Investor Insights

Given the sell-off in bond yields so far this year, rising inflationary expectations, and the collapse of the Evergrande Group in China, it is unsurprising many global share market indices took a breather and recorded a relatively lacklustre December 2021 half-year in terms of performance. Of the major markets the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index was down 18.

A year ago, I wrote an article in The Australian which set out the factors I thought would make it a very good year for equities. So far, the local market has behaved as expected – despite all the turmoil in the world – with the All Ordinaries up 13.

Two interesting Aussie explorers/development companies with enormous optionality include Tulla Resources (ASX: TUL) and Pantoro (ASX: PNR).

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.

As we wait the release of the December quarter results for the US-centric Polen Focus Growth Fund (not currently available for Australian investors) in the period to 30 September 2021 the fund delivered returns approaching 16 per cent per annum (gross), outperforming the S&P 500 by 4. 8 per cent per annum.

The key driver for the short and medium-term direction of the Australian property market can be boiled down to just three words: access to credit. And, right now, the conditions for credit access are getting tighter. To my mind, it all points to a property market that is about to lose its froth.

In recent weeks, the share prices of Australian banks have been heading south. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA) and Westpac (ASX:WBC) have been hit particularly hard, on the back of material falls in their net interest margins. Will margins start to expand soon as the interest rate on fixed rate loans starts to climb again?