He has the Boomers eating Franking credits out the palm of his hand.

Not so sure the boomers absolutely love WAM @ArrowTrades & @UlladullaDave. They definitely used to until circa 2025 when WAM dropped their franking rate to 60%.

The smarter ones saw the writing on the wall and pivoted out of WAM and into WLE at that time, I.e. if they weren't totally over Geoff and his antics by then.

Here's a breakdown of the comparison between the two over the past year, courtesy of my Gemini PA.

Over the past year (mid-March 2025 to mid-March 2026), WAM Leaders (WLE) has significantly outperformed WAM Capital (WAM) in both share price appreciation and investment portfolio growth.

​While both are managed by Wilson Asset Management, they target different segments of the market—WLE focuses on large-cap "leaders" (S&P/ASX 200), whereas WAM focuses on small-to-mid-cap undervalued growth companies.

Key Takeaways

​WLE (The Winner): WAM Leaders has had a strong year, benefiting from its exposure to large-cap stocks and the materials sector. As of February 28, 2026, its investment portfolio delivered an 18.0% return over 12 months, outperforming the S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index.

​WAM (The Laggard): WAM Capital has struggled over the last 12 months, with its investment portfolio returning -3.0%. This underperformance is largely due to the "significant divergence" in the small-cap market where many of its holdings sit. It also currently trades at a significant premium to its Net Tangible Assets (NTA), which can create price volatility.

​Dividends: WAM still offers a higher headline yield, but it recently moved from being fully franked to 60% franked, whereas WLE has maintained its 100% franking status and recently increased its interim dividend.

Disc held IRL, I am after all a boomer and do love a good divvie!!

@lowway - I was literally about to post something of the same effect (except for the boomer comment). Seconded for WLE being better than WAM.

Speaking of Boomers , do you reckon any of the boffins have considered that raising interest rates might actually cause increased inflation rather than suppress it. If the only ones spending in the economy, as many reports have asserted, are Boomers, and they derive a lot of their income from interest, then would interest rate rises not actually stimulate Boomer spending and consequently fuel inflation?

Nothing against Boomers by the way, I reckon they've earned it and they should enjoy it to their hearts content. Just shits me that the response to 'inflation', that is clearly not demand driven but rather idiotic government policy driven is going to be 'addressed' by belting the average punter and businesses with interest rate rises. Moronic.

We've been talking about WAM being crap for a while now - see here (2 years ago) and here (1 year ago) and here (2 years ago and about LICs in general, not just those managed by WAM Funds).

I just don't understand why people are STILL prepared to pay a premium to NTA for such a sub-par LIC like WAM. Especially when other LICs managed by the same group (WAM Funds) are clearly superior in a number of ways. WLE and WGB have superior track records, much more in their profit reserve so can increase their dividends every year, and they have sufficient franking credits to continue to 100% (fully) frank their dividends, unlike WAM Capital (WAM) and WAM Research (WAX) whose divvies have both flatlined with franking reduced to 60% - what's attractive about that? It makes bugger all sense to me.

Why would you pay double-digit premiums to NTA for a LIC whose dividends are NOT rising and who do NOT generate enough profits to pay enough tax to generate enough franking credits to fully frank those flatlined dividends? Especially when there are LICs run by the same mob that do not have those issues?

And that's without even looking at the management fees - which are excessive in the case of WAM, especially when you are paying for underperformance relative to their benchmark and to their own stablemates.

Hmmmm, I couldn't have said it any better myself @Bear77.

Re the boomers whooping it up on the higher interest rates due to their bank deposits, you're most likely correct @tomsmithidg , but not for this boomer. I have no idea why you would like to watch inflation eating away your hard earned by leaving it in the bank at current deposit rates.

And unfortunately for the RBA, they have no other option in their toolkit than to pull their big lever as successive governments have done nothing with policy to control inflation or to create real growth or to improve business efficiency. Now they are simply blaming the rise in global energy prices as the reason everything is going pear-shaped. What a timely excuse!!

Yes indeed. I’m not sure slugging young people and mortgagees with restrictive monetary policy is going to have anything other than a marginal impact on inflation. The data makes it abundantly clear that they are not the ones driving consumption.

Strawman will be lathering up for a good rant on the pod machine this week

I think to invest in WLE or WGB you need a case for there being alpha going forward. Buying index holdings and going slightly over weight/underweigh like WLE will almost certainly result in them either matching the index or at best eking out a tiny bit of Alpha and then taking it in fees.

As for WGB, can't see any reason why they would have an edge competing against the brightest minds in the world. So you will get index returns minus fees and expenses.

I enjoy ragging on Geoff but charging millions in fees to provide index returns (at best) is just standard industry practice unfortunately.

Let's solve the cost of living crisis by making the cost of living higher..so that those least able to absorb it (ie the "lower" classes) will spend less elsewhere so the rest of us can benefit from the lower resultant demand. Because, when you think about it, it's those under mortgage stress, for whom a 25bp increase does force reduced spending, that are causing all the inflation with their reckless spending... or something.

That should fix a supply shock emanating from a middle east conflict...right?

I've really tried to understand the rationale in good faith, but the only explanation i seem to get is "it's far from perfect, but its really the only tool the RBA has so they have to use it".

Which is like your surgeon saying, "this rusty saw is probably not the best tool for your triple bypass surgery, but it's all i've got so i have to use it."

But genuinely interested in a better interpretation if anyone has one.

The gov are busy parents with a sniffly, sick kid (sick kid is the economy). The parents can take the day off work, make the kid take their medicine and the sickness will be minimised and pass quickly. But A day off work is a hassle and the kid throws a tantrum when made to take their medicine. So the parents drop the kid off to daycare (the RBA). The daycare aren't allowed to give the kid cold and flu tablets, so they treat the sickness with a tissue, it doesn't help much, but it's still better than nothing and it's all they can do.

The parents pick up a properly sick kid at the end of the day and spend the weekend blaming the daycare for passing on the germs and making their kid sick.

haha, nailed it @Lewis

@thunderhead , by 'data' you mean polling data, right?...

*sarcasm

Have a taken a while to reply to this thread which hits pretty close to home as I have been sitting on a WAM holding for sometime now and sitting back nodding everytime @Bear77 posted an assessment. My original idea for holding this was to offset performance of standard index funds in times of volatility. Well we have had quite a bit of that and there has not been benefit. This is the nudge I need to sort it out and do something about it.

As an alternative, does anyone have any recommendations for asx small/mid cap funds? I originally was drawn to LICs for the ease of access, but that structure is a whole other discussion...

I think the cheapest option for what you are describing there @Bradbury is actually one of the small-cap ETFs like VSO, ISO, SMLL and MVS and/or a mid-cap ETF like MVE.

For what it's worth, Google summarises those small and mid-cap ETFs like this:

I also asked ChatGPT to describe the differences including performance and management fees - the big advantage of ETFs over LICs is NO performance fees and low management fees:

Hope that helps.

Disclosure: I am not currently invested in any ETFs or any LICs myself.