Strawman Blog

Is it time to buy AVA Risk Group?

At the end of last month, AVA Risk Group (ASX:AVA) reported half year revenue down 43% to $20.2 million, but half year profit before tax up a whopping 198%, thanks to its gain on disposal of its services business. That gain put the company in a position to pay over 16 cents per share to shareholders, in the form of […]

General

Tech Stocks Enter Bear Market

The Aussie market, as measured by the S&P All Ordinaries Index, entered a ‘technical correction’ this week, having fallen more than 10% from the record high it hit at the start of the year. Small cap stocks have fared worse, down about 14% over the same period of time according the ASX Small Ords. The situation for tech investors is […]

Guest Contributors

Strawman index: what’s in the portfolio of Australia’s #1 investment club

The Strawman Index tracks the performance of the most popular stocks across the community. Since 2017, the index has achieved a 31% compound annual total return compared with a 9% gain for the broader market. In 2021, following a market sell off in late November, the portfolio is down 0.7% year to date. We took a closer look at the […]

General

Being too early is the same as being wrong (or is it?)

They say that in investing, being too early is the same as being wrong. There’s a lot of truth to that — especially when it comes to things like shorting — but I’m not convinced it applies to growth investing. At least, that is, when the potential upside is large enough. If, after buying a stock, it goes sideways for […]

General

How to prepare for the next crash

It wasn’t a great week for the market, with the All Ordinaries dropping a further 3% from its August all-time high. And there’s plenty of reasons to be nervous. The US Federal Reserve is winding back stimulus and signalling higher lending costs. China — our largest trading partner — is facing a potential credit squeeze and property market slump, while trade […]

General

Why volatility is the friend of the young investor

I bet you heard the news this week about the China Evergrande debacle. Global markets shedding billions of dollars due to large and small investors fearful of the butterfly effect of an international behemoth in mountains of debt. China making cryptocurrencies illegal certainly didn’t help investor sentiment either, smashing crypto markets and stocks associated with them too. Volatility struck the […]

General

Three reasons why you’re underperforming the market

The last year has been a wild one for stock market investors. Since the March 2020 lows, the ASX200 (ASX:XJO) is up an eye watering 56%, the NASDAQ (ASX: NDQ) has gained 71% and the S&P500 (ASX:IVV) has marched 54% higher. With astronomical gains from these indices, individual investors may have seen similar results. However, if you’re not matching these […]

General

Benefits of investing in the Australian stock market

The Australian stock market is less than 2% of the entire global equities market and doesn’t contain any of the world-renowned high flying stocks like Apple, Amazon or Facebook. So why then is there huge upside potential in investing down under? Three main reasons give us Australians a huge advantage when it comes to buying stocks in our own backyard. […]

ASX Companies Adopt ESG Global Reporting Tool

At the start of 2021, the first six ASX-listed companies began improving their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials and reporting their progress against the World Economic Forum’s 21 universal ESG metrics, using “ESG on-ramp” technology platform Socialsuite. After committing to Socialsuite ESG on-ramp in January 2021, Vulcan Energy (ASX: VUL) secured $120M from ESG investors. Newly committed Province Resources […]

General

Inflation Gyrations: what higher prices mean for stocks

Why higher prices are bad for stocks