the pandemic and geopolitical tensions—have created powerful tailwinds for agricultural investments.

With the S&P 500 rallying an historic 40% over the past twelve months, you’d be forgiven for thinking all is well with the US Government’s finances. After all, the state of the world’s largest economy is inextricably connected with the US Treasury’s financial health. Sorry to shatter that illusion, but the truth is very different. Do not read what follows if you prefer to believe in the US fairy tale…