Equity Mates Investing Podcast

Since our first interview with George Lucas a lot has changed. When we last interviewed him, he was the head of Acorns Australia. Now, less than 6 months later, he is the CEO of the publicly traded Raiz. We've been getting a lot of listener questions about the rebrand of Acorns Australia and what it means, so we thought who better to answer those questions than George Lucas himself. In this episod...

"This is not mission impossible!" - Matt Leibowitz, CEO of Stake This episode is a cracker. As many of you are aware, we were invited to participate in a trading competition, hosted by Stake, to beta test their new trading app. The rules were simple. We were given $500 (USD$370) to trade through Stake, in American stocks. We had two weeks to make as much money as possible, and we had to trade at l...

This episode is a little different to most. When the rumours first broke about football superstar Christiano Ronaldo going to Juventus, the Juventus share price jumped 8%. We didn't realise Juventus was publicly traded and started doing some researching. This episode is the result of that investigation - an exploration of some of the strangest and most surprising companies out on the market. In th...

Following on from the last episode, where we discussed three important elements for building an investment portfolio, we deep dive into our own portfolios to compare our strategies and see if they align with our investing goals. We both have similar long-term goals, yet the way we approach constructing our investment portfolios are quite different, based on our risk appetite, asset classes and our...

How to build a great investment portfolio? - it's easier than you think! There is no real hidden secret that only the professionals know about when it comes to building a successful investment portfolio. A portfolio is the total collection of assets that you invest in to create wealth. Now, it doesn't have to always be shares. Many portfolios of the best investors around the world are made up of d...

Stock buybacks are all the rage these days. Fuelled by tax cuts, low cost of capital and not a lot of growth opportunities on the horizon, companies have been buying back their shares by the bucketload. In fact, since 2010 there has been $3.5 trillion in shares bought back in the US alone. Buybacks are great for shareholders in theory - one day you owned 5% of the company, the next day you owned 7...

This is an exciting episode for us! We've been invited to join in a trading competition, hosted by our friends at Stake (if you haven't already, you must sign-up - you can trade stocks in the US without paying brokerage, and they'll swing you $25 to start you on your way, just head to www.equitymates.com/stake), and we're up against some of the best financial journalists in Australia. The rules ar...

"Rule number 1: Never lose money. Rule number 2: Never forget rule number 1" - Warren Buffett Managing risk is critical to long term investing success. To fully enjoy the effects of compounding it is critical you don't lose your money in the first place. Similarly, concerns around losing money are what stops a lot of people from ever investing in the first place. This episode will help you protect...

Something we wanted to understand through this podcast is how expert investors find, evaluate and make decisions on stocks. End-to-end, what is their process? Andrew Brown, Executive Director of East 72 Holdings and first repeat podcast guest, agreed to spend some time walking through his process for a company he recently invested in. If you want to understand how expert investors think and unders...

This episode marks a first for Equity Mates. Our first repeat guest! Who better to have back on than Andrew Brown, the Executive Director of East 72 Holdings. Andrew is one of the most insightful investors we've met in our time doing Equity Mates, and is a true contrarian. Do you think the internet has made old media a bad investment? Not Andrew, who since our first interview last year has done ex...

Can you believe that a casino got hacked via a digital thermometer in one of it's fish tanks? Our final episode in our three part series on exchange traded funds (ETFs) with BetaShares is a cracker! We sit down with Adam who is Manager of Distribution and Capital Markets to discuss Investing In Tomorrow - Technology, Hackers and Sustainability. The beauty of ETFs is that you don't have to choose o...

Ultimate Guide To ETFs Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have been one of the buzz words in the investing world for a number of years. They're changing the way that people invest their money, and in some ways, making it a lot easier for beginner investors to enter the market. But the question we always hear is WTF is an ETF? We sat down with Ilan, the co-founder of BetaShares which is the largest Austr...

True or false? There is an exchange traded fund called 'Global Millennials ETF (Code: MILN)' that holds companies that service millenials. True or false? There is an exchange traded fund called 'Tobacco Companies ETF (Code: SMK)' that holds the world's largest tobacco companies. Exchange Traded Funds give you the ability to access many different markets and invest in a large range of companies wit...

In this episode we wrap up our 3-part series 'Thinking like Warren Buffett'. We've pulled out a 9-question checklist from Buffettology, a book by Warren's daughter-in-law Mary Buffett. We've each chosen a stock and are running through the checklist and seeing if our chosen stocks pass the Buffettology test. In this episode we answer questions 7, 8 & 9. For Questions 1-4, check out episode 46....

We continue on our quest to try and think like the worlds greatest investor, Warren Buffett. If you missed the previous episode, it is a must listen before you continue with this one, as we begin answering 9 questions the master investor himself tries to answer when he's looking to buy a company. Mary Buffett, his daughter-in-law, has written a book called Buffettology, where she uncovers some of...

Warren Buffett is one of the worlds most successful investors, amassing a fortune of over $84 billion dollars! Wouldn't it be nice to be able to think like Warren Buffett? Well now you can! Warren's daughter-in-law, Mary Buffett wrote a book called 'Buffettology', which delves into the thinking of Buffett. It's a fantastic book - a must read. Towards the start of the book Mary talks through 9 key...

An investor walked onto the trading floor and asked "What's the difference between $300k and $4.3 million?"... "Fees!" yelled a savvy investor. "Haha what a joke, the answer is my boat!" yelled a fund manager. Both are right, but warning this is NOT a joke. Last week Bryce found a tweet that sparked conversation with Alec. We both know that avoiding fees is one of the golden rules to successful in...

Graham Cooke is the Insights Manager at comparison website Finder.com.au. We spoke to him to gain the benefit of his work at Finder and to better understand how we can maximise our savings and capitalise on the new wave of investing apps and platforms that are coming to Australia. In this episode you will learn: • Why understanding the RBA cash rate is critical to achieving your savings goals • Wh...

With so much going on in the financial world, we couldn't fit all of our catch-up into one episode. So for this episode we bring you part two of our catch up. In this episode you will learn: • Some of the major findings coming out of the Banking Royal Commission • Why Tesla has halted production of their mass-market car, the Model 3 • About China's recent tariff on Sorghum (and how we predicted th...

With a lot going on and things moving very quickly we took the opportunity to sit down and catch-up on a few things that have piqued our interest over the last couple of weeks. In this episode you will learn: • About the battle for Flipkart in India, between Walmart and Amazon • Why Alec would buy Walmart, but Bryce would buy Amazon • How the markets have performed since December - are we up, down...

There's a new player in town and they're offering free brokerage if you want to buy stocks in the United States! And I mean, who doesn't? With some of the world's biggest companies, largest markets and exciting new technologies, the States offers a fantastic opportunity for Australian investors. But how do you get into the markets in the US, I hear you ask? Gone are the days of paying hefty broker...

'Shorting' is an investing technique to make money if the price of a stock/asset/commodity goes down. For those familiar with the movie The Big Short - that is how investors made money betting on the collapse of the US Housing Market. We thought it was a good time to do an episode on short selling because we've just seen a not-so-big short grab headlines in Australia. Blue Sky Alternative Investme...

Ever wanted to invest in a company but later found out they're not public? They're privately held, by family members or early stage investors and venture capital funds. Companies like Mars, Aldi and Lego are still privately held, so members of the public, like you and me, are rarely able to invest! However sometimes these companies do become public, and this is called an Initial Public Offering, o...

Tesla, the electric car company started by Elon Musk, has had a tough few weeks. A number of issues have come to a head and the share price has fallen from a recent high of $357 to $252 at the time of recording. In this episode we have a look at the four major reasons for this fall and unpack our main take-aways. In this episode you will learn: • About the recent crash of a Tesla driving on auto-p...

There's a lot happening in the news at the moment so we're using this episode to break down two of the biggest stories. Firstly, we look at Wesfarmers' recently announced Coles demerger, and break down what it means for Australia's second biggest supermarket. We then discuss the brewing 'trade war' and question whether its something we need to worry about. In this episode you will learn: • Why Wes...