The Weekend Edition includes a market update plus Morningstar adds links to two additional articles.
Most people think they want to be rich, and that means getting a high-paying, high-powered job, which allows them to buy a fancy home, car, and other possessions. Dig deeper though, and what they often want is something entirely different. What they really want is to become wealthy. Becoming wealthy means having enough income coming in, whether they’re working or not. And it often means earning passive income from assets through equity in a business directly, or indirectly via the share market. Becoming wealthy like this can ultimately give people the time and flexibility to do what they want when they want.
Being rich
I once met one-on-one with a fabulously successful and rich businessman in Hong Kong. It was in 2005 when I joined a stockbroker. The broker was a growing boutique which had successfully taken on bigger investment banks like Goldman Sachs in Asia. The Chairman, Gary Coull, was a Canadian who’d founded the firm with an Australian partner almost 20 years earlier.
Not long after I joined, I got called in by a division head mid-afternoon who said: “The boss urgently wants a name for this new private equity fund that we’re seeding, and he wants you and I to come up with one by close of business today”. We quickly got to work, though finding a unique name that hadn’t been already taken was harder than first thought.
We came up with a few naming options, and an hour later, Coull asked for me, just me, to see him in his office immediately. His office had a fabulous view overlooking Victoria Harbour, the expansive waterway that separates Hong Kong Island in the south and Kowloon to the north.
The meeting began with small talk, and it quickly became clear that the Chairman knew my background and others who’d recently joined the firm. Then, he got to the proposed names, and gave me a steely gaze. “These names are sh*t. I don’t want ancient or prosaic names. This is an Asian fund, and the name needs to reflect that. Come back in an hour with better”.
We did as he asked. At 2.30am the following morning, I was awoken with a text message from an unknown number: “Gruber, almost there”.
Soon after, Coull got cancer, and he died a year later at the age of 52. His Australian partner had previously died at the same age.
Coull had worked day and night on his business, as I witnessed, he’d accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars, and was widely respected and lauded both in Asia and worldwide. He was also divorced, didn’t have children, and died at a slender age.
Coull had all the trappings of being rich, but he didn’t convert them into wealth and true financial freedom.
Being wealthy
I’m friendly with a guy in my neighbourhood who always dresses like a beach bum: casual, loose-fitting shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. Before knowing him, I’d often see him during workdays, and hanging out with his kids after school. His wife didn’t work and that got me curious about what he did for a living.
It turns out the guy is wealthy, though you wouldn’t know it from his appearance. In his early 40s, he’s on the boards of several companies, including his own. He helps raise money for the companies and has equity stakes in each of them.
He doesn’t work a lot and essentially does whatever he wants. He goes to all his kids’ activities, and coaches one of their local sporting teams. He’s a mad football supporter and watches many of the games on the weekend.
This bloke seems to have few of the trappings of being rich. He doesn’t have a high-powered job, he doesn’t have a fancy car or house, and he doesn’t seek fame.
While he may not be rich in many peoples’ eyes, he’s undoubtedly wealthy.
Does one lead to the other?
The question is whether people need to work 24/7 in a high-paying job to attain the desired wealth and freedom. It can happen that way though doesn’t need to. And one doesn’t automatically lead to the other, either.
At the stockbroking firm, I knew plenty of people in their 30s who’d become rich and yet continued to work hard and play harder. I worked out that they kept going, even when they didn’t need to, because they had certain lifestyles to maintain, and more cars, houses, and other things to accumulate. Many of them never got off that treadmill.
Another story comes from the father of a friend of mine, who was a top-notch lawyer. As a partner in the firm, he worked day and night, and many weekends, for 40 years. He got many of the trappings of success, though he sacrificed his family for the sake of work. That led to divorce when his two children were reaching their teens.
Nowadays, he’s retired, drinks too much wine, and doesn’t know what to do with himself. He never learned to convert his money into wealth and freedom.
Differences between the two
There are two key differences between being rich and being wealthy:
- Both involve making money, but it’s the way that money is made that differs. Being rich means getting a high-paying job; being wealthy means owning income-producing assets, usually via owning equity in a business, directly or indirectly. Being rich means working more to earn more; being wealthy breaks the nexus between time and money, where people earn money even when you sleep. While it’s true that money from a job can be converted into income-generating assets, that’s the indirect rather than the direct route to wealth.
- Being rich means being a slave to time through work; being wealthy can allow people the flexibility to do what they wish with their time.
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In my article this week, I look at the holy grail of investing: finding stocks that can generate life-changing returns. Nividia and Pro Medicus are recent examples of stocks that have increased more than 100x over the past decade. I outline four ways to increase your chances to unearth the next 100-bagger, and the challenges that you may face along the way.
James Gruber
Also in this week's edition...
There's new data out on how SMSFs have been investing their money. The report reveals that the number of advised SMSFs has continued to rise at the expense of self-directed SMSFs. And AUSIEX's Brett Grant says more SMSFs are using ETFs to invest overseas and diversify their portfolios.
Dividends globally are up, while Australia's are down. In 2023, worldwide dividends increased 5%, and the fourth quarter continued the momentum, up 7.2%. The banking sector was the key driver for global dividend increases. However, Janus Henderson's Ben Lofthouse say Australia lagged last year due to reduced dividends from the benchmark-heavy mining sector.
The Aged Care Taskforce's final report is more than a week old, and Rachel Lane has had the time to go through the fine print. She's found some intriguing details, including an 'unofficial' recommendation that will see higher aged care accommodation costs for all, not just the wealthy, as well as considerable uncertainty around means-testing, and government subsidies.
There's an ongoing debate about whether passive investing is distorting markets. Robert Almeida from MFS has a different take on the issue, suggesting passive investing is amplifying the disconnect between valuations and fundamentals, with a lot of capital being allocated based on market cap rather than on which opportunities may offer the best risk-adjusted returns. He says that's not how capitalism is supposed to work and it's bad news for economies.
It's great to have Paul Moore from PM Capital contribute an article for us. Formerly of BT, Paul has been a trailblazer in global equities and has delivered strong long term returns for his clients. Today, he gives his market overview and expresses surprise at being able to still find cheap stocks, with single digit PEs and double digit dividend yields, in what he considers an overvalued global market.
After the strong performance of global investment grade credit in 2023, Yarra Capital's Phil Strano says the Australian credit market is emerging as a great diversifier and alternative to investing in other ‘safe haven’ asset classes, including residential proper
Two extra articles from Morningstar for the weekend. Mark LaMonica looks at ASX listed shares wth the DNA of a Buffett company, while Shani Jayamanne reveals an Australian stock with high returns on capital that's undervalued.
Lastly, in this week's whitepaper, VanEck looks at the attractive opportunities in emerging market bonds.
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Weekend market update
On Friday in the US, stocks were little changed as the S&P wrapped up the week with a healthy 2.2% advance, its best such showing since mid-December. Treasurys rallied again with 2- and 30-year yields settling at 4.59% and 4.39%, respectively, down three and five basis points on the session, while WTI crude stayed just below US$81 a barrel, gold slipped to US$2,166 per ounce and the VIX ticked back above 13.
From AAP Netdesk:
The local bourse finished slightly lower on Friday. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index on Friday finished 11.4 points lower at 7,770.6, a drop of 0.15%, while the broader All Ordinaries fell 18.3 points, or 0.23%, to 8,026.3. For the week the ASX200 rose 1.3%, after dropping 2.3% the previous week in its worst weekly performance in a little over a year.
On Friday six of the ASX's 11 sectors finished lower and five finished higher.
Energy was the biggest mover, dropping 1.3% as Woodside fell 1.8% and Whitehaven Coal retreated 3%.
The heavyweight mining sector dropped 0.9% despite a rebound in the price of iron ore, which was up $US2.75 to $US111.50 a tonne. BHP dipped 0.8% to $43.79, Fortescue fell 2.1% to $24.64 and Rio Tinto was 0.5% lower at $120.56.
The Big Four banks were mixed, with Westpac down 0.8% to $26.47 and CBA dipping 0.4% to $117.48, while NAB was basically flat at $34.76 and ANZ was 0.1% higher at $29.04.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was the biggest gainer in the ASX200, rising 7.7% to a nine-month high of $24.18 after the Kiwi respiratory care company announced it now expects to make around $NZ262.5 million in net profit for the 12 months to March 31, from the roughly $NZ$255 million previously forecast.
Australian Unity Office Fund rose 10.3% to a five-month high of $1.18 after its management announced they were in talks to sell 150 Charlotte Street, Brisbane, an office tower it bought in 2017 for $105.7 million.
From Shane Oliver, AMP:
The past week was a big one for central banks and, while the Taiwanese central bank provided a surprise interest rate hike (providing a reminder that nothing is guaranteed), the overall picture remains one of major central banks heading towards normalising interest rates, which for most means rate cuts:
- Of course, for the BoJ this means monetary tightening making it the odd one out, but it was a dovish hike. After eight years of negative interest rates with a deposit rate of -0.1% if finally raised it to a range of zero to 0.1%. This reflected confidence that it will finally sustain inflation around its 2% target.
- The Fed left rates on hold as expected, and its message was upbeat, reaffirming its inclination to start cutting rates. It remains cautious and is still waiting for more confidence (a bit like the RBA), but despite two months of hotter inflation which it sees as bumps along the way to lower inflation it’s still flagging three rate cuts this year. While it revised down its flagged rate cuts for next year from four to three and revised up slightly its longer-term expectation for the Fed Funds rate (to 2.56%) this was matched by upwards revisions to its GDP growth forecasts which is now seen as being around 2% out to 2026 as inflation falls back to 2%. In other words, it's expecting a very soft landing with a supply side surge and higher productivity allowing both lower inflation and stronger than previously expected growth.
- The Bank of England also left rates on hold at 5.25% as expected pointing to “inflation persistence” but it leaned more dovish with no more hawkish dissents on the Monetary Policy Committee and one member voting for a cut, more optimistic language around inflation, the labour market now being seen as relatively tight as opposed to tight and Governor Bailey saying “things are moving in the right direction” for a cut.
- The Swiss National Bank surprised with a 0.25% rate cut taking its policy rate down to 1.5% citing lower inflation.
- The RBA left rates on hold but removed its tightening bias. While the Bank welcomed the moderation in inflation it remains cautious noting that inflation remains too high and waiting for more confidence that inflation is heading sustainably to target. The key though is that while it may not be confident enough yet Governor Bullock indicated that some data has made it “more confident” and in response it replaced a reference to the possibility of another hike with more neutral language that it “is not ruling anything in or out.” The progressive easing in its tightening bias to now a neutral bias adds to confidence that we are likely getting closer to rate cuts. That said we are not quite there yet and with the economy still growing (albeit only just) the RBA is not in a rush to cut. And don’t expect the RBA to necessarily tell us what it’s about to do ahead of doing so with Governor Bullock saying “I won’t be giving forward guidance.” Our assessment remains that the combination of weaker growth and a faster fall in inflation than the RBA currently expects will ultimately force its hand and we continue to see it cutting rates from mid-year with three 0.25% rate cuts by year end, taking the cash rate down to 3.6%. But the road to rate cuts will likely remain bumpy. Our base case is that the first cut will come in June. But with the economy still growing, very strong population growth still adding to demand, the RBA painting a relatively benign assessment of the financial position of households and businesses in its latest Financial Stability Review and the labour market still tight with some risk to wages growth flowing from another large pay rise for aged care workers there is a high risk that rate cuts will get delayed till August or September.
Curated by James Gruber and Leisa Bell
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