Investor Insights

Last week Alibaba, the world’s largest retailer and e-commerce company, reported financial results for the final quarter of its fiscal year 2019. Alibaba’s Chinese online retail platform continued to grow strongly and drove astounding performance.

Do Australia’s rocketing tech stocks – particularly the so-called WAAAX stocks Wisetech, Afterpay, Altium, Appen and Xero – deserve their lofty premiums? The market certainly thinks so. But I’m not so sure. I have previously alluded to the dangers of investing in the pointy end of the US technology boom and specifically warned about Uber.

In the world of active equity management, investment managers – ourselves included – seek to “outperform” the broader equity market index. This outperformance is typically referred to as “alpha” in the industry jargon. Of course, alpha can be both positive – when a manager outperforms; and negative – when a manager underperforms.

Australia’s four major banks have now reported their interim results. Common to all of them were three key themes, which are presenting both challenges and opportunities.

The Reserve Bank of Australia recently opted to leave interest rates on hold. But with key parts of the economy in decline, it may be just a matter of time before it has to cut again. The question is: how effective will a rate cut be?

Last week the New York Times published an opinion essay penned by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who calls for the breakup of the social media giant.

The topic of the property market is a favourite obsession for many given the significant percentage of household wealth the asset class represents for most Australians.

We’ve known for some time that the sharp decline in building approvals would lead to an equally sharp decline in construction activity. It has been our view that because building approvals have already fallen from 280,000 dwellings to 170,000 dwellings, a consequent decline in building activity would start to be seen about now.

Uber says it is only in the early stages of capturing a $12 trillion total addressable market that includes personal mobility, food delivery, and freight shipping. So, if you believe its prospectus, the potential upside should be huge. But how realistic are its aspirations?

One company that recently caught our attention, that I believe is worth monitoring, is Avita Medical (ASX:AVH). AVH owns the patents and produces a medical device called RECELL, which produces a “suspension” of spray-on skin cells using a small sample of the patient’s own skin to help treat burn patients and skin defects.

Brambles is one of the companies that you’d think would tick quite a few of the quality criteria that we at Montgomery evaluate any potential investment on. Let’s have a look and see! Exclusive Content This is exclusive content to subscribers on rogermontgomery. com. View the full article via your subscription or sign up for access. Continue to RogerMontgomery.

Uber’s upcoming IPO promises to be monumental. The big question for would-be buyers is: will this loss-making juggernaut be a good investment?   Or, like its rival, Lyft, will its shares plummet after the float? Exclusive Content This is exclusive content to subscribers on rogermontgomery. com. View the full article via your subscription or sign up for access.