Fairly new to investing and on the younger side, trying to gather as many opinions as I can. Basically, what is a solid company that has good momentum behind them at the moment? First thing comes to mind is stocks like BHP, but I think I’m willing to take on some more risk due to my age. Especially, a swing trade with earnings in Australia right now.

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts!

Hey Everyone, hope you’re all doing well. I’ve been researching and looking into RMD, at the moment I’m leaning towards investing in the company based on my own research and analysis. I wanted to know if anyone else has opinions on the company or and insights they would like to share. Thank you and have a good day. :)

Looking for long term growth and wealth Is it better to have a diversity of ETFs or just go full throttle in 1-3 ETFs?

My current portfolio is a train wreck with the following ETFs:
- FANG
-IWLD
- MOAT
- NDQ
- SEMI
- VAS
- VTS
- QUAL

Is there a particular one I should be focusing on (whether I already have it or not?)

I recently bought into ASX MQXS, Macquarie Global Small Companies Active ETF - a systematic ETF. More information about the holdings can be found here: https://etf.macquarie.com/au/en/exchange-traded-funds/macquarie-global-small-companies-active-etf-mqxs.html

As a long term investor, this ETF seems pretty interesting. What do you think?

I have some spare cash what’s a good buy atm?
My whole portfolio is currently tied up into ETF’s and I’m now looking to add some exposure into single businesses. Looking for something that is below its ATH with reason to return.
Thanks

Well to all the Pelicans who gave me a gob full when I said $90 was probably the bottom for CSL. Today I made a 12 percent profit.

As some of you may remember I posted an optimistic opinion piece on why I thought $90 was the bottom for CSL and I also explained why and that CSL wasn’t broken. At the time I got a gob full from the posters on Reddit who think they are stock market guru’s but are actually dopes who obviously know nothing more than how to lose their money. Fast forward and today and I sold out of my CSL holding at more than 12 percent profit. I was on the money when talking about the August report and happy to sell for a tidy profit. Needless to say I will continue to buy and sell CSL because it’s a solid company with solid returns.
A shout out to the Pelican who calls himself Psychological meal who thought it necessary to bag me and tell me I knew nothing. Good call champ. Anyway thanks to those who kept the faith and im sure CSL will continue to improve.

I’ve been looking at three ASX companies recently, and what caught my attention is how different the stories behind them are.

DroneShield is probably the most technology-focused of the three. Its RfRecon system is designed to detect and interpret radio-frequency activity around drones, with AI helping analyse what it picks up. With counter-drone technology evolving so quickly, it’s an interesting space to watch.

Domino’s is a completely different story. Right now, the focus seems to be less on simply selling more pizzas and more on cutting costs, improving franchisee profitability and generating stronger free cash flow.

Then there’s Boss Energy, where the bigger theme is uranium supply. Bringing new production online can take a long time, so supply constraints remain an important part of the discussion around the sector.

That leaves three very different themes:

Defence technology. Cost efficiency. Uranium supply.

That’s what makes these companies interesting to compare. They’re operating in completely different industries, with very different factors shaping their outlook.

Which of these three themes do you find the most interesting, and why?

I've been looking more closely at Harvey Norman after the recent weakness in HVN shares.

This is purely an investment thought experiment based on publicly available information. I have no knowledge of any takeover, proposal or discussions.

What caught my attention is that Harvey Norman isn't simply a retailer.

At FY25, Harvey Norman reported approximately:

• $4.53 billion freehold property portfolio
• $8.37 billion total assets
• $4.84 billion net assets
• $590 million underlying PBT excluding property revaluations/AASB 16 impacts
• $694 million operating cash flow

The following half-year was also strong, with reported PBT of approximately $466 million and underlying PBT around $373 million, up roughly 20%.

Yet if HVN were trading around $4.60–$4.70, approximately 1.25 billion shares would put the company's equity market value at only around $5.7–$5.9 billion.

That's the part I find interesting.

You have a company worth roughly $5.8B on the market containing a reported freehold property portfolio of around $4.5B — plus the Australian franchise operation, international retail businesses and other assets.

Obviously you can't simply subtract property value from market cap. There is debt, working capital, tax, lease obligations and plenty of other considerations.

But it raises an interesting private-equity question.

Hypothetical takeover

At $6.00/share, the equity purchase price would be roughly $7.5B.

At $6.25, roughly $7.8B.

At $6.50, roughly $8.1B.

A PE consortium wouldn't necessarily finance the entire acquisition with equity. There could theoretically be acquisition debt, institutional co-investment, existing shareholder rollover and potentially property-related financing/restructuring.

The property is what makes the thought experiment particularly interesting.

Could an acquirer eventually separate some of the property from RetailCo, establish long-term leases and have institutional property investors own part of the real estate?

You'd potentially end up with:

PropertyCo: billions of dollars of commercial property and rental income.

RetailCo: Harvey Norman's Australian franchise operation, international businesses, brands and digital operations.

The obvious obstacle is the shareholder structure. A hostile takeover would appear extremely difficult given the size of the major holdings.

So perhaps the more realistic hypothetical isn't a hostile takeover at all.

Friendly privatisation + major shareholder rollover + PE/institutional capital + property restructuring.

There's also Harvey Norman's existing share-buyback program to consider. If the company continues cancelling shares while major shareholders retain their holdings, their percentage ownership can increase without them buying additional shares.

I'm not saying HVN is worth $6.50, $7 or $8.

I'm asking whether the current corporate structure could be hiding considerably more value than the market is presently recognising.

For anyone familiar with Australian M&A/private equity/property: where does this thesis fall apart?

Is the property harder to monetise than it appears?

Would RetailCo be worth substantially less once separated from its owned property?

Is the shareholder structure effectively insurmountable?

Or is HVN becoming a genuinely interesting potential public-to-private candidate at the right price?

Zip drops their full-year results this Thursday the 20th, and I’m curious where everyone's head is at.

​My theory: The cost-of-living squeeze in Aus and the US isn't a headwind—it's actually a major driver for BNPL right now. People aren't just using it for discretionary stuff like clothes and tech anymore; they're actively using it to manage their everyday cash flow and cover essentials. Because the US market is so massive for them, this could mean a serious bump in transaction volume.

​The catch: Bad debts. Are consumers just creatively smoothing out their cash flow, or are they genuinely tapped out? If it’s the latter, defaults will spike.

​I’ll be watching three things Thursday:

​US Volume: Did it actually jump?

​Bad Debts: Can they keep defaults under control despite the macro pressure?

​Margins: Are they actually converting this volume into real cash?

​What do you reckon? Does the squeeze push Zip's transaction volumes up, or will consumer defaults wipe out the gains? Anyone holding through Thursday?

​Let’s hear it!

I've realised over the last few weeks that I consume far more company information than I actually act on.

Announcements, presentations, interviews, podcasts... there's always something new.

But very little of it actually changes whether I buy, hold or sell.

It got me thinking:

What actually changes your investment thesis?

For me it's usually one of these:

- A change in guidance

- Balance sheet / funding

- Management credibility

- Capital allocation

- Something that changes the long-term story

Price movement on its own rarely does.

Curious what everyone else has found over time.

With gold currently been flavour of the last 12 months, lots of individual stocks gone up down and various other directions.

I have been looking at a few individual gold mining stocks, but with a big choice I am looking else were.

One I have seen is LGF, a LIC in various comapnies etc... but I have also found up to 30 ETF's. What ETF's are strong recommended and why?

Thanks for the help

Hi Everyone, hope you are all doing well. I have around $5k saved up and wanted to get into investing for long term, i wanted to know if anyone had advice on what to looking out for and what I should look at investing in as of right now. I appreciate anyone that can help. Thank you ❤️

Relatively new to investing, curious about buying TWE but not sure due to their $1b loss

Im a young investor with a fair chunk in Vanguard VDHG currently but im feeling pretty cautious about the AI bubble popping soon.

Where can you guys recommend I look into investing that isnt going to be affected by a possible crash?

i have around $21k saved, $4k invested in individual stocks and $5k in VAS and IVV ETFs. I want to pick 1 or 2 more ETFs to add to my portfolio (long term) and have around $5k to invest atm. Do you have any recommendations of what ETF I should pick to invest that 5k in?

Hi guys I got some questions, thoughts and ideas about leveraged ETFs and wanted to share them:

The Objective Performance Gain:
So my ETF of choice that most of my money is in, is DHHF. But then I learnt about GHHF, which is a leveraged version of it. Since its inception in 2024, GHHF has averaged an annual return of 21.62%, whereas DHHF has averaged an annual return of 15%. So clearly GHHF has performed better, in this time. Obviously, this was a small sample size and didn't include that many downturns. Then I looked at another leveraged fund called GGUS which is the levered version of the S & P 500 and has been around for a much longer time. If you look at the last 10 years, GGUS was up 21.81% and S & P 14.92%. That sounds familiar doesn't it (pretty much the same difference as the GHHF/DHHF split earlier). Therefore, there is no logical conclusion that these funds don't provide greater return based on historical numbers.

Some of the common criticisms that I have seen on the risk of levered funds which I don't agree with because of these reasons (again I'm not that smart, this is just my personal observations, please comment if my reasoning is incorrect cause I don't get why people are so scared of these funds):

• Risk of fund going bust during a downturn - From what I understand this is more a problem for smaller funds (which GHHF isn't) and this fund is not that levered (1.4-1.6 leverage), so this is much less of a concern/pretty much impossible. From my understanding, lets say it is a 1.6 leverage, then about a 60% downturn would be required for the fund to break (60*1.6) = 96% (so a bit more than 60% but you get the point). I also noticed that there hasn't been a 60% downturn in the market in 100 years (last was Great Depression), so clearly this is a risk, but a small one for sure, and maybe you sell before it if that much of a tragedy is likely to occur. So to me this seems unlikely, especially given modern financial systems must have improved from 100 years ago. => also GHHF does auto rebalancing which can lower the leverage to bottom of the range during downturns to around its bottom of 1.4, this would require an even bigger downturn of 70% (make up your mind if this is possible nowadays)
• Management fees - GHHF has a higher management fee than DHHF which is 0.35% to 0.19%. If you consider the superior returns so far, this is completely negligible and you will get higher returns with leverage based on both my examples of GHHF and GGUS even including the management fee.
• Volatility/rebalancing - So a lot of people say it is more volatile and requires rebalancing which can lower returns. While this is true, in spite of that, it is clear that both GHHF and GGUS have outperformed the market, and I have done a lot of research on this and most levered funds tend to outperform unlevered funds. This introduces the golden rule of levered investing => never sell/don't be affected psychologically by downturns. The idea here is even if you see a 15% loss rather than 10% loss due to leverage, this actually is not the end of the world, because you just saw a 15% instead of a 10% gain in the past. In my opinion, I would not be moved by these downturns cause I know this is normal, you can simply create a "new normal" in your head and be unaffected by downturns. I know this is not for everyone, but I'm certain this is possible and I don't think I'd be very affected by this kind of downturn as I know this is bound to happen (if you expect it, it can't hurt you as bad), and eventually you will outperform the market (e.g. GGUS and GHHF). As I said before, your returns are also magnified. A main concept why I think levered funds is absolutely dangerous for less patient/scared investors is the idea of loss-aversion, humans tend to more scared of losses compared to satisfaction of a similar gain, meaning they want to sell much earlier when they see a huge loss, it's like an impulse. I think if you are an investor worth your salt, this is stupid. I come from a value investing mindset, and the intrinsic value has not reduced during a downturn, only macro conditions have temporarily changed the price so why on earth would you consider selling it when the business is likely the same quality => me personally I'll never truly understand the people that see a loss and want to sell (and the business has not materially changed), like you are not cut out for investments if that is the case.
• Huge potential during dips - My biggest case for levered funds is this. If you notice a significant dip in the market, surely it is time to start investing in levered funds, but of course timing is important and a certain strategy is required. Again, this is dependent on the context e.g. I think most people could tell the COVID dip would be far more greater than the 2026 Jan-Mar dip due to Iran-US war, one is clearly simply more existential than the other. Therefore, the strategy during COVID is perhaps DCA'ing the dip across a longer period of the dip e.g. invest some at 10% down, then some at 20% down etc, whereas Iran-US War, you can kind of DCA or just do lump-sum once you see a significant decline (clearly this is more of a temporary, less impactful event). The major risk of buying during the dip is the exposure to even bigger losses that are magnified by leverage. However, by DCA'ing e.g. invest 25% of money at 10% down, then 25% more at 20% down and so forth, you cover some risk off and then you can gain huge returns when the market starts to go back up which are also magnified by 1.5x (in the case of GHHF)
• Interest Rate Risk - I also think, if there is a time where there are low interest rates and there is a huge dip, this is even better since you are combining less leverage costs with maximum gains from a market recovery. An interesting note has been that interest rates have risen in Australia across recent history and in the last 6 months it has been very high. In this time, GHHF has gained 10.23%, whereas DHHF has gained 7.28%. This means that even under bad market conditions such as heightened interest rates, levered funds have still performed considerably better when leverage could be potentially more expensive.
• Time Horizon - The final aspect that I think is very interesting with levered funds, perhaps which is an antithesis to traditional index funds is time horizon. In the context of the buying of the "huge dip", the time horizon for this strategy is not "your whole life" like most index funds, it would only be 6 months - 12 months until recovery finishes, but you can make such significantly greater returns. Therefore, there is this argument that levered funds can be kind sort of a "riskier growth index fund/stock" rather than a "safe, lower growth, diversified ETF" during market dips, which again is the antithesis of index investing, ensuring a higher return in a shorter period of time. Now, the main concern I have for this strategy is opportunity cost. You see, during a market downturn tech/AI/low-mid cap stocks tend to have the biggest declines, usually greater than the index fund decline, therefore the cost is that you may as well just invest in these stocks instead of a levered fund like GHHF. However I still do think these stocks contain more risk than investing in a levered fund, as levered funds still maintain the whole market as their equities rather than one stock. The difference here is that GHHF gets best of both worlds during a market recovery: diversified holdings (e.g. removing the risk of some companies literally going bust cause they can't recover, as they simply hold all companies so it doesn't matter as much) and maximising returns (recovery guarantees greater returns and therefore you are x1.5 your returns in a market where it is more than likely it will go up).

I'm sure there are some more points to consider, but given this I see a very legitimate argument to investing in levered funds, particularly during significant dips in the market. Now full disclosure, I don't invest in levered funds yet, but I have done some research on it over the past hour (lol) and I'm convinced that it is not bad of an option particularly if you are someone like me (23 - with a longer time horizon and can take on more volatility or risk for higher return). I think as an older person, this is less feasible simply because a market downturn of lets say 30% is 45% and what if you need that money in 3 months for retirement, that might not be enough time to regain that money so it's not great in that circumstance. I currently have like 50% allocation of my portfolio with DHHF, but I'm considering changing the allocation to more 25% each or something even more aggressive. My biggest problem is that the market just had an insane week being at ATH's, and as I said, I see this strategy as being even more viable during a downturn so I'm a bit scared. Even though I am young, I value diversifying and lower risk, so we'll see, but I think I might re-allocate when the next downturn hits, or maybe I won't cause I don't want to pay the taxes and DHHF is doing fine for me anyways.

But anyways, I'd like to get everyone's take on this cause I think levered funds get a bad wrap for no apparent reason. Like from my perspective it is the beginner killer due to what I discussed with loss-aversion, but if you have a better fundamental understanding of the market and a longer-time horizon I personally don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe I'm missing something, I don't know, cause everywhere I look they are talking live levered funds are the plague.