Investor Insights

In this video insight, I am joined by Rob Forker, the portfolio manager of the Polen Capital Global Small and Mid Cap Fund. We discuss Polen Capital’s strategy of selecting elite companies from a pool of 8000 global stocks based on their five guide rails. Rob also highlights Polen’s approach to investing across the growth spectrum, balancing slower-growing, stable companies like Cochlear with high-growth firms like Globant. Despite the challenging market conditions, Rob remains confident in their strategy, believing that earnings growth will ultimately drive long-term stock price appreciation.

In this week’s video insight I joined Damon Ficklin, Head of Team and Portfolio Manager from Polen Capital to shed some insight into the strategy behind the Polen Capital Global Growth Fund. Damon highlights how the Fund invests across the growth spectrum owning companies like Amazon or Workday, higher growth businesses although it is also happy to own companies on the other end of the spectrum like a L’Oreal or an Abbott Laboratories. Damon also shares how the investment thesis behind Workday and why it is currently a holding in the Fund.

In this week’s video insight, I review the question of whether a recession is imminent. There has been no shortage of talks of a recession lately, although if we dive deeper into what we have seen in markets over August and September a compelling counterpoint to this narrative is visible.

In this weeks’ video insight, I wanted to highlight some key takeaways from the reporting season, especially in the tech and retail sector. Retail’s results were mixed, with earnings per share declining in the second half of 2023. Predictions for fiscal year 24 and 25 estimates saw a slight downturn. In the tech sector, performance met expectations, with a noticeable focus on tech companies’ downgrading due to depreciation and amortisation, and capex concerns with a focus on cash flow and the underestimation of rising interest rates.

In this week’s video insight I joined David Buckland to dive into the recent performance of the Montgomery Small Companies Fund. As the reporting season concludes, the Fund has delivered 11.19 per cent for the three months to 31 August. This is an outperformance of 8.97 per cent compared to its benchmark the S&P/ ASX Small Ordinaries Accumulation Index. The outperformance can be attributed to several key stocks in the Fund’s portfolio, particularly Megaport (ASX:MP1), Audinate (ASX:AD8), and Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB), all of which have exhibited strong growth and management excellence.