QAV Investing Podcast (Free Edition)

We are very excited today to have Kien Trinh, the Head of Research from Lincoln Indicators (the company behind Stock Doctor) on our show! Kien talked to us about why Stock Doctor is such a powerful tool for serious investors.

This is the audio transcript of a Zoom group chat Tony and I did with some of our QAV Club members on 7 Sept 2020. Lots of great questions were answered.

Tony refines what he means by “the highest peak”; Steve Mabb explains his recent 3PTL experiment; how Tony would invest an influx of cash; selling GEAR and buying ECX; and running through TK's journal entries for the week. In overtime we discuss Japanese knives, David Lee Roth, Charlie Brown, Kill Bill and other stuff unrelated to investing.

Should we buy stocks on our buy list from the Top Down or the Bottom Up? That's the question we try to answer this week. Apart from that, we're delving into some questions of my own about his checklist, as well as listener questions about NTD, FMG, CCP and, in overtime (that's what I'm calling the QAV Club section now), Tony walks us through how he updates the checklist.

This week's episode contains extra investing fudge! We discuss Wilshire GDP / Shiller PE / CAPE ratios, what red flags to look for in company reports, how to score a New 3pt Upturn, Shortman, Warren Buffett's secret, and Tony discusses some of the latest companies that he has evaluated.

Michael Goldberg, one of the principals and founders of Collins St Value Fund, was kind enough to talk to us for 90 minutes yesterday about how CSVF became one of the best performing funds in Australia, achieving a 13.5 percent return in 2019-20 compared with the ASX 200 Index which was down 7.7 percent.

Questions this week about NWS; Buffett buying into Barrick Gold; what a stapled security is; what Tony's worst returning year was; whether or not we can invest in Apollo (ATL) again; and Tony's general process during the reporting period.

Question this week include how Tony uses the "most undervalued ASX20 stock" strategy; whether or not ATS being a Schrodinger makes it a sell; and 3PTL help on KCN, GGUS and FMG. We also discuss Tony's recent journal entries, Sam Elliott's mustache, Allison Janney the horse, Hamilton the Musical, and Tony's Rain Man-esque memory for details.

On this show we drink scotch and answer questions about sentiment, bad news, CCP's Operating Cash Flow, the sell price for TRS and investing in borderline star stocks.

We chat about a couple of recent articles (see below) and then talk about Tony’s recent alerts involving LYL and KCN. Next we run AMI through the QAV Checklist and answer some questions about why the “buy list” is so large and whether or not we should/could shorten it using Stock Doctor filters.

Another 90 minute Club episode this week! Investor, “unemployed shoe salesman” and new board member of The Australian Shareholders Association, Steven Mabb, joins us to talk about the value that the ASA brings to retail shareholders and tries to sell Tony on becoming a member. Then we get into this week’s questions, including how long Tony waits before selling a “non-performing” stock; whether or not TK would sell a stock in his portfolio because it’s QAV score dropped below 0.1; whether or not TK would wait to see what the US market does before he buys something locally; and whether or not he has tried applying Benjamin Graham's formula for capitalization rates for growth stocks.

On this episode we talk about why we are not trying to compete with APT investors; Tony’s recent stock buys and analysis; how he uses his “watch list” and why we’ve changed its name to the “buy list”; we we’re still manually calculating the price-to-cash ratio instead of using Stock Doctor’s figure; improved wording on how to draw a three point trend SELL line; and why sometimes a stock with great numbers might have a falling knife.

Tony's stock broker of 25+ years, Alex Hay, a partner at broking firm EL&C Baillieu, joins us again today to talk about the different kinds of buy & sell orders and how to use them. Outside of that, Tony and I also talk about our dummy portfolio, which made it back into the black, and some excel formula errors we've picked up recently in the checklist.

Here's our recent chat with Tobias Carlisle, author of several books on value investing, including 'The Acquirer's Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the Market', and the managing director of The Aquirers Fund.

We run the checklist over SFR, review Tony's recent journal entries, and then answer your questions about capital gains tax, share consolidations, 3PTL lines, why TK was buying BPT, OFX's cash situation, forsaking profit by waiting for sell line breaches, leveraging your home to buy shares, how the "Manually entered scores" tab works on the checklist, and whether or not TK has seen better/worse/same returns when his allocations allowed him to buy small/micro caps. We also review the EOFY positions for our dummy portfolio and TK’s portfolio.

Today we chat with Elio D'Amato, Host of Spotee, Independent investment expert and former Executive Director at Lincoln Indicators.

On this episode we talk about Tony's recent journal entries regarding ADH, WSA and SFR, then we answer your questions about why we might invest in companies with poor financial health scores on Stock Doctor; why Tony isn't a "range trader"; how Tony would start a new fund with only $10K; whether or not we should wait until reporting season before investing; definitions of "positive sentiment"; and the current takeover of IFN.

We start off this episode with a recap of last week's journal entries, then answer your questions about when Tony sells a stock, how to build a portfolio from scratch, the pros and cons of different Buy and Sell order types, and which stocks are in Tony's portfolio.

Our guest today is Johannes Risseeuw, Executive Chairman of Damstra (DTC). He talks to us about what Damstra does, what the role of an Executive Chairman involves, the capital raising process, and what Tony was like 20 years ago when they worked together at Shell.

We talk about the thinking behind some of Tony’s recent journal entries, including Eclipx (ECX), AGL, Credit Corp (CCP) and Sandfire Resources (SFR). Then we get into answering questions. Elmar asks about Michael Hill International (MHJ) and how to mathematically find out at what point the selected stock is no longer a buy. Chris asks whether or not we can use a moving average to replace the three-point trend line. Dr J asks how Tony decides when to sell a stock.

On this Q&A episode, TK answers questions about whether stocks that have been bought in an Up trend perform better than those bought after a break out from a Down Trend, about the relative importance of market depth for LYL, whether or not profit taking makes any sense, how he uses the the 52 week high AFR list, HUG lines, the three point trend line for ANZ, and the logic of selling AGD.

Stephen Mayne is one of Australia's best known and most feared shareholder activists. He's also the founder of Crikey, a writer for InvestSmart and claims to own the world’s biggest small share portfolio: 500 holdings worth less than $30,000. He came on today to chat about capital raisings and shareholder activism.

TK talks me through how to re-evaluate the watchlist when we are ready to buy something and then we answer your questions about the recently added Stock Doctor filters (SDMax, Financial Health Trend, etc), the GEAR buy last week, how much time Tony spends on his portfolio each day and the pros and cons of having a portfolio of only 10 stocks instead of 20.

Today "St Anthony" answers your questions, reveals the true cost of sending kids to private school, and explains how he approaches raising a wealthy child.

Our guest this week is Michael Dee from Pythagoras Investing - www.PythagorasInvesting.com. His tool "predicts the timing of upcoming share events and their positive or negative price effects."

This week we have a 100 minute premium episode answering all of your excellent questions about subjects such as: - banks and sentiment - AQG / SSR merger - Stanmore Coal acquisition offer - Buying more when the price drops below the buy line - Using a 5 yr/weekly chart to help fine tune your trend lines - using the checklist to score LICs - holding back on the retail sector - thoughts about oil glut and prices affecting Oil/Coal companies - During times of volatility (like GFC or dot com bust) did Tony notice a similar increase in buy/sell? - How Tony stages his entry into a position - How he regression test the results/model - The buy line for OSH - SFC sell price and recent update on their financials - How does Tony decides what percentage of his capital to invest when he BUY stocks such as MQG - How to analyse the TGP graph - Why the TRS, WPL and MQG charts are different - and Tony also introduces his new magic 3PTL maths.

Nicholas Gruen is an economist, entrepreneur and commentator. He is CEO of Lateral Economics. He spoke to us recently about Modern Monetary Theory and the short-term future of the Australian economy.

Tony talks about some of his recent "musings" regarding bank stocks and comparing the results of his analysis of using Stock Doctor filters versus our three-point trend lines. Then we talk about his reasons for our recent portfolio buys and sells.

Alex Hay is a partner at broking firm EL&C Baillieu. He has been Tony's stock broker for 25+ years. Alex joined us recently to chat about the services firms like his provide, his relationship with Tony, and what he thinks might happen in the market over the next 6-12 months.

We talk about the recent Berkshire Hathaway AGM, Tony "muses" about buying NAB without waiting for positive sentiment (shock! horror!), discusses some new theories about using Stock Doctor filters, and then he answers a ton of your questions about - pyramiding - whether or not Tony ever sets a margin where he always cashes in the profit - how to calculate the intrinsic value of each of the top 20 stocks - and a heap of questions about drawing three-point trend lines.

We're joined by two young value investors, Jackson Lee and Ricky Yeo from the Sydney Superinvestors meetup, who talk about how they manage their portfolios and what they consider to be their hot tips of good value stocks.

Today we answer your questions about why we're buying back into the market even though Tony has doubts over the recovery - how we account for the quality of management in our analysis - how much attention Tony pays to volume of shares traded - Stock Doctor's "Price to Cashflow" and "Price to NTA" filters - how to calculate three-point trend line sell signals - how the checklist weights ‘quality’ vs ‘value’ metrics - how patient Tony is with a stock if it drops soon after he buys it (versus "you breach you gone") - Stock Doctor's diluted weighted no. of ordinary shares vs 'Fully Paid Ord. Shares' - HAW's future cash flow - Milton Corporation's conference call - and how to go about setting up a brand new portfolio.

Chris Tate from Talking Trading and The Trading Game joins us today to talk about his approach to investing, futures trading and turtle trading. Then we answer some listener questions about whether or not the market has priced in the coming economic carnage.

How are Australia's two million small businesses coping with the lockdown? Is the government stimulus helping? What will happen to them on the other side of the crisis? To help us get our heads around these questions, we're joined today by Kane Kelfkens, owner of The Family Jewels, a jewellery business with several outlets in Sydney. Then we answer some of your investing questions, about dollar cost averaging, the possibility of a US currency devaluation, the best sources to find stocks, and whether or not Tony sells his entire holding or just a part of it when it breaches the downwards three-point trend line.

Mark Jones is an old friend of Cameron's, CEO of Sydney PR and marketing firm Filtered Media, and author of the new book about corporate storytelling, "Beliefonomics". Tony and Cameron caught up with him in Sydney recently for a chat.

Tony walks us through his decision to buy some STO shares last week (as per the email we sent to QAV Club members on Friday). Tony then answers some member questions about Stanmore Coal, how listed investment vehicles lend themselves to QAV analysis, the KMT rights issue, and Roger Montgomery’s recent article.

Part 3 of our rebooted getting started podcasts. This picks up where episode 303 left off, halfway through the QAV checklist.

Tony thinks the market is going through the "five stages of grief" and we debate which stage we are up to. He also talks about the "Coppock Curve" which suggests markets, like people, go through periods of mourning. Then we answer some of your questions about: the best way to set up a profile to trade, comparing full-service brokers to low-cost DIY options, how to treat companies with negative “net income “, what Tony thinks about Discounted Cash Flow calculations, his thoughts on the possibility of inflation in the next few years, whether or not he ever uses options, whether or not found he has found any companies with good scores lately, and what he thinks about Kathmandu

Part 2 of our "getting started" reboot. In this episode we get into the nitty-gritty of the checklist and the data sources we use.

Back to answering your questions today, including topics about leveraging your portfolio, replacing Stock Doctor with another data source, banning short-selling, investing in REITs, how to prioritise the watch list, and just generally when to buy back in. Tony's basic approach right now is to "wash your hands - and then sit on 'em."

As it's been a year since we recorded our "introduction to QAV" episodes, a couple of our listeners suggested it would be a good idea to re-record them, now that we're much smoother on the mic. So we present - QAV Reboot. We introduce ourselves and the QAV system of investing in shares.

While Friday brought a dead cat bounce, Tony thinks the correction is just getting started. He says we're yet to see the impact of the coming credit crunch. We answer a question about whether or not Tony invests for the purpose of living off the dividend income, and in our club edition we analyse Macmahon Holdings (MAH) just for practice. As I say - NOW is the time to send yourself to QAV University. When the market turns around, we should all be ready with a watchlist so we can jump in quickly and ride it all the way up in the next cycle.

Tons of questions this week from club members about how to invest during a market correction. And as the market is still in free fall, we don't bother with a stock analysis. So we just spend 90 minutes answering your excellent questions.

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” - Warren Buffett Yes, the market is in freefall - but that's great for disciplined value investors. As Tony explains on this week's episode, large market downturns happen once every five-seven years, and it's in the rebounds that the best investors make big moves. He talks more about how he uses the three point trend line during downturns and we discuss some of our favourite snippets from this year's Berkshire Hathaway Chairman's newsletter.

Tony talks about the UNV offer and why we sold it last week and CSV's recent acquisition, which took it out of our portfolio. To answer a question from QAV Club member Nick B, we also talk more about when and why Tony will exit a stock. Our Stock Of The Week is AQG, Alacer Gold. And then, we watch in amusement as the ASK dives while we are recording the episode and Tony explains why, as a value investor, he worries more about his golf swing than he does and ups and downs of "Mr Market".

​Steven Mabb is our guest on the show today. He's a recent QAV Club subscriber but has been a full time investor for the last couple of years, since exiting a very successful footwear business.He and Tony compare notes about investing in International ETFs, why buying stock #201 is a good strategy, neobanks, shareholder associations, and cheap brokerage versus using a full service broker.In our Club edition, our stock of the week is BPT (again). And we answer a question from Ange about what qualifies as a 'recent positive upturn'. We also talk again about the decline of our portfolio in recent weeks due to the COVID-19 panic. Tony reminds us about Warren Buffett's story about "Mr Market".

Our portfolio continues to take a hit from COVID-19. But Tony is as calm as a zen master. He's the ICEMAN. We talk about the corruption allegations against HZN and changes to CIA's listing. Our stock of the week is MFD.

Tony discusses his portfolio management strategy during a downturn like the Wuhan Black Swan that is currently going on. He also answers some listener questions about having a small portfolio and debt-to-equity ratios. Our stock of the week is Korvest (KOV).

This week we're joined by Rudy Filapek-Vandyck from fnarena.com. He explains his "super stock" or "all-weather performer" investing strategy. In the QAV Club extended episode, Tony discusses the effect the Wuhan virus has had on the ASX and our portfolio this week, the latest results from CCP, and we break down the financials of AMI.

As we're into "confession season" and have "reporting season" rapidly approaching, Tony shares some of the details of the filters/alerts he uses in Stock Doctor to find opportunities. He also answers a listener question about the benefits of using free cash flow versus operating cash flow. Our stock of the week is CIA - Champion Iron.