Hi folks,
I hope you’re all having a great week. The markets are in another period of chaos and volatility. And, as I explain in my weekly article, THAT IS A GOOD THING.
So, let’s get into my weekly updates and see where we are at.
All the Best,
Cam
QAV MYTH KILLERS
Volatility Is Your Friend
This week I want to talk a little about volatility.
The market at the moment is a little… chaotic? Trump says one thing, the market crashes. He says something else, the market jumps. Wars, interest rates… as Tony always says, “There’s always something”.
Volatility isn’t our enemy. It isn’t unusual. It’s the NORM.
It reminds me of a book I read in my twenties, Jim Rohn’s classic “The Seasons Of Life”.
Jim talks about the parallels between life and the changing seasons. To realise that the seasons will change without fail and what we can do to utilise each seasons to get the greatest rewards. It is basically based on the parable of the sower and the reaper. What to do in one season, to ensure success in another season.
Investing has seasons, too. The sooner we learn to think of “volatility” as just “seasons”, the better investors we will become.
Chaos in the markets is only a problem if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t have a system that tells you what to do in times of chaos. If you don’t have a system that tells you that you should be sowing during the chaos in order to reap the rewards later on.
And if your system doesn’t tell you what to do in times of chaos, and chaos is the norm — then it isn’t a very good system.
People panic when the market crashes. They freak out. They run for the doors.
We should all take a note from Douglas Adams.
Aviate-Navigate-Communicate-Administrate
But while the seasons happen to us, how we survive them depends on our tools. Seeing as Tony borrowed the idea of using a checklist from pilots, it’s appropriate to borrow another idea from them:
‘Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any ignorance, carelessness, incapacity or neglect.’
According to this post on Flight Safety Australia, “a fundamental principle of piloting” is ANCA — aviate-navigate-communicate-administrate.
“The aviate-navigate-communicate-administrate (ANCA) model exists for reasons learned over a hundred years of pilots living and dying. The first priority should always be to keep control of the aircraft. No pilot has ever struck terrain while flying straight and level. Many pilots, however, have crashed as a result of prioritising checklists, radio calls, map-reading, cockpit indicators, or other non-critical tasks, over flying their aircraft.”
In the world of investing, “keep control of the aircraft” means “keep the portfolio in the air” or, as TK says, “always stay fully invested”. Don’t panic and crash your portfolio into the ground (that is, panic sell everything). Keep it flying.
When the market drops 10%, most people “Communicate” first (post on forums, call their broker). A QAV investor Aviates: they check their alerts. The QAV system dictates the priority of movement so panic never enters the cockpit.
The QAV system will navigate for us. It tells us when we have to sell something and when to buy. It is designed for volatility. We like to buy stocks when they are on discount, right. And when are they most likely to be on discount?
DURING PERIODS OF VOLATILITY.
Most people run away from a sale at the department store. Amateur investors are the only people who run out of the building when things get 20% cheaper.
If you crash your plane during a volatility, you are missing out on the great buying opportunities that only come around one or twice a decade.
My last quote:
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”
Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2)
“Volatility” can be good or bad for your portfolio. It all depends on how you think about it. Let’s make volatility our friend.
As TK once said — we want to be “Upwardly Volatile”.
STOCK ANALYSIS OF THE WEEK
Despite the chaos in the markets, I’ve found a few things to buy this week and you can see my Light posts here.
I also added something to the U.S. Light portfolio this week. U.S. Light and Club members can read about it here.
On the full Australian podcast this week, Tony did a deep dive on VEA. See the podcast link down below if you want to listen to his analysis.
BUY LIST
Each week, we produce a buy list based on our value investing system that we share with our QAV Club members. The intended primary purpose of this buy list is for club members to use as a reference for comparing their own buy list. In theory, all of our buy lists should look pretty similar each week.
Australian Club members can find my weekly buy list here.
Below is a link to the US list for this week (available to our U.S. Club members):
QAV American Value Investing Buy List 2026-03-08
PORTFOLIOS
We compare our performance to what we think is the most relevant benchmark (SPDR 200 in Australia, S&P500 in the USA), but if you’re new to investing, these comparisons might not mean much. Instead, you can compare our performance to the top-performing Super Funds in Australia and see why an amateur active investor (who has a system to follow) can out-perform most of the “professionals”.
AUSTRALIAN
QAV DUMMY
Five Year Report: Over the last five years, our portfolio is +15% p.a. vs the benchmark +9% p.a.
Monthly Report: The AU Dummy Portfolio was ‑5% p.a. for the last 30 days vs the benchmark ‑2% p.a.
No changes to our portfolio this week.
For FY26, our portfolio is +17% vs +4% for the index.
QAV LIGHT
As of Monday this week (the last time I did a report), in the last 30 days, the Light portfolio was +1.86% vs the index which was +2.58%.
Our best return for the last 30 days was dental manufacturer SDI Limited which is up 36%. As we mentioned on the show last week, it’s under a takeover offer. We often find that companies we assess as undervalued end up as targets of acquisitions.
QAV LIGHT OUTPERFORMING THE MARKET
For the last 12 months, the Light portfolio is +37% vs the index +15%.
Since inception (Feb 2022), the Light portfolio is +19% vs the index +10%, roughly double market, right where we should be.
Become a QAV Light Member today and start your investing on the right track
If you want to find out what we’re trading in QAV Light each week, sign up to become a member. You’ll get an email from me every Monday letting you know what we’re buying and selling in that portfolio. You can choose to copy our trades or not. It’s the easiest way to start your rules-based investing career… and you don’t even need to know the rules. I’ll follow the rules for you. It’s a good first step to eventually becoming a QAV Club member and learning how to run the system by yourself.
(Note: Americans interested in joining QAV Light or Club please go here instead.)
AMERICAN
QAV DUMMY
Since inception (Sep 2023), our portfolio is +95% vs the S&P 500 +52%. Not quite double market but pretty close.
Our U.S. portfolio for the last 30 days was ‑4% vs ‑2% for the S&P 500.
No trades this week. No trades since 24/11/2025.
QAV LIGHT
I recently started our U.S. Light portfolio, and it’s off to a slow start, currently ‑2% vs the S&P 500 ‑1.5%.
It’s had some good wins already, though. CHRD is up 30% and SSP is up 20%. But it takes time to find a set of stocks that establish themselves, especially in a volatile period like this one (thanks, DJT).
THIS WEEK’S EPISODES
Viagra for Value Investors (MUR) – QAV AMERICA 43
STOCK NEWS AND UPDATES
COMMODITIES
This week the big changes to commodities were the following :
Iron Ore — Buy
Gold — Josephine
Aluminium — Buy
Steel — Buy
DISCLOSURE
Please review our trading and disclosure policy.
SIGNING OFF FOR A FEW DAYS
Well I’m off camping for a few days, and I think we’ll be offline, so I won’t be able to respond to emails until Monday. It also means I won’t have the buy lists out until Monday, too. Sorry about that. I hope you all cope.
As Fox says to be every day when he goes to school: SSDD (stay safe, don’t die).
That’s it for the week!
QAV A GOOD SHAREMARKET!
Got a question? [email protected]