Is TINA back in the house? August 30, 2024

25:53most of our households and most of our governments. Can I throw an exception in there though? Which is just - Yeah, go ahead. I think people say that. I think that's objectively right, except it also does ignore the cost of the repayment on that debt. The dollar value of the debt, it's lovely to be able to say, I got a million dollars worth of household debt. My house is a million dollars. If inflation goes up and up and up and up and up, my wage goes up and up and up, my house is, you know, the debt is more affordable in terms of, if I had to repay it, it's gone from 10 times my income to five times my income.

26:21Gee, that's great. And that's true. But if your repayments go up by the same amount, or frankly more, and think about repayments have gone from 2 % to 7%, people's debt in real terms is much lower than it was five years ago. You're right. So, absolutely, perfect exception is the variable rate interest. But governments borrow at fixed rates. Most people in the US, most people in the Western world are on fixed rate mortgages. Yeah, we are. So, we're weird here. We don't, most countries don't do variable. And if you're out there, I've got friends overseas who just took out massive monster mortgages next to nothing.

26:57And that's what they will pay forever until they pay it off. It's like, why wouldn't you do that, right? It's fantastic. Sorry, but just quickly on the other point, inflation versus wages. The trouble is, there's two things. If you're a massively in-demand brain surgeon, charge what you like, right? My cost of living has gone up. I'm putting my prices up. Don't like it. You don't get brain surgery. today, right? Not many of us are in that situation. And by the way, most of us are already charging as much as we can. Not many of us are. There are people who are saying, I could already be charging more than not.

27:26It's not like I'm sitting here going, I'm good. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is, even when it does happen, there's a lag, right? And so it's like, well, there's a lot of noise recently with, was it teachers and nurses getting a bit of a pay rise? And like, oh, look at that. It's huge. It's like, yeah, but let's go back five years, use that as the starting point. three years, 10 years, whatever you want. And it's just like you're still behind the eight ball here. Yes, your wages have increased, but they haven't kept pace. And even if they did eventually get back to par, there is that several-year period where you don't get that.

28:02So I hear that argument in terms of, yes, but wages go up on average over time too, but not to the same extent and not in lockstep. If it could be guaranteed, it would be destroyed. A real cost. Yeah. Yeah. And then if it's going to be guaranteed, it's like, Well, why bother to have train engineer inflation in the first place, right? Well, that's because even if you get 4 % now, you're still behind by somewhere between, what, 8 % and 12 % over the last five years. So even if this year's wage matches this year's inflation, you're not making back the lost purchasing power from the past few years.

28:32Oh, it's, yeah, it's really crazy. I don't know what to say about all of that. Oh, yes, one more thing I just wanted to say before we move on with inflation. I think it's interesting to remember, too, that we use this number. and even already with this broad number, we've said, well, there's the trimmed, there's the seasonally adjusted, there's excluding, there's excluding, there's like five different flavors of the number. But don't forget that that number is whatever one you want to sort of settle on. Someone has subjectively, not maliciously, but inescapably subjectively decided what, quote unquote, the average person spends on all of these things.

29:10And one of the things that's very interesting when you tease apart, not just this latest set of numbers, but any set, is that you look at, okay, what's gone up, what's gone down? Inflation, sorry, insurance, way up. That sucks. As we said before, rent and housing construction, way up. Okay, that sucks. Food, way up. Healthcare, way up. So I would argue that when you – and I haven't done the – I need to do the maths or ask GPT to do the maths for me and assume that it's right. If you say, what has been the cost of living increase on the things I have no choice over? And technically, you could choose to live in a tent and be completely uninsured.

29:56But realistically, what you can't live without. and it's sort of like actually these fuel was another i know fuel gets stripped out but sort of like of i'm not an i'm not an economist i'm just a dude living my life trying to work put food on the table build a better life for my family and the boffins can say whatever they like but in terms of the things i have no choice in spending they have all gone up at a at a considerable rate and it's proving to be far far far stickier than one say oh great turns out that My holiday to the Bahamas is cheaper than it was a year ago. It's not cheaper, though, as you would say.

30:31It's gone up by less. So what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gone up by less, right? There's the other point that I should make. You've done it wasn't to us. I flogged that horse. But is that too cynical a view to say that, well, let's – I almost think it's worth having a CPI measure that is purely on the non-discretion kind of stuff. I've created it earlier. I haven't really. The ABS did it. So this is not the most recent monthly data. They don't do it for the month. They do it for the quarterly. So the June quarter data, just because you want to know this, discretionary goods and services. That is the things we can choose to buy or not.

31:07The last quarter rose 0.8 % for the quarter and 2.8 % for the year. Non-discretionary, up 1.1 % in the quarter and up 4.5 % during the year, which is exactly your point. So that's why I wanted to do it. We actually have the numbers. by the way so discretionary driven higher by international travel and accommodation tobacco and furniture non-discretionary this is quarterly rents up two percent medical hospital up to new dwelling by owner occupiers up one and fruit 10.6 now fruits volatile the the abs is very clear to say that sometimes up sometimes down um but yeah you're right man this is this is words and you But the lived experience here, so the lived experience, and I think it explains a lot what's happening within our society, is that, again, most people are just trying to get through each day here, right?

32:02We're not all sort of sitting there navel-gazing as to what a perfect measure or whatever. All I know is I'm working a lot harder than I ever had before, and I can buy far less stuff than I did. You can call it non-volatile or discretionary or whatever you want, dude. But my life is getting harder and I'm angry and someone needs to do something about it. It's why it's really important to use inflation for the right purposes and to be careful of those who wouldn't misuse it. And I don't even necessarily have a target for that other than a general statement. So it is important that over time, the rate of price increase comes down.

32:34And for the future health of the economy, the lower that number is, the better it is for everybody. so you know we've got to be careful about the value judgments we apply to it over and above that you know inflation is only three and a half it's coming out four that's really good is it good yes objectively lower inflation is better than high inflation is it good the governments have thrown some money at energy price to bring inflation down well it's cost the taxpayers some money there's some politics involved in that it's not a real reduction at least not yet but if it flows through maybe it's worthwhile is it is it good that non-discretion is higher than discretionary?

33:09Absolutely not, because the things you can't avoid are more expensive. And so that means it's hurting the poorer and the lower income people more than the rest of us because non-discretionary is non-discretionary. Everyone puts food on the table. I might fly to the Bahamas, to use your example, and the bloke next door stays at home because he can't afford a holiday. The fact that my holiday is less expensive than it might have been is of no relevance to him. But again... Yeah, the single mum who's barely keeping her head above water, who's escaped domestic violence, all kinds of horrible... They don't really care that, again, my flight to the Bahamas is cheaper than I was.

33:41It is still positive for her over time that inflation is not continuing to go up because these things are relatively cyclical. And international travel is a bit different because we're going overseas. But stripping that out, maybe call it new Lamborghinis or something. At some point, reduced demand in the economy does lower the rate of inflation. And that is going to be good for, eventually, the prices she pays at the supermarket. But we've got to be careful about what we think victory looks like. The data is the data is the data. And so it is. just be very careful about those who would use that to make predetermined points about what may or may not be going on or declaring victory or saying that therefore is not a problem anymore if so many people say three and a half is coming down what are you worried about the answer is what Andrew just said which is well politics aside and and you know preconception aside actually how's it hurting people on the flip side it doesn't mean the coming down isn't still good because it's great better than being higher in which case both numbers would be higher so there is that kind of you need to keep that tension the facts of the facts just be careful about the implications you or others draw from that information tends to be used for predetermined purposes, not often cynically.

34:42People just kind of don't really think about it. That's kind of what we're trying to do is break some of that down. Oh, no, we don't think about it. I mean, let's look at the energy rebates. Let's think this through. So, yes, my electricity bills are lower than they otherwise would be. Am I happy with that? I like paying less than I would otherwise. Yeah. Yep. I like paying less. Am I actually better off though? Well, wait a second. Where did that money - The money came from somewhere. It probably came from a bit of my tax. And the rest of it came from borrowing from the future. Which again might actually possibly be - It does bring inflation down faster.

35:20Net-net, that might still be a win, but it's probably not. I don't think so either. I don't think it will. I don't think it will though. Because what brings inflation down is productivity growth, essentially. That's really the biggest thing. If you want to track civilizational advance to get quite grandiose, it's everything. It's a stupid, it's everything. It's a term that everyone throws around and like 3 % of people actually know what it means to say that. God, if I hear another politician talk about the productivity challenge, you're like, yeah, I agree, Einstein. It would be good to have more with less.

35:57I agree. Okay. Tell me how to do it. But I tell you what doesn't improve that, giving handouts. Giving handouts does nothing to improve our productivity. You know what it does? It's worse than that. It distorts the market, right? Because now it's like, oh, I've got less money. I can spend it over here. Again, money is a signaling mechanism here. It's a coordination mechanism. So these short-term moves, again, while I'm happy, my electricity bill is lower, someone has got to pay the piper somewhere, somehow. Now, the argument might be, yes, but we're taking it off those who can afford it and giving it to those that can't, although these things seem to be across the board, so that doesn't really check out.

36:36But, you know, in theory, it kind of, it may make sense under a certain set of hyperspecific scenarios, but I just, I think, be very careful with politicians offering you money to take away the pain because they'll probably, it's like the old, you know, the heroin addict getting really itchy. Here, have another hit. And you will for a while. You'll feel better. Yeah. Like, thank you. You will. You'll feel really good. But, you know, it doesn't lead to a good place. And I know it's a hackneyed, well overused example, but it's kind of what we're sort of dealing with here. So, look, I'll wrap up my thoughts just by saying what I've always said.

37:16Inflation will be higher for longer. Eventually, the RBA will roll because they have to and we'll all be a little bit poorer off as a result. And these are all consequences of past decisions. And the current decisions that are being made are not directionally sensible. frankly what i hope i mean we've got to get ourselves out of this hole right but what we really really nice if we didn't do the next one so so that's kind of if there's one underline for me it's look and again covid was weird and unexpected and it's not you know but the problem actually wasn't covid the problem was pre-covid and then since covid right the the we we had interest that were too low when we went in we spent arguably too much during covid i'm gonna i have given regularly the government a lot of slack on that it had to be fast big and ugly right just It's just keep us out of the hole.

38:00Make sure things don't go to hell in a handbasket. In some parallel universe, they do nothing, and we've now got 40 % unemployment, right? Not very likely, but possible because everything just fed on itself. The economy works on confidence. It's the only thing it works on. I mean, we talk regularly about what money is and the economy is. It comes out of confidence. Am I confident if I'm going to get paid tomorrow to spend today? If I'm not, I don't spend. If I don't spend, someone else doesn't get their money. If they don't get their money, they don't spend either. It's how economies grow. It's how recessions happen because we all kind of freak out.

38:27when i get a recession two or three percent of us lose our jobs horrible for those people it needn't be that particularly important for the rest of the economy right but i keep my job but i go oh maybe i might lose my job everything's get worse i might keep a couple extra bucks in the back pocket i don't spend that makes the whole thing worse it is a cycle of confidence so but but but we didn't fix post-covid we did nothing to fix the problems literally nothing uh and next time not even covet happens next time we have an economic negative economic impact next time there is an economic slowdown we've got to i'm trying to be positive here mate i was gonna say we've got to learn from that i don't have sufficient confidence that we will but but what we are what we are the reason we're talking about this is we're trying to hopefully raise a little tiny bit amongst in a very small way with our very small audience raise a little bit of of awareness uh try and expand a bit of understanding so that when your politicians talk to you about stuff, you got the equipment to kind of go, but hang on, that doesn't seem to make sense.

39:25And if we've done half of that, then hopefully we've added to the conversation in a positive way. I would just say, look, stop helping is probably my biggest takeaway here. So what's really interesting in the modern age is we don't have recessions very often. Now, Australia is weird because we haven't had a proper recession since the 90s, right? And it's very unusual. But even if you look in more broadly across the world, recessions are happening less and less often. And you think, isn't that a good thing, Andrew? It's like, well, I don't know. And it's because for the very best of intentions, we see potential for pain and we plaster over it and we kick the can down the road.

40:08And that's fine and all good and well. But I would argue, and I've made this point before too, back in the day, back in the early part of the 20th century and before, you know, we had recessions all the time, but they were just very short, shallow recessions. And it was a wonderful, again, not great for the people who did happen to suffer in that, but it wasn't a massively debilitating suffering that lasted for 10 years. They were just short, sharp recessions. In trying to fix this thing, yes, we've muddled through. We've created all kinds of distortions. We've massively widened the wealth gap.

40:43And we've made ourselves incredibly fragile. So as your point, when something else does come along, it's like every bailout requires more and more money. Every stimulus package has to be bigger and bigger and bigger to have an effect. And again, just maths at a point, it's going to be really nasty because we just didn't let the world do what the world needed to do, which was just suffer through the hangover a little bit. And I actually didn't know what you do at a point because it's just like, so that just laissez-faire, just let everything go to hell in a handbasket. Well, no. And that's where things get much more difficult as a conversation.

41:20What are the practical, actual steps we do and how much do we intervene? How much do we don't? and I'm not arguing for the complete other end of the spectrum. It's just that my point being is that we find ourselves in this situation for all of those decisions, which were probably made for the best of intentions, but have not helped and are not helping overall. And so, yeah, as I say, stop. You want to disagree a little bit, but kind of from the same place, which is I'm just more Pollyanna than you, which is if they helped properly, it'd be okay. And we both agree with that. You're kind of like, you guys keep stuffing up, stop.

41:50And I'm like, do it, but do it properly. and kind of, it comes from the same places. You're just a little darker than I am and I'm probably a little more unrealistically optimistic than you are. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

42:09Can we move on to, you mentioned supermarkets earlier, mate, and it kind of does come on the back of inflation. It also comes on the back of what I was saying before about costs and both Coles and Woolworths managed to grow sales at 5. something percent. Coles was 5.7. Woolies 5.6. And God love the newspaper. Bastards. They also said, Woolies falling behind Coles. It was 0.1 of a percent guy. I mean, it's a nice headline, but come on. I mean, round those off and they're the same number. Not that I care. Woolies has a much larger market share. I think they've got 1 ,100 supermarkets versus Coles, 850, something like that.

42:42Anyway, so roughly the same. Both had their profits grow more slowly than their sales, which wait a sec but they made a billion dollars in profits oh yeah i laugh because every one of the three largest political parties in the country has had a swing at the big bad retailers doing big bad things and big bad numbers um we had uh we had the the government announced their supermarket inquiry which of course uh other than brad banducci refusing to answer a question the Senate yielded absolutely nothing. The unions had Alan Fells do an inquiry, which found they weren't profiteering. The opposition are now out there.

43:23The Nats started it and the Libs have caught on, blaming the big, bad, big box retails, including Bunnings and the supermarkets. And then we had, God love him, Adam Bant, the Greens leader. The Greens want to whack an extra tariff, a 40 % tariff, on companies with more than$100 million worth of revenue. Doesn't matter how much profit they make, because, you know, it's all the same, right? But anyway, there is not a lot of common sense coming out of Parliament House right now on this stuff. You're right, mate. The criticism was, oh, my God, they made so much money. How can they possibly make profit in a time when Aussies are doing it tough?

43:53This is horrible. This is awful. They shouldn't be doing this. And again, you know what's interesting? I feel sorry for the epidemiologist during COVID. I've been on Twitter this week. You know I've been on Twitter this week, Andrew, including from one particular follower who decided I was in the pocket of Simon Holmes of Court for fun reasons, which was its own thread. If you want to go check that out on Twitter, feel free if you want to kind of disappear into a conspiracy hole for 15 minutes. But I don't blame the average person for not being able to contextualize$1.1 billion in profit for Coles or$1.7 billion for Woolies.

44:26These are big numbers. They seem extraordinarily large. It's more money than any of us can imagine. It feels like more money than God. What's going on? This doesn't seem reasonable. I have no problem with someone who is a nurse, road worker, teacher, factory worker, whatever you do, right? If you're not in the finance game, it feels like a stupidly large number. I don't have any problem with someone saying, what's going on here? And I had a couple of people in really good faith on Twitter say, look, Scott, I don't do this for a quid, but that seems like a lot. Is there a problem here? Like, what's going on?

44:57And I tried to talk to those people and help kind of explain what's going on. what i really struggle with is politicians who frankly should be smart enough or have access to the right people to inform them as to what's going on and it comes down to either economic illiteracy or just frankly blunt and retail populism just just like and cynical populism yeah and it's kind of you know at some point as i said i don't blame anyone who doesn't i don't i don't know i don't know vaccines right i let the scientists do it and so every scientist got bagged by everyone with a cornflakes packet epidemiology degree on Twitter during COVID.

45:31You know, I felt so afraid at the time. But having gone through this, everyone's on Twitter. And that's one point. How can you defend the supermarkets$1.1 billion? I'm not defending anyone. I'm just trying to say, hey, can we have a bit of economic literacy here? You can decide, well, he's making too much money and not enough money, but at least do it with a bit of knowledge about how many stores, how much money, what they put into it, what returns they're getting on the capital that's invested in that business. You know, I just, I find it, and I do you, just stupidly frustrating um as i said that their margins declined they made less per dollar of sales this year than last year that's not there is that is the opposite of profiteering or price gouging that is whatever the opposite of that is you know they're making less yeah if they put prices up their costs went up faster they're not even keeping up with their higher costs let alone gouging on top of that and it's just the the i'll call it stupidity i won't name individual politicians save me from from libel suits the stupidity coming out of parliament house on some of this stuff is just absolutely dumb.

46:28Well, I go a step further and say it's not just dumb. It's not just populism. It's like when you've done something, when you played a big part in the cost of living crisis and someone goes, hey, it's those guys over there, you know what you do? You jump on that bandwagon. You go, oh, yeah. It's not the gazillions we printed out of thin air and just dropped from a helicopter. No, no, no. You know, it's not the fiscally unsustainable, you know, budgets that we have. The lack of any action at all to fix it since those times. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's just a complete terrible investment that we have made.

47:08And it's just like, I would do the same. You know, if I was just like, I don't know, I pickpocketed someone and then someone said, oh, that's Scott. It was like, oh, yeah, it's Scott. It's not me. It's totally not me. That's why politicians do it, right? Right. I mean, even then, I don't think they really recognize their role in all of that. But I did see a really good tweet from, I'll give Gareth Brown a shout out. He works at Forager Funds. I know affiliation, but I saw a tweet from him and he summed it up really well. He said, imagine we had no supermarkets and someone offered to build modern supermarkets that were a block away or a few blocks away from 90 % of our homes and they offered 90 % of the foodstuffs that we needed.

47:49And they also ran an incredibly efficient operation and they ran on a break-even basis. They didn't make any money from the goods that they sold. So again, every house, well, 90 % of houses around the country is only a few blocks away from a supermarket. You get most of the stuff you need and all it's going to cost you is$105 every year as a membership. Would you pay that? Now, I think everyone would go, wait a second, over two bucks a week, I get to buy groceries at cost from a very efficient operation that is very close to me. Yes. Well, that's actually the maths. That's what we have. Now, we don't pay a membership charge, but that's where the margin comes from when you aggregate it across the country.

48:34And it was just a really clever way of framing it up. Big, nasty, you know, duopoly makes billions of dollars is much, you know, more fist wavering inducing than, yeah, they're running on, it's just, anyway, the mass just doesn't add up. What are you getting? This is basically the question I think we need to ask for as an investor in things like stocks, but also as a taxpayer. It's not the money. The money's arbitrary. It's the return on that money. What are you getting back for that? Yes, they are making a profit. But for that profit, that actually gives them the incentive to do what they do.

49:19The profit they make is actually relative to the capital they have, actually not that extortionate. I've made the point before, it's higher than in other more competitive markets. So, the absolute level of margin is higher in Australia. But to your point, they are absolutely not gouging. In fact, they're copying some of it. Yes, literally. That's right. This year, they've actually reduced their much. We need a better deal from supermarkets this year than last year. And you don't see that in any of the headlines. Well, let's go to a completely different scenario. Let's just say, okay, I'm king of the world, and I'm going to decree a new law that says you can't make any profit whatsoever.

49:56Yay, that's brilliant. Yeah, screw those guys. Woo. Now, how much now? Cost of living crisis solved? Cost of living crisis, even marginally dented, not even close. I basically say what every Australian man, woman and child saves a hundred bucks a year. Okay. All of a sudden cost of living crisis is over. Give me a break. Right? Like it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not, it's not that we can't have a conversation about this. It's not that there are very legitimate concerns about the concentration of market power and, and, and all of that. I'm all, I'm all for having that kind of conversation. But pointing to these guys as the culprit when they didn't start the problem, yes, they're exploiting market power they have to the best of their ability, but they could exploit it much more if they wanted to, right?

50:46In fact, they didn't exploit it last year, to your point. So, it's just a giant furphy and it's a massive distraction from what's really going on. Yes. I love Gareth's example. My other one, mate, was I've said to people, we are getting convenience, quality, range, freshness, service. We're paying five cents in the dollar more than it costs to provide all that for all that good stuff. So we get everything we want, everything. And it costs us five cents in the dollar more than it costs to be provided by someone who's doing it for commercial reasons. That is an amazing - Yeah, you do all the work.

51:22Literally, I'm getting a dollar worth of value for$1.05. I'm like you know what I mean like I don't know what do you people want from me is kind of and again look I don't you know I'm really really not criticizing anybody who saw that number and went jeez that seems like a big number maybe there's something going on there and I don't mind anyone saying hey guys and not they have to trust us necessarily but hey guys that seems pretty big is there something going on there and you can say no this kind of works okay fair enough cool I understand now if you find someone to explain stuff that you trust like we're not exactly the finance equivalent of epidemiologists, but we're not miles away.

51:58We're trying to call it reasonably straight. We have our own biases and ideologies and preferences. But broadly speaking, we can explain it to you. It's like this is not the burning platform. You mentioned insurance companies, mate. They are very hard to, you know. I've been accused of being pro-business and sticking up for the supermarket. I'm like, I don't care. I genuinely, like, you know, bullies don't need me to stick up for them. I'm just trying to help people understand what's going on. Tell me the insurers are priced out. I'm not going to disagree with you. The premium is going through the roof.

52:22Oh, yeah. okay, let's have a conversation. Oil comes through the roof. Yes. There was real issues with competition in those spaces. Supermarkets, just not. I don't own shares in either. Do you know why? Do you know why? I would say it in one word. This is too simplistic and it ignores a host of factors. But if you put a gun to my head and say, give me one word as to why, I'd say Aldi. In the sense that, well, what do you mean? Well, it's competition. It is a new lower cost entrant that has kept them in check. Without an Aldi or a Costco or a lesser degree than it is widespread, Woolies and Coles don't have to.

53:00Right, right. They don't have to. They don't have to. And so, again, repeating myself as I always do, but competition is the remedy here. Markets, I'm going to paraphrase Ronald Reagan here, who I'm not a fan of at all, by the way, but markets aren't the problem. Markets are the solution to the problem, I would say. Much better paraphrase than what he actually says. I would suggest, but each to their own. Yes. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. But do you not agree though? It's sort of like, whenever I have a bad experience from a large corporate, and I have a lot of them and everyone would have to, whether it's your insurer or your telco or, you know, it's because they probably belong to a pretty concentrated industry with high barriers to entry, which limits competition and allows people to be more exploitative, which allows them to flex their market power.

53:52Don't get angry at them. Get angry at the policies that enable that to be the case, right? Like just get angry, but get angry at the right point. Hey, speaking of angry at the right thing, I'm going to have to drag supermarkets back for a second. And I'm fiercely apolitical and I have my views and sometimes they align with some. I gave Peter Dutton a brick bat and a bouquet on the same day in the same tweet yesterday, which, by the way, always gets less attention if you just bag or support one of them. Oh, Peter Dutton's great. You get a million retweets. Oh, Peter Dutton's terrible. You get a million retweets.

54:30Peter Dutton did a good thing and a bad thing. He was like, silence, just crickets, right? But I'm on that side or I'm on the other side. I can't tweet that because I like him or I can't tweet that because I hate him. It's like, guys, the issues are what matters. Anyway, so speaking of all that, GetUp sent the lobby group, generally left a line, I think it's fair to say, I think that's a surprise or an unreasonable case, sent an email out two days ago. Oh, Scott, Coles made$1.1 billion. BHP made$13.6 billion. Again, speaking of big number bad, and that was the headline. That was it. It was like, all they're waiting for you to do is say, oh, that feels like a lot.

55:08They must be bad people. I'll keep reading this email. I'll hate reading the email. I'll do whatever GetUp tells me. I just thought it was a really, really, really, really terrible. If GetUp wanted to be taken seriously, like our pollies, if you want to be more than just an adjunct to a political party, you've got to be a little bit – the credibility, you could watch it almost disappearing as they do stuff like that. But in that same email, the other thing was, BHP made$13.6 billion. They hadn't checked the numbers. It was actually$13.6 billion US dollars. If they'd actually paid attention, it would have been a 20 – which would have much better headline for them, by the way.

55:41But it probably reminds you that maybe they're not spending much time with people who know what's going on, as they probably should. But that's a nice segue from supermarkets to BHP because they're on the same headline. BHP made$20 billion. Now, that's a massive amount of money, a massive lot of iron ore. By the way, paid a lot of tax, which is good. Didn't pay enough resource royalties. Not their fault. They only pay what they're entitled to. The government has to change that. Again, get angry. Yeah, right. They're paying every set they have to. I'm not paying more voluntarily. and anyone who says that, I would say, oh, you do it.

56:13They want everyone else to. So, the government should make them pay more. Anyway, my actual point on BHP, mate, was just a kind of an observation that is not an original one. It was made by others when BHP released their results this week. BHP made$20 billion and still cut the dividend and they cut by about 14%. Not massive, not a huge deal, but it's very unlike businesses. Miners do it more than others because they're more volatile, but businesses don't generally like cutting dividends. right? They like to show their shareholders they're delivering the money. It's a nice way to keep the shareholders sweet, particularly if profits fall.

56:46And the inference, I think, I don't know if they said it directly, but effectively kind of let us infer reasonably easily that they are seeing the future not in red dirt in the Pilbara. For those who don't know, this is on the right. And I just thought it's interesting. There's not a very somewhat from an investing angle necessarily. Maybe if you're a BHP shareholder, just be mindful that what you think you own is actually what you do own because it's all about the future not about the past right so if you're buying bhp for the iron ore maybe that's great maybe it's not bhp kind of effectively saying we want to keep the cash we're going to use that money now they're going to they think they're using it in the interest of shareholders i'm sure they hopefully they will be nothing there's nothing wrong there's nothing untoward i'm not suggesting a single problem with that that they are their job is capital allocation and they're saying actually shareholders we need to keep more of that money why not because they want to dig bigger holes not because I want to put it in the bank, they are going to try and find other ways to grow.

57:41And I just thought it was interesting, mate, because this is the first time, it may not come to pass, it may be different, things always are. And it was the first time in a long time, we've kind of seen an iron ore miner specifically say, so the future's somewhere else. And it's not new for BHP. They tried to buy the, what was that? It wasn't polished, copper. They tried to buy Anglo-American. They wanted more copper exposure, right? Oh, yes. And at that time, I think we might've even talked about it. I certainly said on media or elsewhere, this feels like BHP either saying we think copper's great or we're worried about only being an iron ore or probably both.

58:14This again feels like another one of those filling the war chest so we can go and buy something else. Maybe find new mines, probably buy existing miners and maybe not even an iron ore. So what does that mean? Well, as an investor, be mindful of what your iron ore miners are doing. We all know I own chest and Fortescue, but just be mindful about what the future of iron ore looks like. Secondly, I think think about what it means economically for Australia, because if our iron ore exports are going to stagnate or decline, there's a very large amount of money being pumped into the federal budget, thanks to the profits made by those iron ore miners, that if they aren't made all of a sudden, have to be found somewhere else.

58:51Yeah, so I don't have much more to add, Matt, other than just making sure every investor looks forward, not backwards. How we got here is not how we're going to get there. They can be very different things, particularly when the circumstance of particular business change yeah uh i'm desperately trying to get some hard numbers while you were talking there and i i no no i can't yeah no i can't find it but i i the general flavor is this so um iron ore massively important for steel production um and who buys up all the steel like China and they had these incredibly I'm exaggerating but not much. Again this is why I wanted the numbers but it was something like of the global market like they take up two thirds of it.

59:41Something like that. And they did that because they built a bunch of cities Can I share this with you on the show? You're mentioning it. I just googled it and this is from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. I have no idea who this mob is. Quote, imports in 2022. The top importers of iron were China 103 billion dollars japan 11.3 billion dollars south korea right that's the next biggest type a 3.2 so that's taiwan anyway netherlands 3 billion dollars so yeah you're right mate well more than half from the look of it it's just sort of like it the rest is a rounding error right like you you and and it's not like china's going to go to zero in terms of its demand for this stuff.

1:00:23But if it drops 10%, it's like losing Japan. That's how big it is. Again, I double-checked that mask for me. The flavor here is what we're talking about. And China is having some issues. I think it's well-acknowledged that they overbuilt. So, there's massive highways that go nowhere and no one drives on. There's cities, ghost cities. So, they can... Look, it's a command economy. Maybe they can do that for another 10 years. So, again, I don't want to get into the stupidity of trying to put timelines on things. No forecasting from us. But when I look at – no forecasting from us. But when I look at BHP's decision and they look around and go, well, the world has changed.

1:01:04We would have been – to our point of conversation last week, we would have been stupid not to supply as much as we could. It just turns out that Australia has a lot of very, very high quality iron ore. It's super accessible. It's close to port. People want to buy it. Relatively close by sea compared to other markets. You know, yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sell it to them. Absolutely. And they did, you know. But that's, to your point, looking forward, it's not likely to be the case, at least in terms of degree. And do I want to be sitting on this massive, all these white elephants, which is like, yeah, we've got the best iron ore in the world, but there's a massive oversupply.

1:01:43No one wants it. Massive oversupply. What does that mean? Oh, that means a much lower price. It means the economics all get thrown out the window. is like, we have to diversify. And they look around and they go, well, where's the world going? It's electrification, it's rare earth, it's copper, it's all of these things that in a world of semiconductors and electric vehicles and all that, these things actually not are likely to grow in demand, but maybe to grow in demand quite significantly. And there isn't much of a supply on it just strikes me as very, very, very sensible. What they will also know because they've been doing this for a hundred plus years is that it takes a long time to develop these resources and it takes a lot of money to do it so shareholders might go hey you cut the dividend there's like thank yes cut the dividend take that money invest it where it's needed you're going to be poorer off as a result as a shareholder in the next few years as a consequence of that decision but in the longer term these these these resources don't just develop themselves like you You know, the fact that there are all of these rail lines and diggers and ports, that was just huge, insane amounts of money was sort of poured into all of that.

1:02:51Because, again, someone's sitting in the shade because someone planted an oak tree, you know, 50 years ago. And BHP is going, we're going to plant the oak tree. And it's going to mean less money for you today. But there's going to be a really shady, nice spot for you all to sit in in a few years' time when the world decides that it doesn't need as much of this iron ore, but they need a hell of a lot more copper and lithium, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's – look, there's a lot of devil in the detail there. How effectively will they develop? Will they stick to budget and time? What will happen to commodity prices?

1:03:20Will others do it? There's a massive rabbit hole to go down. But in terms of the broad intent, no complaints from me. I think it makes perfect sense. Yes. Sovereign Wealth Fund, Sovereign Wealth Fund, Sovereign Wealth Fund. Well, here's the point on that, right? So that's gone. That ship is – no, I've got to be careful here. It doesn't disappear, but a lot of it is gone. I mean, maybe Africa radically develops in the next decade. Well, by the way, China's trying desperately to get mine out of Africa. That's the other risk for our industry. Not only that China may not buy as much iron ore, but it might find somewhere else to buy whatever it does buy from.

1:03:55There are two very significant clouds on that horizon. Will I buy it from someone who I can pretty much effectively control in Africa or someone who's sort of the deputized US who I'm not very friendly with at the moment? If you're trying to imagine you could buy it at the cost of the resource rent rather than resource rent plus BHP's profit margin. If China could bank BHP's profit margin, they made$20 billion. If you owned the miner, that$20 billion stays with you.

1:04:23So over the last 20, 25 years, we had banked that profit. We spent it. Put that into some really nice investments. I know. We'd all be like, what's the so what to you, dear listener? Is less tax. Yeah. Is less deficit. More services. Is more prosperity for you and your children. More services. That's what we get. And what do we have now? Now that it's waning, we're coming down the other side of the hill here. What have we got? Well, yeah, some people got some jobs. That was a good thing. And they got paid very well for that. A lot of shareholders did well. Most of them are overseas shareholders.

1:04:57They did very well out of it. What's the average Australian gotten out of it? Not much. Now, who owns the resources? The average Australian. All of us. And the thing we have got were current year trinkets funded with current year tax revenues as if it would go on forever. Yep. It's just – it angers me so much because, like, you can, again, shake your fist at the sky. It's like, well, the ship is sailing. Well, again – You guys should have done that. Second best time. Yeah, we should have done that. So, the tree we should be sitting under, we still have the seeds for four. We could plant a seed now.

1:05:31Yes, yes. That someone else should have planted 50 years ago. The worst thing you do would be say, gee, I wish someone had planted a tree. Oh, well, I'm not going to. Jack can take his bean seeds and put them in a pie rather than planting them, right? I'm horribly getting - We're doing it with gas right now. That is a difference. Right now. We made this monumental generational mistake with iron ore, and let's do that with gas. Let's do that. Let's do it. Let's sell it overseas so cheaply that Japan, who buys a lot of it, can actually then on-sell it at a margin. That's how much we're giving it away.

1:06:08And then some poly will sit there and cut a ribbon and go, oh, this project cost, you know, and injected this much into the state economy for this year. And look, we created a thousand jobs. It's like you. Idiots is too nice a term. You know, it's just like you. Oh, what's the word? I'm trying to not swear. criminals is probably the better word for it right like it is such a dereliction of duty and the only reason people aren't walking down the street with pitchforks and torches is i don't think it's it's widely understood enough if it was there'd be people swinging from a noose and and and maybe i'm not advocating for violence here but maybe not without reason it's crazy my study point in the sovereign wealth we inherited eternal assets they've been around since if not the beginning of time, very, very, very soon after that.

1:06:56Yeah, three and a half billion years ago when the earth formed. And we've inherited them through no good work of our own. And we've said this year, hey, you know what? Let's dig those things up and let's spend it on a good time. And then just tell the kids, sorry, guys, we inherited an asset and you haven't got it anymore. It's gone. Bad luck. See you later. You're gone. You're done. It is just so stupidly irresponsible. we sold manhattan for beads and trinkets it's just yeah it is it's immoral the the idea of taking that inherited wealth and spending it today and leaving nothing of that we did nothing to deserve it and we spent it and left nothing for the kids it's just i i i can't think of a more as well there's plenty more responsible things start with climate change and pollution but but other than that there's not much more in terms of what we're leaving behind And I don't know.

1:07:44I mean, it's a moral view at some point. It's a philosophical view at some point. Maybe there's someone out there who says, who cares about the kids? Screw them. I'm going to live my life my way. And I guess your entirely view if you want to have that view. But I think for the rest of us, a little tiny bit of force, a little bit less self-interest, a little bit more. Alaskans get five grand a year in effectively petroleum dividends each. Yep. Right? Now, I don't think we should do that either. But we should have money. The Norwegians have a sovereign wealth fund worth well more than a trillion dollars.

1:08:12I don't know how much is these days. I think it's a five million population. And that will fund their budget. It's like Sydney. A growing proportion of their budget for years and years and years and years. By the way, some other complaints I get is people saying, yeah, but if there was a sovereign wealth fund, people wouldn't have to work for their income. And that'd be bad. It just boggles my mind. It just boggles my mind. Hey, okay. Yeah. Well, that's kind of my personal goal is to not work. Right? That's the thing. And have my investments. I am working towards that goal and you can judge me however you like, but I bet you everyone listening is kind of like, tell me the problem with this.

1:08:48I'm not saying give it to me for free. I don't want other people to work for me. I've worked, right? I've worked. And now I want to benefit from that. I want to invest. You know, I want to defer my consumption today for the longer term, for the greater value. That's what I want to do. And you can judge me all you like. And I think it's an eminently sensible thing. There's something you said for Protestant work ethic and the dignity of work, and I get that. But not setting up a sovereign wealth fund just in case other people don't have to work is, I don't know. Hey, can we finish very quickly, mate, with Warren Buffett?

1:09:22I own chairs in Berkshire Hathaway. Oh, yes. The company overnight, it's actually dropped again, but at one point overnight, it was worth more than a trillion dollars. It is the first non-tech company to be worth a trillion bucks, which I think is notable in and of itself. It's not good or bad, it just is. And there must only be five companies in the world, sorry, listed companies that must be above a trillion when you're about. Not a lot, right? And there's a great quote from some investors saying, quote, Berkshire has done it the slower but more sure way. There's a multiple expansion over the last, Berkshire has dropped 30 % over the last, this year too, which also feels a little bit uncomfortable, but they're done by building businesses and focusing on the fundamentals.

1:10:02So I think that was just really, it's notable in and of itself, right? Buffett is an amazing, job berkshire's done an amazing job investing by just finding great businesses and paying good prices and letting that compound i mean that that is this is the archetype this is the this is the uh the example we should all be trying to follow right whichever way you want to buy your companies the idea of building a building a portfolio letting things compound um doing the sensible thing over and over again is kind of buffett 101 right so it's how he's done this job of creating a trillion dollar company despite the fact i'd extend it to life in general as a general guide Despite the fact that he bought a textile mill and actually ended up failing.

1:10:39He at least took the money from that and invested it well. Can I share this though, mate? So Buffett focused on business. He focused on the fundamentals of the business, so-called fundamental investing. And he's the sure way, right? It's like picking, you know, companies that have attractive futures, whose cash flows are going to be worthwhile, paying a decent price, all that kind of stuff. So that was that. I think that's pretty right. And then later in this article on the Fin, it comes from Wall Street, from Bloomberg. So it's not the Fin's fault. It's a Bloomberg article. Then they say, and I like this, mate, for all this, think about fundamentals, right?

1:11:10Nothing about the stock, nothing about technical analysis, just pure fundamentals. Then the article says, Berkshire's rally has pushed it into overbought territory, whatever that is, based on the relative strength index and prompted a bit of reticence from analysts. It's just like, they've just finished talking about the fact how Buffett has used fundamentals to build a trillion dollar fortune. And they go straight back to, oh, the share price is a bit higher based on some sort of technical analysis. I just, I can't imagine Buffett looking at this going, what have I been saying for the last 60 years?

1:11:40You people are still not paying any attention. I've done this. I've shown you how to do it. And you still want to talk about that stuff. I will then say the same fund manager then goes on. And the article says, the sheer size of the apple stake had become a worry, Chex said. And the move to reduce the exposure was prudent. It's taken a lot of that risk off the table, Chex said. I just, I don't know, mate. And I hope the folly of that sort of stuff is coming through, right? This is a guy who doesn't care about the share prices, doesn't care about volatility and earnings, just wants to create more value, put a dollar to work and create more than a dollar of value.

1:12:15That's just what they do. Buffett's never looked at the relative strength index. He's spoken out about technical analysis, but the fact it's a waste of time. He doesn't care whether there's risk on the table. He said before, risk is not knowing what you're doing. And this article about him, the first half of it is how he's done the list. second half of the article is like, oh, let's talk about technicals and short-term trading instead then. And I just thought, I don't know, mate. I'm not surprised at all. I wish I was. It just goes to show that you can lead a horse to water, but if it doesn't want to drink, you can't make it.

1:12:47No. And I mean, selfishly, I always smile when I hear those things because it gives me great comfort in knowing that no matter how much we progress technologically and you know what information we have as a species humans will always be humans and we we will there will that that will if that wasn't the case you and i don't have any edge anymore right like where we are we're done just like buy an index go home because it's like so thank goodness there are people and not just some like a majority of people out there that can can entertain such cognitive dissonance dissonance you know in in the sense that the two opposing thoughts held in your head at the same time that are completely contradictory to one another and okay look at buffett's amazing success let me use something he doesn't like to evaluate his share for us it's just it is so ridiculous oh i don't know anyway so look i hope that's clear we don't use technicals i don't certainly don't i think andrew does um takes on the fundamentals, buying good businesses, paying great business if you can find them, pay good prices, let time do its thing.

1:14:01It's kind of, you know, like you said many times, mate, that the process of going from simple to complex and back to simple is kind of where most investors should end up. You know what, you know about dumb people? They're not dumb people. They're really, really smart people. They're just misguided. And I say that knowing that sounds incredibly arrogant and you're entitled if you're listening to make your own decisions and take your own perspectives. But do you want me on Team Buffett I mean, choose carefully, right? Because you're going to be on the side of the billionaire, multi-multi-multi-billionaire, who's made a trillion dollars worth of value, or you can be on the side with the other guys.

1:14:34So just have a think and choose carefully. I listened to a Morgan Housel podcast recently, and he was making the point that the really smart people often do the dumbest things. Yes, it's true. And unfortunately, it's not something I'm – great intelligence is not something I'm burdened with, which is an edge. You know what? I actually think it is. I honestly think, I'm the same. I say regularly, I'm really the smartest person in the room, but it means I don't have the ego that comes with it. Well, the hyper-smart people love the intellectualism that come with a lot of the theories and models and all of this kind of stuff.

1:15:14When you turn around and say, no, just buy a good business, a good business basically takes in capital and spins it off at a far greater rate than it takes it in, and it's able to do that for a long period of time. And if you can buy that at some price that's sort of pretty sensible relative to those future cash flows and you just sit on that, you'll probably do pretty well over time. You'll probably make a bunch of mistakes and you won't be able to time the market, but you'll compound it at an insane rate and you'll make an absolute fortune. And it's like, but I do this multivariate model. It's more compelling, right?

1:15:48And it just, it feels, it's the same as like when you take someone who's in medicine, for example, like here's a problem. Oh, well, we can engineer this drug and it's all this and it's brilliant. And, you know, eat healthy and go for a walk once in a while is just like, well, we could do that. But no, well, let's develop a pill. It's more attractive. It's more stimulating. And in many ways, that's a very bad example. But you get my point though. And they were asked, I think it was one of the AGMs probably 15, 20 years ago. Now, it's like Becky Quick, I think, asked, why doesn't anyone do what you're doing?

1:16:28And Mungus said, well, it's too simple. That's why we don't do it. No one else does it because it's too simple. And that will always be the case. And hurrah. I still can't quite get over the incredulity of that. The idea of like, you've got Warren Buffett on the phone. He says, look, here's what you should do. I've made a fortune. I'm one of the richest men in the world. Self-made. Did it all by investing. It's worked for me. It still works. It's worked last year and the year before and 10 years ago and 50 years ago. I reckon you should do this. Oh, thanks, Ron. That's been great. You hang up the phone and go, stupid old man.

1:17:00I'm going to try and trade the market instead. That's a much better idea. It just boggles my mind. You've got it. Here's one I prepared earlier and you want to throw it out and start again. Oh, man. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, as you like to say, mate, you do you, but I'm going to do Buffett because I think kind of works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing, the other thing I've said to this off air as well, that it was on Howard Marx's podcast, which is well worth a listen and shout out to Steve. He sent it, sent it to me. It Morgan said that you get paid. The reason you get paid in investing is one by identifying a mispricing, which is, I think that's the intellectually stimulating part.

1:17:40And that's what we all try and do. It's just like, We try and find dollar coins that are being sold for 80 cents. That's nice, but it's hard because markets are pretty efficient. The other reason you get paid for investing is by enduring volatility. And what he's really getting at there is that most people can't do that. And if you can do that, you will be paid for that. There is a return on that capacity to do it. So the person talking about the relative strength index is like, well, I like Berkshire. I like what he's doing, but I'd rather buy it when everyone else is going to buy it. It looks good and just go, you know, it's sort of, they, it's back to my earlier point with, with, you know, politicians and central bankers trying to sort of fix and help things by preventing recessions.

1:18:22It's sort of like, no, by, by trying to do that, you actually undercut the prosperity that you would otherwise be due. In fact, that's, that's why there is so much prosperity of a long-term investing in the market is because it is painful. Like if you think about it, I'm not explaining myself. well let's think about the counterfactual all of a sudden we have perfect vision on the future and stocks get priced in such a way that we know exactly what's going to happen and there's no volatility anymore which is what which is what the academics call risk it's like well guess what you don't get returns you it you can't have your cake and eat it too in investing you want good returns okay you have to be lucky enough to find a situation where the world's lost its mind and that no one's recognizing the value that's in plain sight.

1:19:08Or you can just put up with more pain than other people can. And it's very rare for anyone to be able to do that. But we say it a lot in different ways and different forms, but I'll say it again here at the end of the pod. If you can do that and be honest with yourself because everyone says they can do that, you've got such a massive edge there. And anything you try and do to reduce that is going to be very counterproductive. Things such as hedging, things such as market timing, anything that you can think of that will protect you will actually just protect you from outsized gains. So there it is.

1:19:53Yeah, I think that's right, mate. I'm reminded that when we look toward the – I think I've said this with the Van Gogh index chart. I've shown it before and someone said, yeah, but who would stay invested for 30 years? Like that is literally the point. That is entirely the point. It's the right question except it's a rhetorical one because that is it. You're either that person or you're not. And if you're not, it's bloody hard to do it. And the only way to, in my view, not the only way, the best way to fix it is to actually be the person who does stay invested for that 30th. That's literally the point.

1:20:26So when you say, well, you can't get those returns because you can't stay invested for that long. Yes, you're right. If you can't invest for the long, you can't get those returns. It's axiomatic. The answer, of course, is to find a way. And I don't have an easy answer for someone who's not geared this or wired this way. Find a way to be that person because the returns are there to be taken. Yeah. And Howard made the point, too, of it's not just the volatility that you get. There's plenty of things that are volatile and then just go to zero or whatever. In fact, most of your investments will be middling to terrible on a numerical basis.

1:21:01Like they just, they just are. And this is coming from one of the most successful investors of all time. And you just usually, and Munger said it, so there's like four or five investments that make your career. And so you swing, you swing, you swing, but what do you do? You're always, you always ensure that you can survive. No matter what happens, it might not be the greatest outcome, but I'm, I live to fight another day. And so this is, this is why it's so difficult because just to expand on the point, not only do you have to put up with all the ups and downs of the things that might ultimately go well, you have to put up with all the ups and then downs and then never go back up again as well.

1:21:36And you're just looking like miss after miss, after bad year after bad year, and then a great year, and then a bad year, and then a bad investment again. It's like, I'm doing something wrong. This is stupid. And not only the number of the large people feel that pain three times as much as we feel the joy of gains. So even if it's half and half, you're going to feel so much worse about the losses than you are going to feel good about the equivalent gains. so your psychology is literally every day you're yelling at yourself you're an idiot stop this this hurts don't do it anymore stop you're going to lose money this is terrible yeah yeah that's completely normal every now and again you get some because you know the podcast and whatever you get some idiot saying i remember four years ago you said that you love this company and haha look it's gotten like yeah actually they're better examples than that if you really want to you know cast some shade here i've i've blown up much more capital than that like what are you talking about like yeah yeah yeah i've i've i've made much dumber mistakes than that and and and just show me and invest every night because you you you this is like the instagram problem right whatever there's everyone's living a better life than you everyone's better looking than you everyone's got a nice house than you and it just when it comes to investing social media the person who just makes every post a winner is a con man or burn him out off literally period full stop yeah But it's either they've only been doing it for a little while and they just haven't realized that they're mortal yet or they're lying.

1:23:04And so every now and again, you do get a fund manager who spends a lot of their communication talking about their mistakes. For me, it's just like such strong signal. I get humility. I see humility from an investor who talk about their mistakes. They're happy to share the war stories. They're modest of their gains. It's just like they're the person I will happily give money to rather than the person who just sits there going, look, I was right about this. And look at me. And if you had followed me, you would have done. It's a complete – the way they make the money, they make the money off of you.

1:23:32That's right. That's how they make their money because they're selling you an easy answer. And anyone selling an easy answer is always going to find a ready audience. And it's depressing. And it will, again, always be thus. Just don't be the person that's giving your money across to those people because they don't exist. If they were that good, they wouldn't be soliciting, you know, for your business. They'd just be trading their way to a fortune. You know, that's how it works. And meanwhile, by the way, Warren Buffett is a master fortune. He paid 100 grand a year. Yeah. Choose carefully. Hey, I think we've probably done that one to death, mate.

1:24:01Will you come back on Sunday and answer some questions? Yeah, I'm looking forward to my list. I'm not sure. Well, I may have to bump that up. I think it's a recent one that came through. Whether we get to it or not is an open question, but I might see if I can jump it up the list a little bit just because it's addressed you so beautifully. We'll see what we can do. In the meantime, enjoy the - I'll go. Now that you say that, every email that's been written in is going to be - That's just going to confuse the hell out of yourself. Please don't do that. Thank you for listening. Enjoy the first half of your weekend.

1:24:26We'll see you on Sunday, or as Andrew likes to say, Wednesday morning, Thursday afternoon, or Tuesday week. Until then, fool on. Exactly. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under Financial Services Licence 400691.