In this episode of QAV, Cameron and Tony navigate the carnage of reporting season, where many QAV stocks have taken a beating. They discuss the brutal market reactions to earnings misses, the underperformance of value stocks relative to growth, and what the latest results say about the overall market sentiment. .
Transcription
QAV 808 Club Audio
[00:00:00] Cameron Reilly: Welcome to QAV, TK, episode 8 0 8. 8 0 8. There’s a drum machine back in the eighties,
[00:00:11] Tony Kynaston: Either way.
[00:00:11] Cameron Reilly: 8 0 8.
[00:00:12] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[00:00:14] Cameron Reilly: Uh,
[00:00:15] Tony Kynaston: a great, uh, cover version of, uh, tomorrow. Never knows those.
[00:00:19] Cameron Reilly: who’s they?
[00:00:20] Tony Kynaston: I think it was Brian Eno. It was a Brian Eno based band. 8 0 8 ERs Or 8 0 8. Yeah. 8 0 8 State, I think they were called.
[00:00:27] Cameron Reilly: Was he in Roxy Music at the time? Was this before or after
[00:00:30] Tony Kynaston: Could be. I don’t know. It was back in probably late seventies, early eighties.
[00:00:34] Cameron Reilly: It was a drum machine. The, the original sort of all the early hip hop tracks, the Beastie Boys, et cetera, from the eighties was all an 8 0 8.
[00:00:47] Cameron Reilly: Anyway, people don’t care. Uh, it’s been a, it’s been a week TK in the market, midyear and in some cases full year results. But so many QAV stocks have taken an absolute sledging in the last week. A couple of good results as well. So couple of good, uh, market responses to results, put it that way. But yeah, there’s been a lot of, lot of gnashing of teeth out there, which we will get into.
[00:01:13] Cameron Reilly: But apart. Before we get into that, how’s your week been? You’re back in the Schanck,
[00:01:17] Tony Kynaston: I am. Yeah. I had a lovely week in Wagga,
[00:01:20] Cameron Reilly: the Schanck shack.
[00:01:21] Tony Kynaston: back at the Schanck. Had a lovely week in Wagga, thanks to Ruddy for hosting. Wonderful host. Played lots of golf.
[00:01:27] Cameron Reilly: Did you hold hands?
[00:01:29] Tony Kynaston: lots of golf. No we didn’t, no. We shared a golf cart at one stage. Went out to, um, went for a drive. So Roddy’s brother-in-law came with us and he’s a very good golfer.
[00:01:38] Tony Kynaston: Um, plays off scratch or one or something like that, even though he is about 67, uh, but still hits a great ball. So it was really good playing with him a couple of times. And anyway, he suggested, we played with him on the Thursday and he suggested that we should go out to Nandera on the Friday, which is about an hour from Wagga.
[00:01:57] Tony Kynaston: And that was great. Um, rod didn’t like it ’cause it’s, you know, it’s a country course. Uh, the one staff member there, the pro shop was shut. You put your money in an envelope and off you go. Um, which I thought, I think it’s fantastic. Um, so the course wasn’t in the greatest Nick. It used to be top 100 in Australia, so and so, the layout’s really good, but you know.
[00:02:20] Tony Kynaston: It’s preferred lies. You don’t, you, you hate to play comp there ’cause you’re hitting off dirt a lot, um, or puffs of grass and stuff. But otherwise it was just brilliant. So I really enjoyed that, getting out in the country and finding new tracks and, um, having fun.
[00:02:35] Cameron Reilly: You’ve already got a echidnas and kangaroos. How more country can you get?
[00:02:38] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, true. But, um, yeah, just going out and doing that, uh, you know, leave your money in the, in an envelope. We, and so, uh, Roddy’s brother-in-law,
[00:02:48] Cameron Reilly: who has cash? I, I, I, I haven’t held cash in my hands since pre covid.
[00:02:53] Tony Kynaston: well yeah, you need to go to Wagga Wagga. I always take cash to Wagga Wagga The Chinese takes, gives you 10% off for cash.
[00:03:02] Cameron Reilly: Oh, yeah. Okay.
[00:03:03] Tony Kynaston: We
[00:03:04] Cameron Reilly: don’t
[00:03:04] Tony Kynaston: up
[00:03:04] Cameron Reilly: remember how to get cash. Where, where do you even get cash from?
[00:03:08] Tony Kynaston: We rocked up to the, the Chinese restaurant on the, on the lake, the boat club it’s called on Saturday night for dinner. And there was just hundreds of people there, so we, we didn’t stay, um, ’cause it was too crowded. But, uh, yeah, Cassius popular in Wagga Wagga. Uh, anyway, I had this golf course in Thera, had something I hadn’t seen before.
[00:03:27] Tony Kynaston: If you didn’t have cash, they had an eftpos, a tap and go square stuck on the side of the pro shop. And when it came to life, it, it gave you options. Like, you know, you’ve play nine holes or nine holes with a cart or 18, and you press the button and then tap your credit card. So I did take eftpos as well.
[00:03:48] Tony Kynaston: First time I’d seen that.
[00:03:50] Cameron Reilly: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Tony Kynaston: Hmm.
[00:03:51] Cameron Reilly: Modern day golf courses. I told you before though, about my startup I had in 2000, right. Golf lounge.
[00:03:57] Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:58] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. That was my attempt to modernize the golfing industry 25 years ago.
[00:04:04] Tony Kynaston: I mean, some industries don’t want modernization.
[00:04:07] Cameron Reilly: That’s what I learned very quickly.
[00:04:09] Tony Kynaston: Hmm,
[00:04:12] Cameron Reilly: Did not care. Uh, alright, let’s get into market news. Tony, where do you wanna start?
[00:04:19] Tony Kynaston: Well, I think my commentary overall is I, I think this is a sign of the top of the market and the market reached a high, and it’s, it’s off, I don’t know, it’s five to 7%. Uh, SD w’s down at least a couple of percent, maybe three or 4% this month. So, uh, my, my kind of headline summary is that. It’s shoot first ask questions later if, if there’s some kind of miss in the results, even if there’s a good reason for it.
[00:04:50] Tony Kynaston: The share price drops double digits straight away, but shares I’ve got, um, that I own who had great results, the share price, if it’s lucky or got one or 2%, maybe three. And sometimes it goes down one or 2% ’cause the analysts were expecting a beat. Um, so it’s a very unforgiving market. Uh, and it’s not unsurprising given, not necessarily the QAV stocks, but in marketing in general has lots of, is overvalued as we’ve talked about in the past.
[00:05:19] Tony Kynaston: It’s at the high end of, its, its a pendulum as it swings from, you know, a peeve or, well, a current peeve around 14 trailing peeve around 16, you know, up into the twenties and it’ll come back down again. Swing too far the other way eventually. But, um, yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, there’s been a lot of, um. A lot of problems and a lot of misreads too.
[00:05:39] Tony Kynaston: I think we’ll talk about one a bit later. Um, Perenti, which, uh, it’s a stock I owned, uh, I thought the results were, were acceptable. Um, stock went down 15, 20% and it’s back up, uh, as the market digested what happened, but we’ll talk about that in some detail later. Um, but non QAV stocks, you, I’m kind of glad I’m not in some of these, um, you know, highly priced stocks.
[00:06:07] Tony Kynaston: Um, the WiseTech Global comes to mind. I mean, I know it’s, it’s not down be because of its, um, necessarily being, uh, you know, bad results. Although I think the results weren’t great. But, um, anyway, it’s down a lot and, um, uh, I think it’s 29% having problems with the founder. Four directors have quit. So there’s a lot going on there.
[00:06:29] Tony Kynaston: Mineral resources, we spoke about once before, down 23% this month alone, um, down 70% from its highs as the, as the founder there, um, has issues. Uh, so there’s a really unforgiving approach to the stock market at the moment, I think. Um, and we’re seeing it play out in our stocks. Uh, I guess, you know, some of these stocks have been hit hard, super cheap.
[00:06:54] Tony Kynaston: Again, I don’t think it’s necessarily, um, warranted. But anyway, um, it had a miss and it was hammered. Um, there’s still. Cash producing machines, and generally what you find is their falls aren’t as big as the, the high PE stocks when they crash, like the ones I just spoke about. So, um, anyway, that’s my overall summary.
[00:07:13] Tony Kynaston: I, I think people are, uh, becoming less forgiving. They’re looking for signs of trouble and they’re thinking the market is, uh, overpriced and maybe even just some profit taking going on because of that in the stock market as a whole.
[00:07:28] Cameron Reilly: The Dow Jones is down as well. Uh, I dunno what the US market’s worried about. I mean, everything’s going so well over there right now. It’s like smooth sailing. Uh, can’t understand why they would be nervous.
[00:07:40] Tony Kynaston: And a highly predictable economy and environment over there.
[00:07:44] Cameron Reilly: Highly predictable. Yeah, like, nothing, nothing to be nervous about
[00:07:48] Tony Kynaston: Safe pair of hands guiding that one.
[00:07:52] Cameron Reilly: Well, a safe pair of hands, uh, when they’re not waving to the audience, uh, you know, it’s, uh, like they’re, that’s, uh, the Musk salute as I now call it.
[00:08:02] Tony Kynaston: I was gonna talk about this in after hours, but since you brought it up, that’s supposed to be a Roman sort
[00:08:07] Cameron Reilly: It was originally a Roman salute. That’s where the Nazis got it from. Yeah.
[00:08:10] Tony Kynaston: it. Well, he, he posted that, uh, he’s calling himself the modern day Sulla, so, uh, yeah, yeah,
[00:08:17] Cameron Reilly: pull a Sulla.
[00:08:18] Tony Kynaston: yeah. Get shit done.
[00:08:20] Cameron Reilly: wow. You know what Sulla did
[00:08:24] Tony Kynaston: I have listened to your podcast. Yep. It’s not all
[00:08:26] Cameron Reilly: people who haven’t Sulla cut off the heads of his enemies, so, uh, in Rome,
[00:08:33] Tony Kynaston: They’re happening now.
[00:08:34] Cameron Reilly: enemies Yeah.
[00:08:35] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[00:08:36] Cameron Reilly: Blood in the streets during Surahs, but as I always have to remind people, SOAH was dictator and then he, uh, gave it up, gave up the dictatorship, and went and lived with his, uh, went into retirement with his wife and his male lover.
[00:08:52] Cameron Reilly: Maybe that’s what Musk is hinting at. Maybe he’s gonna come out that he’s got a male lover, and then of course, w
[00:08:59] Tony Kynaston: certainly given the female side a go. What’s, what’s he got 27 kids or something,
[00:09:03] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. Then when Caesar became dictator, he said, uh, Sulla. Sulla was an amateur. He didn’t know what he was doing.
[00:09:12] Tony Kynaston: got out the blueprint and said, I can build a bigger one.
[00:09:15] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. Anyway, yes. So what else have you got? What other stories I.
[00:09:20] Tony Kynaston: Well couple, I wanna go through a few results. Um, I’m gonna start with the ones which were beats. Uh, and, and some of these have been on the, aren’t on the buy list now, but have been on the buy list. So I’ll talk about them because people are probably holding them. First one is judo. Uh, the judo CEO proclaims a safe landing.
[00:09:39] Tony Kynaston: This is, uh, uh, from the AFR and it happened after the interest rate cut last week. Uh, judo Bank says the cut and the cash rate will help the business bank compete with major lenders that may protect margins by holding back some reduction for small business borrowers. In contrast to Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, which reported a squeeze in its increase margins on Monday last week and saw its shares crunch.
[00:10:01] Tony Kynaston: So Judo lifted its margin guidance in half year results that beat expectations. The stock responded positively, which shares up 11% during the morning session to $2 14. Uh, goes on to say that their margins are good. So this is a. Uh, judo is a, a business lender. Um, bank does hold a banking license, so it doesn’t play in the mortgage market space.
[00:10:25] Tony Kynaston: Their margins, um, were in the stated range of 2.9% to 3%. Uh, and the article points out that’s much higher than the margin that Bendigo’s Bank, which is 1.88%, and Westpac, which reported the contraction of its core interest margin to 1.81%. On Monday. The pricing of small business loans is more bestow bespoke, and judo can lend to its customers at a wider spread than banks can for mortgages.
[00:10:53] Tony Kynaston: Uh, the CEOA guy called Bayless said, I think the safe landing has happened. We have seen a transition from a consumer led economy based on household leverage to a business led economy. Now, businesses are in investment mode and the economy in growth phase. That’s a big call I thought from him. Um, but I guess he’s seeing it.
[00:11:13] Tony Kynaston: Uh. Judo goes on to say they reported 2.3 billion in new loans, originated over the half a record level, driven by growth in agribusiness, um, maintaining a growth rate above the average of the system as it expands into the regions. Uh, bail list goes on to say that he thinks the rate tip will be helpful.
[00:11:34] Tony Kynaston: He explained this was due to major banks holding significant funding and transaction accounts, which pay very little interest. This means they cannot be further reduced as the cash rate falls creating pressure on major banks to recoup a margin squeeze due though, which runs a traditional relationship banking model, has 159 bankers and will hire a further 20 in the next six months.
[00:11:56] Tony Kynaston: Each runs an average of 28 customers compared with the industry average of more than a hundred. The bank says this helps monitor credit quality, which was stable over the half with 2.3% of the book, 90 days past you or impaired. So, uh, yeah, good result. Uh, old fashioned business bank. Relying on customer relationships and, um, hit a few goals.
[00:12:17] Tony Kynaston: This half.
[00:12:19] Cameron Reilly: You did a pull pork on them last year? I think
[00:12:22] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, I did. Yeah. So they were on the buy list at that time?
[00:12:27] Cameron Reilly: I bought them in towards the end of September last year. Up sort of 20% since then. Um, $2 and four, though. Not You said $2 14 before. I’ve got ’em at $2 four.
[00:12:41] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Well, they must have come back. That was the price on the morning of the announcements, uh, of the results.
[00:12:46] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. But they’re doing, doing quite nice in one of our portfolios.
[00:12:50] Tony Kynaston: Good. So the next one I wanna talk about is QBE. And, and I hold QBE in my own portfolio. Uh, and this again was from early last week, February 21st. Uh, and, uh. Part of the article was in response to Peter Dutton’s call to break up some insurance companies if they didn’t lower their prices. And so, uh, this is a, a quote from the CEO of QBE, a guy called Horton and it goes, uh, after QBE reported a strong, stronger annual profit on Friday.
[00:13:21] Tony Kynaston: This is a Friday. Previous Horton said reducing cost for poverty holders means lowering risk. He did say that, uh, scale and diversification was important for insurers. QBE only receives 3% of its total premiums from the consumer market in Australia where it has not made money. For the last three years.
[00:13:41] Tony Kynaston: Even though prices have gone up, it does not mean it delivers a return on capital. Australian consumer insurance has been loss making in a number of years, but we can afford it in total because of the rest of the business. He said Q b’s. Global diversification and a three year project to improve underwriting standards and exit.
[00:14:01] Tony Kynaston: More risky businesses helped drive return on equity to its highest level in a decade. QBE earns more from commercial specialty reinsurance and lenders mortgage insurances than it does from consumer lines. It has extended op extensive operations in the US where it avoided the worst of the US hurricane season last year.
[00:14:21] Tony Kynaston: It also said exposure from the LA wildfires in January was around $200 million. Statutory net profit, uh, of us. $1.78 billion for the full year was up 31%. It lifted its full year dividend to 87 cents per share up from 62 in 2023, representing half of its net profit. Gross written prop premiums were up 3% to 200 to 224 US billion, and it expects 2025 pre premium growth in the mid single digits.
[00:14:53] Tony Kynaston: It shares were up 5.2% on the day to 2112. So, um, well-run insurance business, 97% of its, uh, profit from overseas or income from overseas. And I would expect companies like QB will do well because they’re getting a, a big currency uplift, uh, given the Australian dollars, uh, towards its slowest, uh, levels, uh, for quite a while.
[00:15:20] Cameron Reilly: Didn’t really explain in that why they’re not making money out of consumer insurance though in Australia. Um,
[00:15:27] Tony Kynaston: Didn’t,
[00:15:27] Cameron Reilly: would that be? So they said they haven’t for a number of years. It’s been a loss making for a number of years.
[00:15:33] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, I would speculate. Um, I would think competitive market, ’cause there’s lots of insurers in Australia and a rising, rising number of, um, events, floods, fires, um, uh, whatever else in the last, uh, three years, um, which is, which may not have been, they may not have provided enough for it, but they certainly can’t raise their premiums enough to cover it as there is a competitive environment.
[00:16:02] Tony Kynaston: And there’s also the political pressure, uh, calling for lowering of prices by insurance in general.
[00:16:08] Cameron Reilly: Political pressure from the opposition.
[00:16:13] Tony Kynaston: Yes. Still a threat.
[00:16:15] Cameron Reilly: The opposition that’s probably been denying climate change for the last, uh, 25 years. And now it’s costing insurance companies money and they’re telling ’em to drop their premiums ’cause it’s fake news. You know, climate change doesn’t exist so the insurance companies don’t need to worry about it.
[00:16:32] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And nuclear will solve it too.
[00:16:34] Cameron Reilly: Yes, I’m actually pronuclear, but the time to be Pronuclear was 40 years ago. It’s a bit late to be pronuclear now. Uh, alright, well I don’t hold, uh, QBEI just checked. How have they done for you?
[00:16:52] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, they’re good. Um, they, they were doing better. They have come off a little bit recently, but, uh, yeah, I’m, I’m guessing they’re up sort of 25% since I bought them. Something like that. Yeah.
[00:17:03] Cameron Reilly: Good FMG, our old friends,
[00:17:08] Tony Kynaston: Disappointments. ’cause it came onto the, onto, uh, the. Probably a day or two before its results came out and the results came out and the share price was hammered and it became a sell again. So,
[00:17:20] Cameron Reilly: and you said, yeah, I think it’s time to take the red flag off. I
[00:17:23] Tony Kynaston: no, I did,
[00:17:24] Cameron Reilly: paid the price.
[00:17:25] Tony Kynaston: I did. So maybe the red flag rule should be wait for the next results to see, let the red flag flush its way through the system. Yeah,
[00:17:32] Cameron Reilly: Yeah.
[00:17:33] Tony Kynaston: but you’re right. I did say last week, let’s use sentiment. Um,
[00:17:37] Cameron Reilly: sentiment That’s right. Yeah. How’s the sentiment?
[00:17:40] Tony Kynaston: cross that, cross that out. Let’s wait for a, a set of numbers. Uh, but yeah, they were a terrible set of numbers.
[00:17:48] Tony Kynaston: Um, I
[00:17:50] Cameron Reilly: Isn’t that
[00:17:50] Tony Kynaston: longer term settlement was, um, longer, longer term sentiment was accurate.
[00:17:55] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, like it’s, uh, I’m looking at their like one year chart. Um, has not been good. Gone from 28 bucks down to 18 today, over 12 months. Um, you know, we, we’ve talked a lot about the sort of political corporate goings on at FMG over the last year. Lots of, uh, directors leaving, uh, senior management leaving, and uh, then the results come out and they’re terrible.
[00:18:25] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And not just the exits of the management, I think was the most telling thing. But I think for the SKUs code, it’s, it’s gotta clean up its act with its, uh, future Industries division. And, uh, they’ve come out and I. Said that they’re going to, uh, reduce their capital expenditure by a fifth, um, uh, uh, in that energy division.
[00:18:47] Tony Kynaston: Um, and, uh, is going to pause a billion dollars of approved hydrogen projects, largely as a result of Donald Trump taking over the White House and, um, its attitude towards Queen Energy. So, you know, for the skew should really, um, spin off its future industries division and make it a separate company. And then anybody who wants to play in that space, which is still unprofitable, can do that rather than having it, um, cross funded by the iron ore business.
[00:19:18] Tony Kynaston: But anyway, um, it, it, the results weren’t good. Uh, the net profit was less than half that, that reported a year ago, and 12% lower than analysts were expecting. Um, revenue was down by one fifth and the dividend, um, of 50 cents was less than half. The payment of the year before. So, um, yeah. Terrible result all round really.
[00:19:44] Cameron Reilly: Mm. But I think Mr. Forests wants to fund the future industry’s business with his existing business. Isn’t that his whole plan? He sees he wants to be shaping the future and he is gonna use the past to shape it. I mean, it’s,
[00:20:00] Tony Kynaston: That’s his plan.
[00:20:01] Cameron Reilly: it’s, that’s his, it’s his business, give or take, depending on how the shareholders feel about that.
[00:20:05] Cameron Reilly: But yeah. Well, look, I admire that. I admire his attempt to move into future energy. Uh. Space and using iron ore revenues, it’s to, to sort of finance that as a startup. Whether or not he can pull it off, I guess, remains to be seen. If he pulls it off, he’ll, he’ll be a superstar
[00:20:34] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, exactly. And, and I think, um, he’s always been entrepreneurial, so, you know, if he thinks this is the opportunity for the future, then you know, I think it’s, it’s, you’ve gotta look at backing him anyway. Um. But, you know, startups are very volatile and they don’t make money for a long time. So it could be another business as big as Fortescue eventually.
[00:20:53] Tony Kynaston: I think the other positive thing, um, which I think he’s been trying to do, is to invest in hydrogen so that they can, uh, somehow mitigate the, the climate change effects of being an iron ore miner and supplying steel mills. If steel mills can start using hydrogen and produce, uh, less emissions or, or even cleaner emissions, um, then that’s a real win.
[00:21:14] Tony Kynaston: So I applaud him for that, but I personally would prefer to see it done in a separate vehicle. And, you know, if he needs to take loans from the iron ore group or if he needs to use his own dividends to, to fund it, then you know, go for it. And people can decide whether they want to invest in that or not.
[00:21:33] Cameron Reilly: All right. What about our friends? It’s super cheap.
[00:21:38] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Um. So the results came out. Uh, the super cheap auto or super retail group is the company, but, uh, one of the biggest sections of it is super cheap auto and that, uh, business underperformed. So they reported that, uh, they were battling a downturn in the automotive category, forcing it into deep discounts and punishing the profits of its parents.
[00:22:05] Tony Kynaston: Uh, ASX listed super retail group while group sales rose 4% to 2.1 billion over the first half and same source store sales were at 1.8%. Net profit was 9% lower, uh, and below market forecast. The stock tumbled nearly 14% on the day. Uh, they also, uh, claim that earnings, uh, fell at their hiking retail mac pack where sales grew just 1.7% in October.
[00:22:33] Tony Kynaston: The company, um. Uh, warned that the 2025 financial year was starting with softer sales and more promotional activity. Uh, so that came true. Uh, but at Rebel, the, um, the sportswear stable mate sales grew 4.4% to 706 million and a half, culminating in record Christmas trade footwear and licensed NRL Apparel delivered.
[00:22:56] Tony Kynaston: Improved turnover closely matched by fitness technology. But earnings at Rebel were eroded by higher rates of theft and the cost of establishing its loyalty program. So did you buy any NRL merchandises at Rebel for Christmas? Dan,
[00:23:12] Cameron Reilly: Uh, surprisingly, uh, Tony? No, I did not. I did steal a
[00:23:16] Tony Kynaston: get out. Get out there.
[00:23:17] Cameron Reilly: though during Christmas. Didn’t buy it. I just stole it. I mean, apparently that’s the way to do it. Um, yeah, rebel. Interesting that, uh, sales were up for footwear and fitness tech. I wonder what’s driving that.
[00:23:35] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, I, I, again, I’d be speculating. Um, I suspect that super cheap is down. These people are taking longer between services on their vehicles as a cost of living measure. Uh, but if you, right, if like, if you send, choose, run out of way, you gotta go and buy them. So maybe sneakers and, and gym clothes are more of an essential purchase than, uh, servicing your
[00:23:57] Cameron Reilly: We should have Chairman Mabb on. He’s the footwear expert, isn’t he?
[00:24:02] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, it is.
[00:24:04] Cameron Reilly: Hmm.
[00:24:05] Tony Kynaston: Uh, well, another footwear company, which did poorly was, uh, accent, accent one, which has, um, also been on the, the buy list. Uh, the ASX was the retailer behind shoe chains, height, DC and platypus. And brand Hoka, I guess that’s how you pronounce it, has posted an 11 point cent. Gain in the first half, net profit to 47 million, but slash the interim dividend to preserve cash in a tough trading environment.
[00:24:32] Tony Kynaston: Group sales climbed 4.2% to 845 million in the six month period to December 29. Held by same store sales growth of 2.9% earnings before interest and tax rose, 11.5% to 80 million, an interim dividend of 5.50 cents per share. 40. Frank will be paid on March 20, but it’s lower than a year ago at 8.50 cents.
[00:24:55] Tony Kynaston: And it was also below market expectations at 6.40 cents. Accent open. 42 new stores taking the total sites to 903 stores, which beat expectations so. Shares, uh, shares went down, um, even though really good profit result, um, good expansion with 42 new stores being opened, uh, but uh, shares down on the basis of a dividend cut, which is always something a businesses loathed to do.
[00:25:26] Tony Kynaston: And, and, and indicated that they’re, um, quite, quite, uh, conservative in their forecast going forward.
[00:25:34] Cameron Reilly: I don’t hold accent in any of my portfolios, but I should mention I do hold a super retail group in, uh, my own super portfolio plus some of the light portfolios, and it hasn’t been a great performer. I mean, I, in, uh, one of the light portfolios, I’ve held it since August 22. And it’s up 36%, but uh, in some of the others, including the dummy portfolio in my super, I bought it around October, end of October, early November, 2023, and it’s sort of up somewhere between five and 10%, depending on which date I bought it at.
[00:26:08] Cameron Reilly: Must have been having a bit of a price spurt at the time. But yeah, it hasn’t had a good sort of 18 months since then.
[00:26:17] Tony Kynaston: No. Well, yeah, I’m in the same boat. I should have said when I started talking about it, I, I own it as well. Um, and, uh, it’s, uh, I, I forget now how much it’s up for me over time. 10 percent-ish sort of number. Um, but it has been coming down over late. The, the other comment I wanted to make about a lot of these stocks is, um, are they surprising the market?
[00:26:39] Tony Kynaston: Uh, if, if, if the market was out there saying the dividend was, they thought was gonna be one number, and it comes in less than that, the, the company by law is meant to be making announcements as soon as they know that it’s, it’s likely to be cut and the expectation won’t be met. So what’s a, what’s a, the ASX and ASIC doing, uh, about all this?
[00:27:01] Tony Kynaston: I mean, any of these companies we’re talking about who’ve had misses should be grilled by both those, um, regulators on, on their corporate disclosure. They’re either ASIC and ASX are either asleep or they’re incompetent, frankly, when it comes to things like this.
[00:27:15] Cameron Reilly: We’ve talked about this over and over again. We get surprised all the time,
[00:27:20] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[00:27:21] Cameron Reilly: and as far as I’m aware, nothing happens. There’s never any, please explain, uh, that I see come through in the announcements. It’s just, hmm, nothing, nothing to see. Move right along.
[00:27:32] Tony Kynaston: Which is wrong now, I don’t know what the situation was at Super retail group, for example. I’m not singling them out. They may well have had a board meeting right before they announced their results and decided on the, the dividend cut at that stage. And so that was the first chance to announce it to the market.
[00:27:48] Tony Kynaston: But they didn’t just pull that number out of, out of thin air. They would’ve been tossing it around internally for quite a while before that.
[00:27:56] Cameron Reilly: But it’s not even just about the dividend though. It’s right with all of them coming out and saying that their overall results disappoint, you know, were, were not what the market was expecting or not, what they predicted in their forecasting six months ago or a year ago should have come out during confession season.
[00:28:14] Cameron Reilly: So
[00:28:14] Tony Kynaston: Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:28:16] Cameron Reilly: Well, it’s, and it’s obviously not because the market’s tanking them by 10, 15, 20% when the news comes out. So what’s going on? Why aren’t they getting hauled over the coals for not giving the market more warning?
[00:28:30] Tony Kynaston: Yes. Well, to be fair and supercheap’s, uh, defense, they did come out, um, with a confession. I’m just trying to look it up now as part of that article in October. So going back to October, uh, warned the 2025 financial year were starting with softer sales and more promotion activity. So, um, that was a long time before the results came out.
[00:28:52] Tony Kynaston: Almost six months, and they haven’t updated as far as I know now with further announcements since then, which they, which they would know about
[00:29:00] Cameron Reilly: If only we had like a Australian Shareholders Association or something like that that could take up these issues with ASIC on behalf of shareholders across the country.
[00:29:12] Tony Kynaston: now. We should get mad back on the show then. Holding to account.
[00:29:16] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. What are you doing? Haul him over the coals if they’re not gonna haul them over the coals. What about challenger?
[00:29:26] Tony Kynaston: Yes. Challenger. Another one that’s been on the buy list for, uh, for a while. Uh, they were, um, they were a hit in a couple of ways. So their, uh, retirement product provider and fund manager, um, they have been under a cloud according to this article, with first half profit and life sales coming in below expectations again.
[00:29:50] Tony Kynaston: No warning of that. Just, just kinda announce it with the results. Shares fell 9% on results stay culminating in a 20% decline. Over the past year. The 3.8 billion market cap company last closed at 5 47 floating with Lowe’s lasting in June, 2021. Institutional investors have also avoided the stock like the plague.
[00:30:12] Tony Kynaston: After major shareholder, wall Street Asset Manager, Apollo Management reduced its stake in the annuities and fund management business to 9.9% from 20.12% in September. Naturally, investors are concerned about another possible liquidity event, but bottom up analysts are scratching their heads, arguing the business is performing well and trading on a Ford PE of just nine times.
[00:30:37] Tony Kynaston: And this is the dilemma for me with a lot of these companies, cam, um, okay, the results, some of these results have been misses. A lot of ’em have being misses. Um, but the companies are still throwing off lots of cash and, you know, how, how cheaper do they have to get before people decide that okay, it’s, it’s, its future.
[00:31:00] Tony Kynaston: May not be, its future may be a bit rockier, but, um, you know, there’s still, there’s still cash generating machines. They’re still, uh, operating. They’ve been operating for a long time. They still do good jobs. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these companies have their share prices turned round, um, as analysts come to grips with the fundamentals of what they’ve been reporting.
[00:31:23] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, well, you know, we know the market doesn’t invest like we invest. Not everyone in the market does. Looking at the fundamentals, CGS wasn’t on our buy list though this week,
[00:31:35] Tony Kynaston: Right.
[00:31:36] Cameron Reilly: I dunno what’s where they fell off. I.
[00:31:38] Tony Kynaston: Imagine the results we’ve got, the new results in maybe, and they haven’t, um, measured up perhaps.
[00:31:44] Cameron Reilly: Right.
[00:31:44] Tony Kynaston: Mm.
[00:31:46] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. Uh, let’s talk about Parenti.
[00:31:51] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Well, um, I was gonna do a pulled pork on Perenti, the request of one of our listeners. So should I jump to that now rather than, um, discuss the results? ’cause it’ll be in the pulled pork.
[00:32:01] Cameron Reilly: Oh, let’s do it later. Then. Let’s keep going through news. Um, Berkshire Hathaway.
[00:32:07] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. So a bit of a bright spot in all the, uh, doom and gloom over the weekend. The annual leather dropped.
[00:32:14] Tony Kynaston: Um. And I almost kind of missed it in, in all the alerts and things I was looking at and results announcements I was reading. Um, but yeah, such a, such a breath of fresh air, uh, to be, to be reading, uh, uh, a market disclosure, um, in the style of Warren Buffet, uh, and, um, some of the highlights. Uh, yeah, he always lists his mistakes right up front and, uh, he says that again in this result.
[00:32:41] Tony Kynaston: And, um, he used a great, a great line, I thought. He called out most other companies for not mentioning their mistakes in their annual reports and said that, uh, uh, elsewhere, uh, annual reports have generally been happy talking pictures, which I thought was a good, a good summary if anyone’s ever gone and looked at an ASX listed company’s annual report. Yeah. Um, he called out the fact that, uh, I think it was actually a record inve, uh, profit of Berkshire Hathaway, and I noticed this morning the stock was up 4% overnight, so, um. The result was received well by the market. Uh, Warren called out the fact that, uh, Berkshire was aided by a predictably or predictable large gain in investment income.
[00:33:24] Tony Kynaston: As treasury bill yields improved and we substantially increased our holdings of these highly liquid short term securities. So, you know, he’s, the, the, the cash pile or cash equivalent pile gets bigger and, um, I think it’s a natural hedge against the coming crash. And I think that’s what he thinks too. And it kind of makes sense as, um, as bonds get sold off and the yield gets bigger, that, um.
[00:33:50] Tony Kynaston: The more he invests in that, the, um, better the income’s gonna be. But, um, when the share market does take a stumble, bonds will come back and, um, he’ll make a capital gain in as well. So I think that’s interesting. He, he often has these kind of hidden signals in what he says, and I think that’s one of them.
[00:34:07] Tony Kynaston: I think he’s seeing the market as fairly toppy in the us. Interesting, um, titbit I hadn’t noticed before that Todd Coons is now running Geico, one of their big insurance, uh, divisions. So Todd Coons was taken on as a, uh, a budding CIO and a potential replacement, uh, at least on the investment side for Warren.
[00:34:28] Tony Kynaston: He’s popped up in insurance, so I’m not sure what to read in that. Um. Warren, I don’t think would entrust Geico to someone he didn’t have a lot of faith in. So it’s probably a tick for Todd. But, um, you know, Warren’s smart enough to strengthen the bench, I think operationally as well as investment wise, uh, for his, um, succession.
[00:34:47] Tony Kynaston: Uh, one of the mistakes he called out was, um, and I quote, 60 years ago, present management took control of Berkshire. That mover was a mistake, my mistake, and one that plagued this for two decades. Charlie, I should emphasize spite of my obvious area. Immediately though the price I paid for Berkshire looked cheap, its business.
[00:35:05] Tony Kynaston: A large northern textile operation was headed for extinction. The US Treasury of all places had already received silent warnings of Berkshire’s Destiny. In 1965, the company did not pay a dime of income tax, an embarrassment that had generally prevailed at the company for a decade. That sort of economic behaviour may be understandable for glamorous startups, but it’s a blinking yellow light when it happens at a venerable pillar of American industry.
[00:35:31] Tony Kynaston: Berkshire was headed for the ashcan. Fast forward 60 years, and imagine the surprise at the Treasury when that same company still operating under the same name of Berkshire Hathaway paid far more in corporate income tax than the US government had ever received from any company, even the American tech titles that commanded market valuations in the trillions.
[00:35:52] Tony Kynaston: To be precise, Berkshire last year made four payments to the IRS that totalled 26.8 billion. That’s about 5% of what all of corporate America paid. And in addition, we paid sizable amounts for income taxes to foreign governments and to 44 states. So good old war on corporate governance, guardian of the, the US uh, economy.
[00:36:14] Cameron Reilly: Always happy to pay his taxes.
[00:36:16] Tony Kynaston: is, yeah, I think it’s a great thing. Uh, the interesting thing was that he also called out that our ownership and marketable equities moved downward last year from 354 billion to 272 billion. So, um, again, coupled, coupled with the, uh, increase in bond holdings. So that’s another sign that he’s losing interest in the US stock market.
[00:36:42] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. Hmm,
[00:36:44] Tony Kynaston: Lot of talk about his investment in Japan, which has doubled in the last five years since he started doing it by investing in five of the largest, largest companies in Japan. He writes about them and talks about them as being Japanese equivalents of Berkshire Hathaway and looking forward to a long and happy relationship with them.
[00:37:01] Cameron Reilly: hmm.
[00:37:02] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, so that was a, that was a highlight, I think, from the weekend.
[00:37:06] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, I missed that completely until I saw it in your notes.
[00:37:09] Tony Kynaston: ooh.
[00:37:11] Cameron Reilly: Uh, well, do you wanna talk about Richard’s post?
[00:37:16] Tony Kynaston: I did, yeah, I also saw this, uh, this is a post, um, and a snippet from an Alan Kohler article, um, on the investment website. And it talks about the difference between growth stocks and value stocks over the last, uh, well, it goes right back for a number of years back to 1985, uh, and the quote reads the head of research and portfolio management.
[00:37:37] Tony Kynaston: Nathan Bell at investment talked about how tough it’s been for value investors like him over the past few years, and still is because value is being ignored for growth. It’s a common tale of woe, and I’d heard it from Nathan before Value investing was the place to be in the pandemic, but for the past few years, it has been as miserable as it was in the late 1990s.
[00:37:59] Tony Kynaston: Growth stocks, ones that define normal valuation metrics and just keep getting more expensive. I have dominated global markets for three years and value investors like Nathan who don’t want to know a company selling at 50 times earnings have been left behind. So I, you know, that’s kind of been, I guess, our experience in some respects.
[00:38:18] Tony Kynaston: I’ve tried to find a way of having a checklist and the valuation method to trade the growth stocks, but I’m, I’m still scratching around to get something that looks worthwhile. Uh, ’cause you know, when you, it’s, it’s fun on the way up, but, uh, boy does it, uh, hurt when the, as they say, the market climbs the escalator and goes down the elevator shaft when it, when it crashes.
[00:38:41] Tony Kynaston: Um, so that’s, I think, ahead for growth stocks. Uh, but look, my take on this, um, I call this the value your best lament, and I’ve heard it two or three times over my investing career, even from people like Warren Buffet. I heard it from a guy called, uh. What was his name? Maple Abbott Brown. I think his name was Famous Australian Value Investor back in the nineties.
[00:39:02] Tony Kynaston: Um, in the lead up to the.com boom. You know, our performance is underperforming, uh, because of all the growth performance in the market, but we can’t find anything to buy is a, is a common sort of refrain. Um, we’re finding things to buy. I mean, um, and there are still gems out there in the value, uh, space.
[00:39:21] Tony Kynaston: Uh, I, I think there was a graph included in the post, and I think one of the things to be careful of is that when market indices, um, are compared, they put together by companies like s and p or Moody’s or whoever. Uh, and they generally just rank the, um, ASX 200, for example, by PE ratio and they call the top deciles growth and they call the bottom deciles value.
[00:39:49] Tony Kynaston: And they’re pretty broad strokes and, um, you know, uh, just. Doing that simply is not, is not, is a very broad brush approach to comparing those two, uh, because there’s lots of growth stocks that don’t make any money. So they’re not, they don’t have good quality. Um, and there’s lots of stocks like we know that, uh, have great quality in the value space and we try and separate those out using the QAV process.
[00:40:13] Tony Kynaston: So just a, a very broad value versus growth, um, approach doesn’t necessarily shed any light on what’s going on. But yeah, this has certainly been a, um, a tougher time in general for value investors and growth investors. And, you know, I, I’ve heard people talk about their investments in pro medicus and how great it’s been.
[00:40:31] Tony Kynaston: And it has been. I don’t deny them that at all. But, um, I, I am like, uh, the investment, uh, analyst. I’m not gonna buy something at a very high pe um, just ’cause there’s a risk of it going down. And we’ve, and that risk is there for all stocks. We’ve talked about the, the misses dropping shares that we own by 10, 15%.
[00:40:51] Tony Kynaston: That’s hard. That’s tough, but it’s not life ending. And when you know, the.com burst and shares dropped 80%, that’s a big difference.
[00:41:01] Cameron Reilly: And none of the stocks that I hold across all of the portfolios that have come in with these results that have been hammered in the last week, I’ve had to, I haven’t had to sell any of them because they’re all, you know, they’ve gone up well enough that they’re above their three PTL. They’re above their rule one.
[00:41:16] Cameron Reilly: So far it’s a couple that are close, but you know, a MP is kind of on the line for one of my portfolios, but. You know, I’ve been, I’ve been talking to some people about this in recent weeks, um, and just trying to help them understand what, for me is the mindset, the QAV mindset for me, which is long-term, have a, having an investment philosophy and strategy that tries to get you double market on average over the long term.
[00:41:50] Cameron Reilly: Relatively low risk, relatively low stress. And yes, you are, you, you miss out on, you know, Bitcoin type growths or Nvidia or Tesla or whatever, high growth upside there is. But you know, it’s this idea like once you, once you say, okay, I’m open to ga, the gambling side of investing, where do you draw the line?
[00:42:19] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[00:42:20] Cameron Reilly: So once you say, okay, I’m gonna take a punt on this and I’m gonna take a punt on that, and I’m gonna take a punt on this once, that’s your mindset there. I’m gonna, I’m gonna gamble. Then there’s no, where’s the discipline come in Once you, you, you, you, you open yourself up. It’s the analogy that I’ve been using.
[00:42:41] Cameron Reilly: It’s like, okay, it’s a bit like, okay, I’ll snort line of coke and, you know, I’ll take some fentanyl and I’ll, uh, you know, take some whatever opioids and I’ll inject something into my eyeballs and some smack, I mean, once you, I hope up the door
[00:42:59] Tony Kynaston: Hmm.
[00:42:59] Cameron Reilly: to those sorts of things, where do you draw the line? Like, it only takes one of those things to go bad and you can find yourself in a difficult position.
[00:43:09] Cameron Reilly: So, uh, like I think of the, the QAV mindset is sensible. Um, looking for the good long term. Sustainable growth over the long haul by having a practical strategy for trying to find good companies that are undervalued, but well run and investing in them, cutting your losses if things go wrong. It’s just like a, a sensible, relatively conservative mindset to do, to do well, and they go, well, you’re underperforming this, you’re underperforming that.
[00:43:42] Cameron Reilly: And I’m like, yeah, I don’t care. I’m not, I’m not measuring, I don’t, I’m not measuring myself on that metric. I’m measuring myself on long-term, consistent, rational investing and good returns.
[00:43:57] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Uh, look to thank you for that. I think it’s a good summary, but, but also to flip it over, I mean, if you want to approach the stock market as a casino, what’s, what are your rules? Like, that’s why the song and the gambler goes, you gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them, right? So you’ve got, before you start to gamble, you’ve gotta know what your rules are.
[00:44:16] Tony Kynaston: And I think people have this mentality a bit like the pig panther, that they can ride the elevator shaft down, but step off onto a solid ground just before it hits and be okay. And, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve looked at all of those companies, looked at history. You, you can’t like frog a leapfrog across the highway and happen to land on everything that goes up.
[00:44:38] Tony Kynaston: Um, and not have a rule for getting out before things crash. Like if you use three point trend lines, for example, just go and put a three point trend line on the Bitcoin graph. I mean, the sell line is so far below the price. Um, you know, you’d be losing all your money before you got out if you use that as an example.
[00:44:57] Tony Kynaston: So maybe there are some other ways to do it, but, um, but yeah, I think, you know, I haven’t heard in, in my many decades of reading about investing and looking at the markets and looking at investors, anyone who’s been able to jump from the ASX to the us to the bricks, to Bitcoin, to MAGA seven, mag seven, or whatever, all at the right time.
[00:45:20] Tony Kynaston: You know, you, you, you’re generally siloed. Um, you don’t have to be, you can have a diversified portfolio, but you’re generally siloed into, you know, being a tech investor or a biotech investor or commodities or whatever. Um, because you need to, to be able to have some confidence to, to have the rules you need, you need to know a bit about the industry.
[00:45:43] Tony Kynaston: So, um, yeah, it’d be great to be able to step, step across all the, all the moving stones at the right time, but I’ve never seen anyone do it and I don’t think it’s possible. And so, which means that if you, if we’re in the ASX, um, yeah, it’s gonna underperform the US on some, some years, it’s gonna outperform in some years, um, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:46:01] Tony Kynaston: So, uh, you know, hopefully we can add the US to our investing universe this year and, um, you know, we’ll expand and pick the best of both, but, uh,
[00:46:12] Cameron Reilly: I have, and it’s up a hundred percent.
[00:46:13] Tony Kynaston: yeah. Well, there you go. So, so, um. We found that perhaps found a way to do it, but um, yeah, it’s still using our tried and true tried and true rules, uh, around it.
[00:46:27] Cameron Reilly: The mindset that people often throw at me. You say, well, you just take 5% of your portfolio and put it in Bitcoin. I’m like, okay. But then if you’re gonna do that, then why not take 5% of it and put it in Dogecoin and take 5% of it and put it in Trump coin, and then you put, take 5% of it and put it in Nvidia, buy the dip, and then you take 5% of it and put it in whatever Wall Street bets is promoting this week.
[00:46:49] Cameron Reilly: What were the to the moon stocks? Uh, there’s the, the video chain in the US that the redditors were behind. Um, I haven’t looked at that for a while. Like the whole, just take 5% of it and put it in something risky thing. You’re like, okay, well how many five percents do you take and put it in? How many risky things?
[00:47:07] Cameron Reilly: It’s, you know, it’s kind of just this, it’s sloppy thinking is, uh,
[00:47:12] Tony Kynaston: To, to be fair to that thinking, um, the only person I’ve heard do that successfully is, um, Nicholas Taylor who wrote The Black Swan Book and, and other ones. And he has this, this thing, I think it’s called the Barbell Strategy, or the Dumbbell Strategy, where he takes 95% of his portfolio and puts it in risk-free assets, like, which he calls T Bonds.
[00:47:33] Tony Kynaston: So like Warren Buffet investing in US treasuries, and then he mucks around with the 5%. So, you know, I have, I have some regard for that as a process, but he, he openly acknowledges the five percent’s gotta, you know, be a 20 x. Return before it makes a dent in the 95% in let’s say treasury bonds. Um, ’cause it’s, you know, it’s only 5% of the portfolio.
[00:47:56] Tony Kynaston: If it doubles, uh, okay, he is made 5% of his portfolio. It’s not, it’s gotta really shoot the lights out. But that’s how he scratches his itch, I guess. Um, but yeah, I mean, if you are right, if he, why 5% is the ans is the answer to I’m taking 5%, put it in Bitcoin. If you’re that convinced, take 50, take a hundred.
[00:48:16] Tony Kynaston: If you think bitcoin’s that good and if you’re not, take half of your, or if you have to scratch an itch. Yeah.
[00:48:23] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, GameStop was, uh, one of the, to the moon stocks. I’m just looking at it, it, uh, went up to $16 25 USD in 2021, no, hold on. $81.
[00:48:41] Tony Kynaston: I told you I went to a GameStop.
[00:48:43] Cameron Reilly: Yes.
[00:48:44] Tony Kynaston: the US and
[00:48:45] Cameron Reilly: Yeah,
[00:48:46] Tony Kynaston: there was me and tumbleweeds, there was crickets in the store. There’s nothing there.
[00:48:51] Cameron Reilly: It shot up to 81. It, it was trading at sort of a dollar, a dollar early 2020 round. Beginning of Covid shot up to $81 by January, 2021. It’s now at $25. And has, uh, been sliding down ever since all of the hype circle. So if you bought it anywhere in that period, in early 2021, you know, by the middle of the year it was still trading at 60 bucks.
[00:49:20] Cameron Reilly: It’s been sliding downwards ever since. So if you bought it before the hype in 2020, you’re probably quite happy. If you bought it any time after it started getting hyped, you’ve probably lost money on it.
[00:49:35] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And if you, and, and that goes the same for Trump coin as well, so, you know, if you wanna put, you wanna put money into Bitcoin, why don’t you put it in the Trump coin? Same sort of thing. Yeah,
[00:49:45] Cameron Reilly: Uh, let’s see. You had a question about whether or not lower interest rates are in the checklist.
[00:49:51] Tony Kynaston: did. So interest rates were cut last Tuesday, and we, we have a couple of cells in the spreadsheet, which check checks for them. And I, I, I downloaded your spreadsheet from Monday and I can’t see the cells, um, where that would normally be recorded, so I’m just checking to make sure it’s in there.
[00:50:07] Cameron Reilly: Cells being CEL?
[00:50:10] Tony Kynaston: Correct.
[00:50:10] Cameron Reilly: Um, no, probably not. So, um, I will update the interest rates in the checklist.
[00:50:20] Tony Kynaston: And um, yeah, share that to anyone else who’s doing their own downloads to do it. As for themselves too,
[00:50:26] Cameron Reilly: Do you know what the rate is?
[00:50:28] Tony Kynaston: 4.1%.
[00:50:30] Cameron Reilly: 4.1%.
[00:50:33] Tony Kynaston: You better Google that. I’m going from memory.
[00:50:35] Cameron Reilly: I will. Thanks for picking that up. Alright, what’s next?
[00:50:43] Tony Kynaston: Well, I did have a couple of other things which came in late. If you don’t mind me just looking at a couple of other share related issues. Um, actually I’ve got. Three or four other articles to get to, but I might leave a couple of them for, um, for next week, given we’ve been speaking for a while. The first one to talk about though, is, well, first one I’ll talk about is Telstra.
[00:51:03] Tony Kynaston: So they, they are one of the companies that reported, uh, good results. Um, and their shares are up a little bit. Uh, and I just wanted to call out, I did a download myself today to do the pulled pork on Parenti. ’cause I think their results hit Stock Doctor last night, perhaps. Um, and that’s another thing, another shout out to people is when you’re doing downloads and whoever you, you are your data provider is, make sure you’ve got the most recent results in your analysis.
[00:51:33] Tony Kynaston: Um, so for parentis case, we were looking at, uh, results from December, 2024. Um, so that’s the first thing. Uh, Telstra results are in, they were good. And the download I did showed them just being the stock that was. Just off the buy list. So they’re the first stock off the bottom end of the buy list. But I thought I’d highlight that because um, they are a huge a DT stock for anyone looking for something to buy with a large portfolio.
[00:52:01] Tony Kynaston: So have a look at Telstra. Uh, but I did wanna also high out have you got any NRW in our portfolios at all because they’re in a trading halt. And it came out, I think yesterday that, um, NRW being a mining contracting business is owed up to $120 million in the collapse of the wireless steelworks and the nearby iron ore mines that supplied raw materials to the Sanjeev Gupta owned group.
[00:52:29] Tony Kynaston: So, um, they went into a trading halt where they try and work out how much is owed and they’re also waiting for, uh, the administrators who’ve been appointed to y to hold a meeting and kind of outline what creditors might be getting outta that. So, um. Not good news, uh, but, um, we’ll find out in the next couple of days.
[00:52:52] Tony Kynaston: ’cause they said that they would, uh, they’ve asked for a trading halt, um, until February 28th. And, uh, they may extend that, but they may also have an, an answer as to what they’re unlikely to get back from Y alibi then
[00:53:06] Cameron Reilly: I do not hold NRW and have never held NRW. Hmm
[00:53:11] Tony Kynaston: They’ve certainly been on the, um, on the buy list a number of times. Yeah. I know that it probably hasn’t been a stop to buy for a while ’cause the share price has been coming down because, um, I think it, uh, uh, um, I’ll have to check my facts, but I think there was a, a large block sale towards the end of last year, which started to depress the price.
[00:53:32] Cameron Reilly: Right. I.
[00:53:32] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Anyway, it’s been coming down. Uh, so that were the two things I wanted to talk about. So I can do a pulled talk now if you like.
[00:53:40] Cameron Reilly: Well, I’ve got some stuff to, some new stuff just to touch on before you do that. Aus Wide bank, our old friends from Bundaberg, my old hometown, a BA, were acquired by my state bank. They were suspended from trading on the 10th of February. I did hold them in a couple of, uh, portfolios and some of our listeners may have, if you haven’t, uh, noticed this go through.
[00:54:03] Cameron Reilly: They were acquired, suspended from trading on the 10th of February. Then they were removed, delisted, whatever, on the 20th of February, eligible a BA shareholders will receive 1.112. My state shares for each a BA share that you held onto. So, uh, take. Note of that in your portfolio, you now are the proud owner of MYS shares.
[00:54:34] Tony Kynaston: Interesting time for the banking sector and I’ll talk about it a bit more next week. But, um, you know, the bank’s regen basically mortgage. Brokers building societies, they’ve still got some business, um, you know, banking sections and credit cards and uh, car loans and stuff. But, uh, they don’t have their wealth businesses.
[00:54:54] Tony Kynaston: They don’t have insurance anymore. So I think a couple of things, I think, um, CBA rightly is the, is the biggest, uh, market cap of the four major banks, largely because, uh, I think it has the lowest, um, has, has a high market share, but it has the lowest, uh, that’s, uh, mortgages that are going through, uh, mortgage brokers.
[00:55:19] Tony Kynaston: In other words, they’re originating most of their, a larger amount of their own mortgage loans, which gives a, gives ’em a mar a margin advantage, um, which is hard to compete against because then they, they turn that margin back into price competition and lower their prices. So that’s always tough to compete against.
[00:55:36] Tony Kynaston: Um, so interesting times for the. Banking industry, if interest rates are cut again, I mean, 0.25% isn’t a big deal to them, but as interest rates get cut, they, um, they’re gonna have to lower their margins because, um, you know, in a high interest rate environment, the spread between what they have to pay deposit holders and what they can, um, get from mortgages is, uh, is higher.
[00:56:04] Tony Kynaston: There’s a number then, um, when interest rates are lower and that, that, that margin gets compressed. So it’s not happy days for them. So the reason I, I call that out is because you probably see more mergers in the small banking sector. Um, there’s always been talk of some of the medium sized ones, like, uh, uh, Bendigo and perhaps, uh, well, Bendigo merged with Adelaide years ago, but perhaps Bendigo and one of the other ones like Bank of Queensland.
[00:56:30] Tony Kynaston: Um. Suncorp’s just being, uh, uh, absorbed by a NZ. So there’s gonna be a lot more m and a activity, I think, in the banking space going forward.
[00:56:38] Cameron Reilly: indeed. Uh, also in the news, LAU Lindsey. Came out with their half report share price collapsed by 15% the other day. Uh, we do hold that in, uh, a few portfolios. Um, it’s one of those ones that we’ve held for quite a while, uh, since 2022. I’ve held it in three portfolios, the dummy portfolio and two of the light portfolios.
[00:57:10] Cameron Reilly: It’s up 20% in one of them, but, uh, 44% and 64%. And another one, we bought it somewhere between 42 and 57 cents, depending on the portfolio. It’s now trading at 69 cents. So even though the share price took a bit of a hit when their results came out, it didn’t come close to becoming a sell for us. It’s just, uh, not as good of a holding as it was.
[00:57:37] Cameron Reilly: Um, their revenue went up three and a half percent, but their net profit after tax fell about 19% year on year. So that’s, uh, not great. Earnings per share, also slipped, profit margin, squeezed, et cetera, et cetera. Same with what we’ve been hearing across the board. PRN, you’ve talked about HLI, Helia came out with their results this morning and they were up 12%, so that was a.
[00:58:08] Cameron Reilly: Like a rare, uh, positive story with half year results. I hold them in one portfolio. One of the light portfolios added them about a two years ago, January, 2023, and they’re currently up 102% over that period of time. Bought ’em at $2 80. They’re now $5 66 and up 17% today so far since their results came out.
[00:58:35] Cameron Reilly: So, you know, there are winners and there are losers, and we hold them in. We roughly equal measure.
[00:58:44] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[00:58:45] Cameron Reilly: We, we just hope we hold just one, one more winner than we hold losers at this time of year.
[00:58:51] Tony Kynaston: Well, yeah, but I also would like, you know, it not to get these surprises on annual results announcement days. Surely we should be getting, um, getting these announcements a bit earlier.
[00:59:03] Cameron Reilly: But even if you get them during confession season. The same thing happens, right? The share price takes a hit. We, it just happens a month or two earlier than what it gets anyway, so,
[00:59:15] Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:16] Cameron Reilly: Um, alright, well that’s all I’ve got. Do we have time to do it, Paul Pork? We’re already at an hour. Tony, I think we probably
[00:59:25] Tony Kynaston: Happy to. Yep, I can do that. It’s on, it’s on parent. In fact, uh, we have requests for Parenti and super cheap, so thank you for, for both of those. Um, why don’t just quickly talk about the Parenti results and we’ll go into more detail next week. So, Parenti came out as one of these stocks that came out and, uh, the market shot first and asked questions later, and it, I think it dropped like 15% when it came out.
[00:59:53] Cameron Reilly: 18%
[00:59:54] Tony Kynaston: Thank you. But, well, as I was doing the pulled pork today, I’m looking at the share price and it’s getting higher and higher and higher. So it’s recovered at least half of that, um, this morning as market digests. What’s going on?
[01:00:05] Cameron Reilly: Up 8% today, so not quite half, but yeah, almost back to half. Yeah.
[01:00:11] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. So again, this is one of these, um. One of these companies, I think whether, um, I don’t know whether it’s computer-based trading or AI or whatever, it looks at the numbers and goes, not good sell.
[01:00:22] Tony Kynaston: And then they read what the CEO has to say and they go, Ooh, okay. Maybe it’s, it’s okay. But, um, you know, uh, so what a couple of things. Um, free cash flow was one of the headlines, uh, that was called out as a miss. Uh, and it was down this, this half. And the CEO said, yeah, but that’s because we, um, we had someone, uh, who didn’t pay on time and they’re coming, they, they came into January rather than December.
[01:00:49] Tony Kynaston: And you know, I think, uh, ed or someone like that in the Facebook group said, hang on. That’s, that’s not, that’s not much of an excuse. And it’s not really, because I know when I was running businesses, I ran, before results came out, I looked at my sundry credits and debits and if there was something that was going to come in late, I had the option of, I think I was required to, but oftentimes I.
[01:01:13] Tony Kynaston: Make it optional. They’ve put it into this year’s results or next, next half’s numbers or even monthly into the numbers, um, or not. And the way it’s done is via sundry credits and sundry debits. So if they knew they were, if they were confident they were gonna get the money in January from the late payer, he could have raised the CEO, could have raised, um, a provision for that and took the money in in December and then debited January’s results and took it off of January’s results.
[01:01:40] Tony Kynaston: Um, chose not to, so for whatever reason, and I can’t, I’m only speculating as to why one, one might be that they didn’t have the conviction they were gonna get it all back. So I didn’t wanna account for it in December, but I know when I was running businesses it would often be, well, I’ve made my target this half.
[01:01:57] Tony Kynaston: So what, what’s the use of. Outperforming, I may as well keep it in the January numbers and uh, and get off to a good start for the next half. So I’m not casting aspersions, but I think, you know, there was a bit of discretion in whether it was reported in or not. So, um, there’s that. They also called out that, um, and Pat was, was down year on year, but then they said that was because they had a non-cash writeup of their business acquisition that occurred in 2023.
[01:02:30] Tony Kynaston: So, fair enough. Um, so good reasons as to why there were a couple of misses and I think the market’s got it wrong ’cause they are good reasons. My overall comment is Jesus, make the account simple. You, you should be able to explain ’em to a 6‑year-old, not, not have to worry about whether there was a non-cash right back or a sundry credit or debit in there somewhere.
[01:02:52] Tony Kynaston: Just keep it as simple as and as unaggressive as possible in your accounting, and you’ll do a lot better with the market than making them stop and read everything in detail.
[01:03:02] Cameron Reilly: Isn’t it like going to a mechanic and you say, what’s wrong with my car? And he goes, yeah, well your dip slash Finn is uh, up the, uh, kaki and we’ve gotta replace the Dal fanger with the, uh, you know, try to baffle him with bullshit. Is that what they’re trying to do?
[01:03:17] Tony Kynaston: Uh, possibly. I think what they’re trying to do is to, I think what happened, this is, this is me being cynical. Um, I think what they did was they, they, they wrote up their acquisition of DDH one, which was a great acquisition and it outperformed for them in 2023. And they were carrying it on their books at the valuation.
[01:03:35] Tony Kynaston: And they said, okay, we need to, um, write up that valuation. It’s a better asset than we thought. And that improved their profit numbers, perhaps when they needed it in, in 2023. Now it’s 2024. They’re saying, oh, we should back that one out when we’re comparing 2024 to 2023 again, perhaps when they need it.
[01:03:53] Tony Kynaston: And then they’re playing around with, um, uh, late payments and when they occur. So. When I looked at the website and looked at their CEO, he’s, I’d have to say, um, I dunno how old he is. He’s got a very fresh face. So I’m wondering if this is part of a learning experience for him. He’s probably come out and decided, I can play fast and loose with the numbers, but you, you can’t play fast and loose with the market.
[01:04:15] Tony Kynaston: And I think, um, if he can, if that’s one lesson from this results, um, I hope he’s learned it. Just keep it simple, keep it honest, keep it, um, unaggressive and, uh, the market will like you a lot better, um, than trying to finagle things.
[01:04:30] Cameron Reilly: I think we’ve got a QAV Club member who works at Parenti, so uh, maybe he can give us, uh,
[01:04:35] Tony Kynaston: Yeah, please, bit of insight, bit insight
[01:04:39] Cameron Reilly: call out that I own PRN in, uh, quite a few portfolios, including my own super, uh, but also the dummy portfolio and a light portfolio. My super, I added it only November last year, and it’s up like 3%, but, uh, the dummy portfolio had it since May last year.
[01:04:58] Cameron Reilly: It’s up 25%. Light portfolio is about the same. So, um, it’s, uh, done. Okay. Uh, it’s again, another one of those shares that had a big drop this week, but it was a safe hold for us, um,
[01:05:19] Tony Kynaston: And bouncing back. And I should also declare, I own, I own parenting and my own portfolios as well and didn’t have to sell it after the, um, results, which was good. It was, I bought it, uh, I sold Grain Corp. I. Towards the end of last year, I think around October or November and bought parenting, it was up like 30 or 35% for me.
[01:05:39] Tony Kynaston: So it’s cropped back to 10 to 15 odd now. Um, and the price is jumping around, so it’s hard to get a exact number at the moment. So it’s still, um, it’s still doing well, but it, uh, I think the market’s overreacted a bit to this result up.
[01:05:52] Cameron Reilly: mm. Well, there you go. Well, I think that’s the show apart from some after hours. Tony, I think we can draw a line under that. It was good. Lot of lot of stuff going on. No questions, but plenty of news. What have you been doing in after hours apart from golfing with Ruddy?
[01:06:12] Tony Kynaston: Um, we, have you seen the SNL 50th anniversary show?
[01:06:16] Cameron Reilly: Not the full thing. I’ve seen lots of clips of it on TikTok and stuff, but not the full thing.
[01:06:21] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Very good. Worth a watch all the way through.
[01:06:25] Cameron Reilly: I dunno, I don’t even know where to watch it. Is it on binge or something? Here?
[01:06:28] Tony Kynaston: Uh, I think it was on Foxtel when Roddy and I watched it.
[01:06:31] Cameron Reilly: That’d be binge.
[01:06:33] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Okay.
[01:06:33] Cameron Reilly: I saw the share, uh, performance of turn back time, the concert. Did you see that? Did you see the concert or just the show?
[01:06:43] Tony Kynaston: I saw the show.
[01:06:45] Cameron Reilly: So they had the show, which looks great, but then they had a concert where they just had like a celebrity. So Chrissy’s, um, you met Elise. Remember Chrissy’s niece, Chrissy and her niece were in Sydney and they ran into you.
[01:07:00] Cameron Reilly: So Elise, her niece, the niece, Elise, lives in New York now and she’s a, she’s a massive, massive Beatles nerd fan. And McCartney was doing a show, like a small show in New York this week that she found out about late because he was there for the SNL thing. She rocked up ’cause she tried to get a ticket, couldn’t get a ticket.
[01:07:22] Cameron Reilly: So she just rocked up at the venue and sort of finagled her way in. But she said she told Chrissy she was, uh, she went to like the VIP entrance to see if she could like talk her way in. She said the lineup of people. Was just insane. She’s like, there was every celebrity ever. ’cause they were all in New York for the SNL thing and they all went to the McCartney thing.
[01:07:49] Cameron Reilly: So she said there was like, you know, Laura Dern was there and blah, blah, blah. She was rattling off all the celebrity names and she was like, just a gog. She got in and there was a photo, there was an official photo take. It was like a, it is like your birthday party, you know, when we had the Angels play, like a small club, a hundred, 200 people there.
[01:08:07] Cameron Reilly: Somebody took a photo of the audience around the stage and she’s, she put, she sent us a photo with an arrow go. That’s me holding up my
[01:08:13] Tony Kynaston: Oh, fantastic.
[01:08:15] Cameron Reilly: wrapped, but um, yeah, so at the, at the concert that they had, Cher came out singing, if I could Turn Back Time dressed in the same, see through Body Stocking she wore in 1989 or whenever that song first came out and I was telling.
[01:08:37] Cameron Reilly: Chrissy, ’cause she was only 10 years old at the time. I remember when this, when she, when the, when the film clip for this came out. Cher was like 40 at the time. And it was a huge sort of, holy shit. She can pull that off at 40 moment. Now she’s 78 and she came out wearing the same thing and with the wig on.
[01:08:57] Cameron Reilly: So, you know, she looks exactly there, some plastic surgery, but it’s not too bad. But she pulled it off. Like she, she, she absolutely nailed the performance. I was super impressed that she pulled it off at 78.
[01:09:11] Tony Kynaston: Fantastic. Did you see her see her in the Super Bowl ad?
[01:09:15] Cameron Reilly: No,
[01:09:15] Tony Kynaston: I. When, if I could turn back time and she gets transported back to the mid middle ages,
[01:09:21] Cameron Reilly: all
[01:09:21] Tony Kynaston: starts singing and they go, which, which burner?
[01:09:27] Cameron Reilly: uh, was that a recent one or an old one.
[01:09:29] Tony Kynaston: The last Super Bowl. Yeah.
[01:09:30] Cameron Reilly: Oh, okay.
[01:09:31] Tony Kynaston: Well, McCartney performs in the SNL 50 TV show.
[01:09:35] Cameron Reilly: Right.
[01:09:36] Tony Kynaston: Um, and I saw him live last year in Sydney and he was really good. He was a bit read and a bit old. His vocals didn’t really handle the, the, um, the concert. This time I was a bit disappointed and I had, uh, little Wayne or someone on it, which I fast forwarded through.
[01:09:53] Tony Kynaston: Didn’t, didn’t like that at all. Um, Adam Sandler got up and did the song, and talking of celebrities like the. Uh, Tina Fay and Amy Pohler made a bit of a joke about it that, uh, all the people who they couldn’t fit on stage for a skit. We sat in the audience. So it was just like Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, uh, just fame, Steven Spielberg, famous celebrity after famous celebrity in the audience.
[01:10:18] Tony Kynaston: So they went through a lot of them as part of their comedy routine.
[01:10:21] Cameron Reilly: Jack was there.
[01:10:22] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And looking pretty old too.
[01:10:26] Cameron Reilly: you have to be. Yeah. I haven’t seen Jack and anything for a long, long, long time.
[01:10:30] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[01:10:32] Cameron Reilly: They’re all old these guys, man. They’re all getting
[01:10:34] Tony Kynaston: Keith Richards was in the audience. He gets up and he goes, I think I left a bandana here back in the eighties, has anyone seen? And then Zach Galifianakis is wearing a band, which is quite funny. Uh, so yeah. Well worth a look. Um, watched, uh, have you seen the documentary on Hand, Zimmer?
[01:10:57] Cameron Reilly: No, but I saw, I saw a post on Reddit the other day of him playing keyboard in video. Killed the radio star. Apparently he was the keyboard player in the Buggles in the eighties. Yeah. Which I hadn’t. I didn’t know. I was like, holy shit. Really? Wow. No, it’s a good
[01:11:18] Tony Kynaston: yeah. Very
[01:11:19] Cameron Reilly: doc documentary, huh? Just on his life and career.
[01:11:23] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Did so much and, and scored so many things. I think his first Hollywood movie was Rain Man, so way back then.
[01:11:31] Cameron Reilly: Wow,
[01:11:31] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And
[01:11:33] Cameron Reilly: at his, his Wikipedia page here, he worked with the Bugles. Zimmer can be seen briefly in the Bugles music video for the 1979 song video. Kill the Radio Star. There you go.
[01:11:43] Tony Kynaston: Hmm. Yeah. So I recommend that I watched the documentary, which I really enjoy, called White Riot. Um. if you would have liked it, but, uh, about, um, rock Against Racism back in the seventies and the UK fan. Fantastic. I really enjoyed it.
[01:12:02] Cameron Reilly: I. I, um, I was talking to my sifu at Kung fu the other day. He’s a Scotsman and, um, we ended up talking about music or something and he was telling me he used to go see the Clash all the
[01:12:14] Tony Kynaston: Uh,
[01:12:15] Cameron Reilly: growing up in the UK in the like late seventies, early eighties. And I was thinking, oh yeah, I know somebody who would be very jealous of that.
[01:12:24] Cameron Reilly: Yeah. He goes, ah, I used to go see them all the time, you know?
[01:12:28] Tony Kynaston: this documentary is about these two, uh, sort of comedians who set up rock against racism at the time when the national front was looking like it might win. The British elections back in the seventies was really becoming a dominant force and skinheads were out there beating up. Black people and, and, uh, Asians at, at concerts.
[01:12:50] Tony Kynaston: And these two guys put out a, um, a fan zine calling for people to write in. And this is like before mobile phones and the internet and all that. Writing them become ambassadors for rock against racism and hold concerts in their local area and all this kind of stuff. And, uh, really sort of, um, involved lots of influential people including, you know, the way that a lot of magazines looked after that, with that kind of newspaper cutouts of police holding right shields and, um, being, uh, people being beaten up.
[01:13:23] Tony Kynaston: And, you know, there’s the whole, the clashes in it a little bit, but it’s really about some of the black artists, um, and the national front and the, and then the marches against the national front and how the police would protect the national front, but they wouldn’t do much for the, for the anti, uh, fascist league and all this kind of stuff.
[01:13:41] Tony Kynaston: And it culminates in, um. The famous Victoria Park concert where the Clash headline playing White Riot. Um, which is the end of the show. And, and if you, if you anyone’s seen Rude Boy, it’s the same footage from that which is really bright and colourful and fantastic, and 80,000 people turn up and like the, right up until the morning, they didn’t know that anyone was gonna show it.
[01:14:05] Tony Kynaston: It’d been raining all week. The idea was they were gonna have an um, uh, an anti-national front march from Raffel Square to Victoria Park, which is, you know, five Ks away or something. Um, and you know, the guy who’s organizing it turns up, no one’s there, and then suddenly busloads of people arrive and. It just grows and grows into 80,000 people attending this, this March, the national front go home.
[01:14:33] Tony Kynaston: They’re like, no. They, they started off, you know, doing Zeke Hole salutes as the marches go past and after about an hour they go home, like, we’re not gonna hang around for this. And then they have this huge concert, which is fantastic. So it’s a really good, really good documentary from a historical point of view about that’s Britain, what was going on about the, you know, people, the coal miners out of work, all that kind of stuff.
[01:14:57] Tony Kynaston: Um, and uh, just how communities can put things together to, to counter that, which we may well have to rely on in the future.
[01:15:06] Cameron Reilly: Eh, the national front. I know they’re still around. I mean, I remember, uh, talking about them on our Cold War show a while ago. Um, they were started by journalists called AK Chesterson Chesterton. I seem to recall, um.
[01:15:28] Tony Kynaston: was their political leader. He came from Northern
[01:15:30] Cameron Reilly: he? Oh really? Yeah.
[01:15:33] Tony Kynaston: One of the, um, floats in this rock against racism parade was, uh, the rubbery figures people had put together refugees of Enoch Powell and some of the other leaders of the national front, which looked quite,
[01:15:45] Cameron Reilly: Hmm. Yeah. Um, it was all sort of, uh, they were very mixed up in sort of the militant Christianity antisemitism in the U.K. in the, the thirties and forties.
[01:16:02] Tony Kynaston: mm.
[01:16:04] Cameron Reilly: Uh, what else? Who’s Rick Butler?
[01:16:08] Tony Kynaston: Rick Butler died, which is a, was a real blow to me. Rick Butler was the drummer for the jam.
[01:16:13] Cameron Reilly: Oh,
[01:16:15] Tony Kynaston: Guy that at the tender age of 69, which isn’t much older than me, uh, always, you know, one of my, one of my favourites in the music scene. ’cause he was always just such a standup guy, you know, never had a media presence himself.
[01:16:31] Tony Kynaston: Um, the Jam sort of was only around for a few brief, brief years. And then Paul Weller started the Style Council and ditched the other two members. And Bruce Fox and the bass player, and I think Rick Butler may have done this for a while, formed a, a cover band for the jam, like a tribute band called From the Jam and kept playing jam songs up until the present time.
[01:16:52] Tony Kynaston: Um, Rick Butler kind of, I think opened up a men’s wear store but would do speaking tours and things like that. I read his autobiography a couple of years ago, which was fantastic about that scene back in the late seventies, early eighties in the UK and what they went through. Um, but just a, like a real down to worst standup guy.
[01:17:10] Tony Kynaston: And it was just such a shame to see him pass away.
[01:17:13] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, 69 is way too young. That’s how old Bowie was. Bowie died too.
[01:17:19] Tony Kynaston: Oh, really?
[01:17:20] Cameron Reilly: Too young. Very young. Yeah.
[01:17:23] Tony Kynaston: Yes.
[01:17:25] Cameron Reilly: well, I finished looking Glass War, uh, yesterday, the third Le Carre novel. And I gotta say I loved it. It was, I as bleak as the previous two, if not more bleak. Like, and I could see it coming, like the ending of it. I could just see it coming and it, uh, but it was so brutal and bleak and just sad and tragic and yeah.
[01:17:57] Cameron Reilly: But like, I loved it. I really, I, I, I loved just how sort of tragic the whole group were. I dunno if you remember how it plays out, but.
[01:18:07] Tony Kynaston: I don’t, no. In fact, I don’t even think I finished it. It was from memory. The Looking Glass War was a radio. It started life as a radio plane and he turned it into a book. So it
[01:18:16] Cameron Reilly: Oh, okay.
[01:18:17] Tony Kynaston: from, if I’m, my memory might be shaking on that, but it always had the least sort of flesh. It wasn’t as complete as the other novels I’ve found.
[01:18:26] Cameron Reilly: Well, like the first half of the book, uh, is, you know, these sort of this uh, second rank intelligence agency in the UK that have had one of their guys killed who was trying to get some film from a pilot who was flying over some part of East Germany where they thought there was something suspicious going on some Russian tanks or missiles or something.
[01:18:49] Cameron Reilly: They send a guy over, mid-level guy ends up dead. They send another guy over to try and find out what happens and he can’t, he gets scared off, but. And they’re all sort of incompetent and want to be spies. And then they get sort of approval from the ministry to do an operation and send a, send a guy in there to find out.
[01:19:12] Cameron Reilly: And then, so the second half of the book is all upbeat. They’re all sort of excited and they’ve got some funding and they’ve got approval and they’re gonna show the smiley guys the, you know, the, the, the, the real agents, how it’s done that they shouldn’t Yeah, they’re, they’re not inferior. And they try, they find this old guy work for him in the war.
[01:19:30] Cameron Reilly: Some Polish guys living in London and they train, they, you sort of retrain him and get him ready and they all go off to Germany and he goes in and immediately gets, sort of screws it up. And, you know, he’s, he’s sending wireless signals back and he gets it all wrong. All of his training goes out the window, like literally the minute he lands.
[01:19:51] Cameron Reilly: And the Germans pick, pick him up and the Russians pick him up and they warn him. And then news gets back to England that the, this guy’s botched it. And then Smiley has to all, all of the, the second rank guys, the senior guys that set up this whole operation are in West Germany where the guy’s gone over the border and Smiley rocks up and says, pack up your gear guys, you’ve gotta go home.
[01:20:15] Cameron Reilly: And they’re like, but, but our guy’s there. And he’s like, doesn’t matter. He’s probably dead already. It’s just, they’re like, but, but we can’t just, I guess, yeah, just pack it up. I, I can’t even believe you got this far. Well done. You did a good job. Like, you, you, you, you, you really like, it’s just so sad and bleak and just.
[01:20:38] Cameron Reilly: You know, it’s just, just brutal. Absolutely brutal. And, uh, I, I loved it. Uh, you know, anyway, there you
[01:20:46] Tony Kynaston: Oh good. I’ll have to go back and call it out and give it a read. So what’s next in La Carre Cannon?
[01:20:53] Cameron Reilly: I don’t know, but I’ve got the Len Dayton, I’ve got the Ypres
[01:20:55] Tony Kynaston: Oh
[01:20:55] Cameron Reilly: lined up to read next. But then a Russian, a Russian friend of mine is got me reading some Russian literature. I’m gonna read the 12 chairs, which. Uh, he, he, I read the OV one recently that had put me under the dog’s heart, which was great. He is put me under this other one 12 chairs for sort of the same era I’ve seen the film.
[01:21:13] Cameron Reilly: Mel Brooks made a film version of it in the seventies, which I saw as a kid and I vaguely remember it, but I haven’t seen it for a long time. Basically, the story is I think somebody, some wealthy Jewish guy dies and in his will, he tells his family that there were 12 dining chairs and he had stuffed all of the jewels into one of them, but they’ve sold it all off.
[01:21:40] Cameron Reilly: I think he dies and they all get sold off, and then they have to go hunting for these chairs and try and find the one with the jewels that have, but not let anyone know that the jewels are in them. And there’s this, this sort of, this dark comedy thing. Anyway, so I’m gonna read that. Then I’ll probably read Len Dayton and then I might get back on the Leray.
[01:21:56] Cameron Reilly: But yeah, I’m really enjoying the Leray stuff. It’s refreshing in a, in a sort of a.
[01:22:03] Tony Kynaston: They in a very, yeah. Dismal way.
[01:22:04] Cameron Reilly: Dark, bleak. Yeah. Kinda way. I’m in a dark, bleak mood at the moment
[01:22:10] Tony Kynaston: Oh, okay.
[01:22:12] Cameron Reilly: obvious reasons.
[01:22:13] Tony Kynaston: Eat something.
[01:22:15] Cameron Reilly: Oh yeah. Well, as I told you, off air. Yeah. I just finished, I did a 36 hour fast. My first one I’ve done in 20 years. I finished that this morning and that was, that was fun.
[01:22:25] Cameron Reilly: Except I woke up hungry in the middle of the night. The daytime was okay ’cause I could drink, but I woke up sort of two 30 feeling hungry and had to stave that off until seven 30 this morning. But, um, yeah, it was cool.
[01:22:38] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Well
[01:22:39] Cameron Reilly: Uh, Chrissy and I have been watching the final episodes of Cobra Kai, uh, ’cause my boys have been berating me not having finished it.
[01:22:46] Cameron Reilly: They said it’s great and it, the last couple of episodes have been pretty good, I have to confess. And I’m halfway through Furiosa. Did you watch
[01:22:55] Tony Kynaston: I did. Yeah. I found it a little disappointing.
[01:23:00] Cameron Reilly: I heard my boys went to see it at the premier and they canned it and they canned Chris Hemsworth’s performance. And I didn’t mind that so much. My feeling so far is kind of, I’ve, you know, it’s just Fury Road too. And Fury Road was great, but this is sort of just the same thing all over again and I’m like, eh,
[01:23:28] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[01:23:29] Cameron Reilly: you know, fury Road was great because it was so different and surprising and this, I’m just like, I’m not, I like, I found myself eventually sort of cleaning the kitchen with it on in the background, sort of gla glancing at the screen.
[01:23:42] Cameron Reilly: Not that sort of glued to it, you know.
[01:23:47] Tony Kynaston: I, I think Chris Hemsworth could, should steer away, comic away from comedy. It’s not, I remember he was, he had a part in the female Ghostbusters sequel, which was comedic and he had
[01:23:59] Cameron Reilly: that was just a bad film. That wasn’t his fault. Like
[01:24:01] Tony Kynaston: no, I was gonna say he was good. He was funny in it playing the dumb Beefcake secretary. But, um, ever since then, he’s tried to be a comedian and he’s not, and
[01:24:11] Cameron Reilly: No, the first, the first Taika Waititi Thor film. I thought he was great when they made the switch to comedy. I thought that was hilarious. The second one, the Love and Thunder one they did didn’t really land, but the, the first one that they did, I thought he pulled it off quite well. But look, he, he’s not, you know, let’s, he’s a good looking kid with muscles.
[01:24:31] Cameron Reilly: I mean, he doesn’t really have, he’s not
[01:24:34] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Hasn’t been through the standup roof. Has he Really?
[01:24:37] Cameron Reilly: or anything, you
[01:24:38] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[01:24:39] Cameron Reilly: Like as soon as he on neighbours or home in a way or something,
[01:24:44] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. No,
[01:24:45] Cameron Reilly: um. Like, I’m a big fan of George Miller, though, like I, I a huge admirer of George Miller. I think George Miller’s had an outstanding career, not just the Mad Max stuff, but a pig babe, whatever it was, and Happy Feet.
[01:24:59] Cameron Reilly: And like, he’s just really had a tremendous, tremendous career.
[01:25:05] Tony Kynaston: Oh, and I grew up on his, uh, miniseries back when miniseries were a thing on tv,
[01:25:09] Cameron Reilly: What was
[01:25:10] Tony Kynaston: uh, body Line, the Dismissal
[01:25:12] Cameron Reilly: Oh right. I forgot that he was part of those, yeah.
[01:25:16] Tony Kynaston: yeah.
[01:25:17] Cameron Reilly: What was his partner? Kennedy. Kennedy Miller. The Kennedy Miller things. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I like a lot of love, a lot of time for George Miller. Like he’s one of those guys who should just, you know, be given endless amounts of money and just told, go do whatever you gotta do.
[01:25:32] Cameron Reilly: The sad thing is though, apparently he was gonna do a third Fury road film, which was gonna be the max. Story. Um, but I think that’s kind of when fur bombed at the box office. I think that’s probably, and he’s, he’s in his eighties now, so like Scorsese, I dunno if he’s got any films left in him, really,
[01:25:52] Tony Kynaston: Mm.
[01:25:53] Cameron Reilly: which is sad, I would’ve loved to have seen.
[01:25:55] Cameron Reilly: But you know, we, uh, you’ve seen the news this week that Amazon Prime now controlling the Bond franchise. Not that it can, you know, not that it can go any further south than it’s already been going. Like, not that the broccoli stewardship was doing that greater job of it in the last 20 years, but I’m sure it’ll just continue to get worse.
[01:26:19] Cameron Reilly: Like the Star Wars universe under Disney. Um,
[01:26:22] Tony Kynaston: Well, didn’t they have a million dollars to oh seven or something? Some kind of reality show. It was their first outing, the Bond franchise. ’cause they had the bond, they’ve had the Bond franchise for a while, but they only just recently got control of James Bond, the character. And the rumour is they paid Barbara Broccoli, a billion dollars, um, to get that.
[01:26:44] Tony Kynaston: ’cause she was holding out saying, I’m not gonna entrust James Bond to a bunch of Amazon executives. Yeah. Tech executives who’ll, who’ll run data routines and decide what Bond should do next. But, and, and the, the, it was a big misstep having Bondi and I know Daniel Craig pushed for that and wanted that to come back and reprise, but it was a misstep.
[01:27:07] Tony Kynaston: So where did they go from here?
[01:27:10] Cameron Reilly: Well, didn’t he die at the end of George Lazenby’s film too?
[01:27:15] Tony Kynaston: His wife did, I think, didn’t she?
[01:27:17] Cameron Reilly: Uh, I thought he did too.
[01:27:19] Tony Kynaston: Uh, I could be wrong.
[01:27:21] Cameron Reilly: I loved the Lazenby film.
[01:27:23] Tony Kynaston: Yeah.
[01:27:24] Cameron Reilly: Yeah.
[01:27:24] Tony Kynaston: the opening when he gets beaten up and he goes, this didn’t happen to the last
[01:27:28] Cameron Reilly: The o the other guy. Yeah. but anyway, my point was gonna be, I’m sure uh, the Mad Max franchise will end up with one of those places
[01:27:42] Tony Kynaston: Oh yeah.
[01:27:44] Cameron Reilly: there was, there was one nod I, where I was watching the Furiosa last night. There’s one line, Chris Hemsworth has Deus where he says, you want to get outta here? Follow me. I was like, ah, okay.
[01:27:59] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, I get it. Yeah. I still think they should have brought back Mel. I mean ass batch of crazy as Mel is, I would’ve loved to have seen Mel come back and do a
[01:28:10] Tony Kynaston: Oh yeah,
[01:28:11] Cameron Reilly: old age max
[01:28:14] Tony Kynaston: Living in a cave with his dog.
[01:28:16] Cameron Reilly: running, no running a Catholic religious fundamentalist group in Broken Hill. 20 wives, 50 kids, him and Elon in a, in a bomb shelter.
[01:28:31] Cameron Reilly: Yeah.
[01:28:33] Tony Kynaston: anti-Semitic. National. National Front chapter in Broken Hill. Yeah.
[01:28:38] Cameron Reilly: Is Bruce, what’s his face? Still around
[01:28:40] Tony Kynaston: Bruce Stern. I don’t
[01:28:42] Cameron Reilly: no, no, no. Not Bruce. Bruce Spence. Is he still alive?
[01:28:47] Tony Kynaston: Yeah. I dunno. Could be. He’d be fun. I’ve seen him in something recently, so Perhaps, yeah. He’s
[01:28:53] Cameron Reilly: You could just get, um, you could get, uh,
[01:28:57] Tony Kynaston: would’ve grown up by now. Yeah.
[01:28:59] Cameron Reilly: I’ve seen the feral kid on stuff. Like they trot him out for Mad Max, uh, you know, celebration road show, Comic-Con type things. They could get Steven Merchant to do the Bruce
[01:29:10] Tony Kynaston: Yes.
[01:29:11] Cameron Reilly: role, you
[01:29:12] Tony Kynaston: point. Yes, they could. That’s a good call.
[01:29:17] Cameron Reilly: the two. No, like an old Max. Just an old sort of, and Mel wouldn’t have to act like just old, crazy Max, just, you know,
[01:29:31] Tony Kynaston: The desert made him crazy.
[01:29:32] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, just tell Mel there’s some Jews around somewhere and he’ll just go, ah. Anyway.
[01:29:40] Tony Kynaston: Oh yeah. And it didn’t have the Fury Road. Didn’t have Charlize, which I thought was a big, a big gap between, um, the leads.
[01:29:50] Cameron Reilly: Yeah, she didn’t seem like she had a good time making the first one anyway. I’m not sure she would’ve wanted to come back.
[01:29:56] Tony Kynaston: Really? Okay.
[01:29:57] Cameron Reilly: Uh, she and Tom didn’t really get along and spent a lot of time in the desert and think she got over the desert and all that kind of stuff. I did read that she, uh, found out that she was disappointed when she found out she wasn’t gonna be in it.
[01:30:12] Cameron Reilly: But, uh, I also read comments from her over the years saying it wasn’t a very good experience making it so, Hmm.
[01:30:18] Tony Kynaston: Was she just angling for more money like Daniel Craig used to do? I’m never gonna do another James Bond movie ever. Never.
[01:30:26] Cameron Reilly: I don’t think he said that. I think he said right now I’d rather slip my wrists and do another bond film. But that’s ’cause he just, he was in the middle of promoting it and shoot, he just shot it and he’s promoting it and the whole thing. I think he was just kind of tired, but, uh, yeah, I don’t think he said I’ll never do another one just right now.
[01:30:44] Cameron Reilly: I don’t. It was like when Bill Gates said, no, no one needs more than eight megabits of, uh, eight megabits of Ram. He didn’t mean ever. He meant
[01:30:54] Tony Kynaston: right
[01:30:54] Cameron Reilly: right now. Right now did you see Microsoft’s, uh, quantum computer chip, they launched last
[01:31:01] Tony Kynaston: did. Yeah. Impressive.
[01:31:04] Cameron Reilly: maybe.
[01:31:05] Tony Kynaston: You think what? You don’t think so? Hype.
[01:31:09] Cameron Reilly: I’ve seen, I’ve seen physicists go, yeah, it’s just, it’s a good story. But let’s see.
[01:31:15] Tony Kynaston: All right.
[01:31:16] Cameron Reilly: But it took everyone by surprise. I, I was telling Steve on the futuristic podcast last week, I, when I read the story, I immediately put it into Chachi PT and said, is this an April Fool’s Day story? Because I didn’t understand any of the words that we used in the press release.
[01:31:33] Cameron Reilly: It was just Mabb, Rana, zero mode, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, what? Anyway, turns out it’s somewhat real. Alright, that’s the show.
[01:31:45] Tony Kynaston: Yep.
[01:31:46] Cameron Reilly: Thank you. Tk.
[01:31:48] Tony Kynaston: I should say, just before we came on, air baffle run third in a race. Um, in sale, and, sorry, not baffle. Uh, cha-changes ran third and baffle runs on the 27th, so in two dash time.
[01:32:01] Cameron Reilly: Is that good for chicha changes or is that dog food?
[01:32:04] Tony Kynaston: Uh, well, it’s, it’s good. We thought he, um, she would win, but, uh, it was, it was a blanket finish, so, um, she, she was third by like a lesson ahead, so could result.
[01:32:17] Cameron Reilly: Hmm. Okay.
[01:32:18] Tony Kynaston: Hmm.
[01:32:20] Cameron Reilly: Well congratulations. I
[01:32:21] Tony Kynaston: Thank you. All right. See you next week.
[01:32:24] Cameron Reilly: See ya.

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