The one where old people explain reverse charge calls. January 10, 2025

24:45It's actually, there is a non-zero chance that this actually works, right? That's the other thing we need to acknowledge. You mentioned economics, you mentioned the people who make arbitrary rules. We know what we think we know about economics or we think we know what we know based on a couple of centuries post-Industrial Revolution of what's going to happen, right? And we know that tariffs have historically been bad. There is no question about that and there is very, very few orthodox economists i say orthodox not as a belief system just to to allow for those who aren't kind of a little bit loopy um who say everything we know everything we've been through every bit of causal thinking we can do suggests that tariffs are terrible and and and but there's a chance that somehow this thing works out so bear that in mind it's possible but more likely uh it messes with international trade it messes with inflation it messes with prices it removes competitive pressure on American businesses, which means they can afford to charge more because their competitors coming from overseas will be also more expensive.

25:39That's why the inflation is likely. There's just a lot of potential uncertainty. And I don't like Donald Trump. I don't appreciate or approve of his character. I don't think he'll be good as a president. Those are personal views and I'm happy to put them on the record. I've done so on social media before. But purely economically, this is a really, really, really big risk because last time he dropped corporate tax left a whole lot of growing debt. Speaking of the debt problems we've got now, Andrew, that you've kind of alluded to, he wasn't the cause of that, but geez, he added a lot to it. Another one of those, speaking of four or five years' time and the inflation challenge you've already highlighted, mate, that's the risk, right?

26:19I have no confidence that Donald Trump actually cares about the long-term, what's the word? Economic health? Yeah. No, yeah. Prosperity, economic health of the US. I think he'll do some things that either he's doing for selfish electoral or ignorant reasons. And again, I don't use those words unadvisedly. I don't think he has a particularly deep knowledge of economics or finance. Certainly, his company's gone broke enough times that he should know to run things properly. I feel like I'm having a big dig, and I kind of am, but I'm not doing it. I'm doing it hopefully out of some modicum of common sense.

26:51I do worry about where the US is post his term, because I don't have any sense that he will pull his punches on short-term solutions that have long-term pain. You know, we've talked a lot about short-term pain for long-term gain. Everything I've seen from Trump suggests to me he's all about long-term pain if that's the cost of short-term gain. And so that's my fear for the US. And then by definition, you already mentioned the US needs and Australia catches a cold more broadly, but even more specifically, if Australian products are subject to tariffs, if Chinese products are, you said 60 % on Chinese products, who's our largest trading partner?

27:26China. The potential second, third order impacts on Australia, let alone the first order ones, could be quite unsettling. I also will say for what it's worth, I don't think it'll be massive. They'll be unhelpful. They'll be bad. They'll be worth avoiding. But I also wouldn't panic about them. I'm certainly not doing anything differently financially. Your thoughts on a potential Trump presidency as we're 10 days out from his inauguration? I think one of the things you've got to understand about Trump is what, again, there's the debate as to whether he's right or wrong. And then there's also just the observation as to how he thinks.

27:59And I think he's said enough over the years that he sees the share market as a barometer to his success. Yeah, that's true. In other words, he wants the share market to go up. Because in his world, I'm doing something right. Now, there'll be people listening going, well, don't you guys want that too? Like, isn't that actually, isn't that a sign of a healthy economy and growing prosperity? And it's true. But just to double down on your point there, there's a difference between short term gains and longer term sustainable gains. So I suspect this is this is why I'm certainly not selling. Right. Well, no, I wouldn't sell either way.

28:42I'm because I just the world is a crazy enough place that you've just got to you've just got to grit and soldier on. But grit your teeth and soldier on. But I wouldn't be surprised if the share market has a cracker of a year. Yeah, yeah. Because they get rid of regulations. They pump a bunch of liquidity into the system. They do all kinds of things to, you know, I know people like to pretend that there's a separation between central banks and that, but he's already threatening, pal. He'll put someone in or indirectly that is just going to be very accommodative. Now, this is all going to lead to bad things, right?

29:21And we can get into why that might be the case. But it's that counterintuitive, wait a sec, you're saying that all of these things are bad and yet at the same time the share market could rally very strongly. And it could, it absolutely. I'm not saying it will. Let me just clarify this so if someone's listening to this in the future. I'm not making a prediction. But I'm saying it's not out of the world. It's absolutely possible that we could see a very strong rally there because he sees it as so important and he will make all kinds of long-term sacrifices to achieving that end. So that's the first point.

29:55The other thing that's very interesting as well, just on those second, third order impacts longer term. So the US runs this big trade deficit. Places like China run this big trade surplus. Big, big tariffs threaten to disrupt that. They certainly move the dial on that in a negative way. And if you think that through, it's like, wait a second. And so trading partners have less USD. So what you do with the USD is you buy treasuries. Like that's just where China and others have traditionally stored that. That's going to remove some of the demand for some of this US paper, these bonds. That's probably going to see bond prices come down.

30:38It's probably going to see interest rates go up. Case in point, just as we speak, the US 10-year treasuries have gone to 4.7%. A month ago, they were at 4.2 something. Now, again, 4.2, 4.7, is that a big deal? Well, it's actually a big deal. It's a very big move on a bond market. I think it's such a short time. It's such a short time, right? And in relation to all of this stuff that Trump is signaling. And the UK has seen the same thing as well. We're back up at levels where it was when List Trust nearly broke the economy. And so there's a lot to unpack here. The simple interpretation here is that those that are effectively lending money to these very large governments are saying, not at that interest rate, right?

31:23I want more. And I want more because I expect more inflation, I think, is reading between the lines here. And more risk, and either of those are bad. Sorry, absolutely. More risk or more inflation, and we just need more compensation. I mean, I look at it as a steel affair. It's like I'm still amazed that anyone would lend the US money for 10 years at 4.7%, right? Like that blows my mind. But there's signal in that as well. Here's the other thing. Beyond the tariffs, there is this Doge movement, Department of Government Efficiency led by Vivek and Elon. Things are going to get so wild. Now, I actually have a lot of sympathy for the general sentiment.

32:12I do think that in the West in general, particularly in Europe, but certainly in America and certainly in Australia, there's been a lot of bloat in government. This isn't a – let me just – you feel like you have to say this because you get pigeonholed. I'm very pro-government. I'm a libertarian. But, you know, the pendulum can swing too far. I forget the exact number, but it's something like 20 % of employees These are government employees. Yeah, yeah. And in the US, it's the same. Right, okay. So Elon's coming out. He's funny. He's retweeting all these Milton Friedman quotes. And Clemson's like, he's very clear what he thinks and what he said.

32:50And the plan, at least, is to slash a lot of jobs. And again, I've got sympathy for that because there is a lot of waste there. And they're just not delivering efficiently for taxpayers. I think that's a reasonably objective statement. However, the second, third order consequences here is like, well, when 20 % of people, let's say, you know, let's say it's 5 % of people in aggregate lose their jobs as a consequence of this. That is, you know, someone's spending is someone else's income. That is going to have an impact as well. So in the face of higher tariffs, which is anti-growth in a lot of ways, which is very inflationary, in the face of big, big layoffs, which is certainly going to be anti-growth in a lot of ways, and for someone whose North Star is the health of the – or at least the nominal health of the economy in the share market, I think the only – the end result here is we're just going to inject in one of our – we've got a lot of ways we can do this with our toolkit, with lots of fancy acronyms and big words and yield curve controls and off-market operations and quantitative eases, we're going to print a bunch of money.

33:58We're going to print a bunch of money. And that is going to help stimulate, I think, a lot of the things that they want to see. Well, underneath the surface, things will continue to deteriorate. So increasing wealth disparity, all of that kind of stuff. I just think it's – the thing that I've learned the hard way is that things can be crazy, but crazy things can go on a lot longer than you think. So I'm in this really interesting position where I think, oh, this is all madness and it's not going to end well, but it could be three years of the biggest bull market you've ever seen in your life. Again, I'm not predicting that.

34:31I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if that happened. And that's the market in general, right? We've seen the market rally. And the other thing is, by the way, the market's rallied since the election. So a lot of that's already kind of – some of it's priced in already because of those things you mentioned. So it's like, well, what will happen from here? Even if the market thinks those things, some of that's already priced and some of it may not be. And what happens next, no one knows. Because the challenge, and this is, you mentioned the Doge thing at the same time as the tariffs. That's kind of instructive, right?

34:55I was going to say irony. Maybe it's not officially irony in a line of smoroset kind of way. But on one hand, you've got a president who was saying, I want to hollow out the public service because we're wasting too much money. We want to make things, you know, get back to private enterprise and work and business and efficient allocation of capital. At the same time, he's saying, and I'm going to turn the US into a sheltered workshop where I don't, tariffs are literally anti-competitive by definition. I'm going to specifically do the thing I said on one hand I'm taking things away and saying I want to make this more competitive on the other hand I'm saying I'm going to make this less competitive and that's also bad news long term for the US that tariffs make your businesses less competitive so that you don't have the same allocation of capital to the best possible uses because you don't need to someone has put their thumb on the scale and said well you could be more efficient but don't worry too much about it you don't have to be because we're doing this and this and this that is bad part of the US miracle over the last century was that For all of their failings, the entrepreneurial drive, the kind of, you know, I will be better, I will find a solution, I will get ahead.

35:54You put your thumb on the scale too heavily and that goes away. Why? Because it doesn't need to. You don't need to work hard for that. That's how bloat happens. You mentioned government. This policy bloats the private sector in the same way that he would say the government sector has been bloated by previous – and again, I agree with you. I'm not a libertarian. I'm not someone who wants small government for the sake of it. I've said many, many times, I want the smallest possible government but no smaller, and also the largest possible government but no larger. In other words, what does government do that private enterprise doesn't do well enough?

36:21That's how you decide the size of your government. You don't start with an ideology of it should be this big or tax GDP should be this amount, or even the government employees. If 20 % of the population working for the government, providing us our services, is better than having it done by the private sector, that's great. If 25 % is better, that's great. But to your point, there's a chance that we're there. Just quickly, just on that, that's the only thing that matters is who can deliver for me as a citizen the best services most efficiently? Correct. I really don't care if it's government or that.

36:48I mean, historically I'd probably say not always great with government, but, you know, ideologically I don't care. I just want the best bang for buck, which I think anyone would want, right? And you don't want private road contractors building their own roads. You want a government doing it. You don't want private health being the only solution because that works. National parks kind of matter, and so we kind of want people to run those. You need dudes with tanks and guns and stuff in case the baddies come. There are a whole bunch of stuff that absolutely lies naturally in the domain of government.

37:16Yeah. No, no, no, no. That's scary. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

37:30Let's move on, mate, to a fun story. I really like this. Godfrey's. Now, you and I are old enough to remember two things. Firstly, cleanliness is next to Godfrey-ness. Do you remember that one from the ad? And the other one was the bloke with the comb over picking up the bowling ball with the vacuum cleaner. You remember that as well, right? Yes, yeah. So Godfrey sadly went broke. I think it was earlier this year. Oh, I've done it already. Early last year. I thought he screwed it up. Last year, 2024. I think it was the year before. Oh, was it? I think, well, confession time, I had some shares.

37:59Oh, did you? Yeah. Did you lose your money? Yeah, not all of it. I got out. But this is, sorry to hijack it here, but this is a very, very good lesson. in what they call value traps. Yes. Because when I bought it, it was just so dirt cheap. Like on a PE basis and I was like, and I did the classic thing where I was like, oh, yeah, this is a pretty bad company, but look how cheap it is. How much longer can it go? How much longer can it go? When you're zero, as it turned out. So I got out before then. But it's a very good reminder that sometimes it's better to pay a premium for a great business than get a discount on a crappy one.

38:35Exactly. Because the discount goes away very fast. Yeah. So Godfrees goes broke. Gone, it's all very sad. The store's closed down. And it was a failure, I think, of its inability to adapt. And frankly, probably it was always for the chopping block because how do you adapt a vacuum cleaner retailer with physical stores in a world where multi-department retailers, whether it be Maya, David, just simply Big W on Kmart, you've got the online stuff. It was selling yesterday's products to yesterday's consumers with yesterday's business model. And I don't know that necessarily - I add one thing to that.

39:09Dyson. Right, yeah. They missed the stick-back thing entirely. Yeah. That didn't happen. And I don't believe they were able to sell Dysons through the franchises or something. And everyone just went to Dyson. And I think that's a very big, big part of it. They missed the stick-back sort of disruption. So all that happened and it went broke, which is kind of sad because, you know, I like my brands and it's kind of, you know, it's a bit of nostalgia there. And, you know, the ads were pretty iconic. And yet, and yet, it's been reborn. News this week. The Godfrey's is now going to be reborn. And this is probably emblematic and appropriate and all those sort of things, maybe a little bit kind of, I don't know.

39:48It's been reborn as an online-only retailer, which I just, there's just something fabulous about it, going broke as a physical-only retailer, going, you know what? Someone's now bought the brand. So he's a cleaning suppliers entrepreneur out of Melbourne who's bought the brand and is going to stand this thing back up as an e-commerce retailer. Do you know what the price tag was? I don't. I don't know if it's been published, actually. I'm not sure if that's been published, but it's been announced anyway. And I believe the site is back up. And I thought it was interesting, mate, for a whole lot of reasons, but I thought most specifically because the entire thing is emblematic of the way commerce is changing, and I'm talking about retail in particular.

40:26If you think about why did it go broke, what did it miss out on, things like the concept of change and competitive advantage and, you know, retail is all about range. It's all about fashion and fad and it's all about the newest and best things. The fact that, you know, it didn't have the ability to go online and succeed there, it wasn't relevant to a new group of people. So the collapse is kind of, you know, emblematic of, and Mosaic Brands has gone broke as well. We've talked about that before, but Cady's and Noni B and Rivers and those guys are going or gone. And yeah, and also it's resurgence or it's re-arrival, if you like, is also completely emblematic of the current and the future, right, which is online retail, different product range, using the value of the brand online to try and grab some people and say, hey, you know this brand.

41:15It's familiar. It's useful. Come and shop from us. Get it delivered, fulfilled directly. I just thought in a really significant nutshell, it's kind of the story of retail these days. I've said before, Woolies & Coals online sales are up 20%, more than 20 % each last year. This is groceries, right? Up more than 20 % for businesses that otherwise are growing at 4 % or 5%. It's just a really, I think it's a nice little yardstick to talk about what's happening when it comes to the retail space. Yes. I mean, oh, gosh, what to say about all that? It's probably a genius move if it was a, depending on what the price, that's why I asked about the price.

41:56Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because it's not worth a billion dollars and it's certainly worth more than a dollar. And you tell me between those two points, which is the economically rational point. But you made the point offline. It's just like the value in it is just the recognition. I want a Google vacuum. I presume so. Godfrey's comes up. Page vacuums comes up. Phillips vacuums comes up. I've never heard of those. I'm just going to go with that because it's familiar and there is value in that. And if that helps with what people click on and therefore search engine optimization could probably be a very savvy purchase, particularly if you can run it a lot much more cleanly and efficiently and you don't have storefronts and every chance of working, you know, depending on what they paid for it and depending on what the business model specifically is.

42:40But there is value in brands, I guess, is the point that I would double down on the point that you made to me offline. And I think that was right.

42:53I also think that it's something that is going to be very, very difficult. It's an area of business where if they do succeed, it will be through operational excellence as well. Like the brand alone won't do it. Yes. And as you say, a relatively small operator in a very large ocean of very, very big players, it's going to be difficult, right? So I do wish them luck. I share with you those sort of like older associations of some of those cheesy ads and the rest of it. But, yeah, look, it's not listed so we won't really know, I guess, until it comes – there's another headline sort of saying that it is listing or it's gone bankrupt again.

43:42Yeah, that's right. But, yeah, vacuum cleaners, man. Isn't it amazing? Every now and again, you see success in an industry that you just think, how is that possible? Vacuum cleaners have been around since the 19th century, right? Like very different manual kind of things, but they've been around. And it's like someone can come in and disrupt that market so thoroughly. Like just it blows my mind. And I'm struggling to grasp. There's a few other examples that are on the tip of my tongue that you kind of think, huh people made money and like there's no room for it's like if you and i said we're going to launch a new toaster company it's like there's no innovation left in toasting like what what can you do with a toaster it does what it does it's it's it's at the apex of what maybe it can toast a little bit faster maybe it can toast a little bit more evenly maybe you can connect it to wi-fi and yeah that's right tell you something i like but but they're all like they're not they're not 10x improvements and um so you that's why i say operational excellence is really the only lever you can pull there it's just like yeah it's a really cutthroat industry that we're just we're just slightly more uh operationally effective than our competitors and that that's what we'll need um so yeah and and and who again we we went from this we went we dyson completely upended that.

45:07And I just think, and they own the market now and we've got, I bet you've got a Dyson. We do, yes, we do. We actually have a Dyson stick vac for little things. We've got a barrel vac. We've got a bloody German chef with dog hair everywhere. So we've got a dog hair barrel vac as well, but yes, both of those. Yeah, yep. And we actually, because I'm a complete tightwad, before we had that, I was like, I'm not paying. They're not cheap, man. They are not cheap. People, I'm buying a Kobo, says Andrew. Yeah, I did that. And I got some no-name brand stick back and it was crap. And anyway, I just, I don't know what my point is other than to say, you know, things can really surprise you in business, even when it comes to something as boring as vacuum cleaners.

45:49And look, it's a brave person who wants to take on Dyson is all I'll say. Oh, here's the point I was going to make. Shout out to Howard Marks, one of my favorite investors. Speaking of fixed income, he's a fixed income investor. We talk about Buffett's letters and there's other investors that write great letters. Mark puts out a memo on a fairly recent basis. Just Google Oak Tree Capital Howard Marks memo. He came out with one recently. He was just a pining on bubbles and where the market is and rah, rah, rah. But he was making a point that back when he started, there were stocks called the Nifty 50.

46:21Yes. So now we've got the Magnificent Seven. That's right. Before that, it was Fang. Wax, I hear Australia. Wax. You know, we have these market leaders that trade at very, very, let's call it robust premiums and multiples. And then we've said many, many times, I'm a little bit off topic here. We've said this many times that that's absolutely worth paying up for if there are incredible and enduring earnings streams from that. And he was just sort of trying to infer things like, what does it mean for NVIDIA to trade at a PE of 35? What does that mean? It means that the market expects very, very high profit for a very, very long time without putting numbers on it.

47:04And he said, that's fine. Maybe it will. However, when you look at history, if you go back 10 years and then go back 20 years and go back 30 years, and at each point in time, you say, what were the dominant companies on the planet? You know, things like, let's go just focus on the US because that's usually where they are. and there's each 10 year period there's very few that are still in the list. Microsoft is a real notable exception to have been around for as long and still be considered in the top tier but it is absolutely the exception to the rule and there's a long run up here just to sort of after I've just like formed all over Dyson to sort of say just because it's the dominant now maybe it doesn't stay there and I guess the more broad point I'm making I guess just as a general investment lesson, when you are paying up for these incredible companies that by all, you know, all intents and purposes, they are just knocking it out of the park and they have very deep moats and probably will last for a very, very, very long time.

48:03Just note that they will be the exception to the rule if they do. And the other point that he made was in regards to the nifty 50 and also in regards to a lot of the big stocks around the turn of the century, actually a lot of the forecasts came true. They actually did earn a fortune. It's just that the market paid so much for them. Their PEs, in the case of the nifty 50s, their PEs went from between 60 and 90 down to six to nine. So it was a 90 % loss without any change in the earnings. And again, I've gone off topic here. I don't know how we started with Godfrey's and we ended up on this. But it's just another point, I guess, that bears repeating.

48:43Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. I think price always matters. It's easy to forget that price matters when the go-go years are happening. It's when all of a sudden you've got to go, hang on. So I think there's that. On Godfrey's, I think Godfrey's is a really great opportunity, I think, to think about business models. And you think about what makes a retailer successful. And there's no single, to your point about surprises come all the way, there's no single solution to that. There are some retailers that, I mean, I don't share Amazon, as everyone knows. it has been successful by being just having its largest shop in the world.

49:17So breadth, right, and price are other things that made it successful. You've got other businesses that are Tiffany's, right, sells very expensive and very small numbers of jewelry pieces. Those two businesses can't – Amazon can't be a single category retailer. Tiffany can't sell everything. The combination of trying to work out what you are in your market, depending on what you're selling, really matters. trying to keep a business like Godfrey's afloat. When you could buy, you know, at one point, if you wanted a vacuum cleaner, well, you'd go to Godfrey's because that's the best place to find the best range.

49:51Yeah. But then you've got Big W and Kmart selling really cheap ones. You've got Myron DJ selling a big range of them. You can go online and get any vacuum cleaner from anywhere in the world. And to your point, the innovation thing of what's your product range look like and are you keeping up? Godfrey's was a great business at one point, you know, and then it became a terrible business to the point of collapse. whether the new iteration is spectacular or terrible, we don't yet know. But for example, having 120 vacuum stores around the country is madness and was for years. Doesn't mean you couldn't have made money buying those shares if they had gone up a bit.

50:22You could have made a lot of money if the circumstances had been different. I think they did go up after I bought them briefly. So sustainably, you know, in the modern world, and I mentioned the online stuff because it really matters. I'll get back to that in a second. But working out, you know, can you have 100 and what it was, 2016 something stores around the country just selling vacuums to people who buy a vacuum once every five years once upon a time you could have absolutely because there wasn't much price competition you were the default name you're the place to go you had the best range you had the best ads people wanted to go to you but at some point you'll hang on think about i think about godfrey's online right one store yeah for the entire country doesn't mean it's going to be successful but the model of that yes people can't come in and use the vacuum cleaner to pick up the ball or as i was reminded the other day they would literally spill stuff on the carpet you'd vacuum up in front of you, that was kind of the shtick, right?

51:09We don't need that anymore. People are buying couches and beds online. So, you know, one warehouse, one shop. Godfrey's there has one shop. It happens to cover 27 million Australians. And probably anyone overseas wants to buy them, but they won't. That model is a very different model. Now, it doesn't mean it'll be successful, but think about trying to compete. If you're Godfrey's 116 stores with one category, with massive overheads, you're trying to get enough people through the door to keep that thing alive. time's changed and you needed to change with it and I guess back to retail more broadly the lesson I think for investing in retail today I'm a massive fan of e-commerce as both a user and an investor as everyone knows but why do I think that?

51:50Because the unit economics is what they the boffin word for the store level profitability changes real fast you only need to lose 5 or 6 % of your sales per store and that store's already break even or losing money now think about the growth of online commerce as I just mentioned, Woolies and Coles growing at 20 % online. Meier at one point was growing at 30%, 35 % of it's stupid online. Once you get a certain critical mass, Mosaic brands went broke, largely because enough people just started shopping elsewhere. Didn't take much. Sales didn't fall by 85 % before they went broke. Sales fell of, I don't know how much, but small amounts over a few years consecutively.

52:25That was enough to make the whole business, put the whole business drop. So I would be really worried about a business that had a physical presence and an insufficient online one. And even those that do, mate, I don't know if this is a typical topic at this time of the podcast, but I think about JB Hi-Fi, for example. And I think they're a spectacularly good business and they have a great online presence and they're doing really good business through their online website. At some point though, they're going to have to have a reckoning where they tip over between these stores were great, even as the online business grows.

52:57The business itself will be fine. It'll move online to enough degree. But at some point, and probably, you know, you love slowly then suddenly or whatever the phrase is. Gradually then suddenly. There you go. But at some point that happens to JB Hi-Fi because enough of their business goes online, even to their own online store, that the stores all of a sudden go, well, hang on, we used to make money at store level. Now 5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, 40 % of our store network loses money. And they're going to have to make some really serious decisions at some point about how they can maintain and then rationalise a store count.

53:28Now, Maya's in much bigger trouble than JB, But even some of those stores, even if you are dominant, the store level economics just don't work when enough of the sales happen online. You can't sustain the store networks you've got. Nope. Nope. And particularly when one of your biggest line items is rent, lease, property, you know, however you want to do it. Power, just staff to open the door. You've got to have, I don't know, 10 people in a JB High Five before you open the front door. Yep. You've got stock, you've got shelving, you've got rent, you've got lights, you've got air conditioning. But this is a good thing, right?

53:59Yes. I know you're not saying it's not a good thing, but it's a challenge for the business. I tell you who wins, the consumer wins. Yeah, correct. You've done well because we get things that competition drives prices down and choice down for us, which is good. If we want to buy it online, if we want to go to the store, well, maybe it's not a bad – if you like shopping in the store, maybe there were fewer J.B. Health has to go to. Some consumers will, I'll say, lose out, but they won't win necessarily. But the consumers overall will make our choice. When we say we'd rather buy it online at 11 o 'clock at night on a Tuesday night, rather than waiting until the shop opens on 9.30 on Saturday morning for finished work.

54:32I'm better off. If you want a J.B. Halfway in your local suburb and it goes from 100 stores to 20 over time, whatever the number ends up being, you might feel like, well, I'd like to go to the store, but I'm going to have to make a special trip. But as a group of consumers, we're absolutely winning. Yeah, and those pressures will help stimulate new business models and new ways of doing things. And it's a great – this is the great thing about capitalism. You know, it is a great big experiment of a whole bunch of people throwing stuff at the wall. Yes, yeah. Some of it will stick and those people will be rewarded for it.

55:04And we all get better services and cheaper services in theory, right, if done well. So, yeah, I'll be interested to see with Godfrey's though. Oh, I thought of the other one. So, I've got a young daughter and part of what she wanted for Christmas was, you know the brand White Fox? No, I do not. I'm obviously not cool enough. It's just, oh man. You'll see the bus ads now that I've mentioned it. I'm sure a lot of people, they're just, they're very not high quality sloppy Joes and track suits and stuff. They've just got white fox written on it. It's the brand. And to me it blows because they're very successful for all, I don't know the financials, but ostensibly they're just growing, like every kid's wearing it.

55:44It's just the, it's the trend at the moment, at least in our little area. And I just, and again, once you see it, it's like every second kid's got white fox, white fox, white fox. And it just, again, I can imagine me. I rock up to your house and go, here's my pitch deck, Scott. I've got a business idea. We're going to get into clothing. It's like, oh, my God, could there be a more brutally competitive industry? No, but we're going to do it. Okay, how are we going to do it? Are we going to have more efficient manufacturing? Are we going to have higher quality? No, no, no, no. We're just going to put White Fox on it.

56:13On the front of the shirt. And this is a nice way of tying up the Godfrey's conversation in the sense that it's all about brand. That's the only asset. There is nothing that you guys, like there'll probably be some white fox diehards out there going, well, no, it's very high quality. My point is, is that I don't think it is. I think it is amazing how powerful brands can be. What I do suspect though, is that the ones that have really endured have had to invest a lot to endure. They've had to nurture that brand through product refinement, product development, you know, all of these innovation. you know these buzzwords but but genuinely if if white fox just to pick on them are doing the same thing in three four five years time they'll probably be irrelevant and gone and it'll be i don't know brown donkey or whatever the kids are into at that at that point in time there you go someone someone run with that brown donkey it's yours my gift to the world but but but again just that point of another another example of at least to date a business has been phenomenally successful doing something in a very old industry without any innovation, but somehow I think there was some Kardashian involvement or in some social media influences, right?

57:29But that's built the brand. And I think it's kind of, and I can't, I mean, what can you do? I'm not going to crush a little spirit, but I'm sitting there silently dying, dying. It's like, why are you, you are walking around as a billboard for this company. That's the great thing I love. And you're paying. Yes, exactly. you pay to start advertising someone else's brand. Can you imagine that as a company? If I need to get someone to start wearing, paying me to wear straw man jumpers around, like, like, how, how do you do that? I think what the interesting thing is, I think a lot of the time the companies themselves don't know how they did it.

58:04Like they'll tell you, oh, we did this and we were very innovative. We had some good focus groups and it's really resonated well with the tween demographic. It's like, no, you didn't. Well, plenty of other people did it and we never heard of their name before, but something, the stars just aligned and you did it. But I guess the investment lesson here is that look for the source of advantage when it comes to a company. And if it is brand, like Coca-Cola is a very enduring brand, right? Kellogg's is very enduring. There's a lot of great enduring brands that are out there. I guess my point is that they are the exception to the rule.

58:40And the brand that was built up around Godfrey's was done with a lot of hard work over a lot of time in a different era. And I wonder if that translates. And even if it does get some traction and whatever it does now, what are they going to do to grow the brand? That's interesting. And so as an investor, if the only moat is a branded moat, don't disparage it. It's great. I'm calling it a moat, so definitionally it's a moat, But it is also the most subject or the least – what am I trying to say? It is the hardest to endure if that's all you've got. And you've got to work on that very, very hard.

59:22I think that's true. I think I'm a little less critical. I think if you look at the Cokes of the world, not that it doesn't have to be worked on, but you can make it work. Coke have been charging twice the price of Pepsi and five times the price of Brio-labeled Colors for 100 years and done very nicely out of it. But I think you're right. I think understanding the source of your competitive advantage, what it requires, I would argue Godfrey's – and this is the other thing, right? Incumbency can be its own problem unless you realise. I've used the example a trillion times. I used it one more time for the new listener.

59:54When Jeff Bezos created the Kindle, he sent the team to the other side of the country. Why? Because incumbency would have said, we rock at physical books. Let's push back against the e-books. Kodak is a great example of the digital camera. Look up, Google Chris Kohler, K-O-H-L-E-R, Alan's son, not because he needs that, but just so you know the spelling of his name, and Kodak. It has this great little skit. It's about a minute long, minute and a half long on YouTube. And it's just this guy going, guys, I've had a digital camera. And the other guy says, are you an idiot? We're a film company. Put that away.

1:00:24And it's just a really nice reminder. If you don't embrace innovation, why did Godfrey suck? Well, no pun intended. They literally, I was pretty good. That went over my head. I wish I'd intended it. It's a great T-shirt I want to buy myself, which is, intend your puns, you cowards, which I love because I may still buy that at some point. But yeah, the idea of why did they lose? Because, I mean, many reasons. I don't know their model was ever sustainable as a single... They should have realised earlier that being a single category physical retailer with low turnover in a modern world was going to be stupidly hard.

1:00:56And this is Meyer's problem, right? The world is online. They're selling massive amounts of stuff everywhere. No one really wants to go there. you go there if you kind of think you might find it or you want to range you don't really know where you want to shop the shopping mall is the new myer um myer and the and the discounted harper stores the new godfrey's but it didn't have the stick facts it didn't go online any meaningful way and i suspect it kind of went we're good at this thing and our customers are 58 and they buy barrel vacuums and there's still a lot of let's milk that and you do that until you realize that all of a sudden you're under invested in the future so whatever that source is whether it's brand whether it's product range whether it's innovation i think about dyson it's it's all innovation for Dyson, right?

1:01:33They want to be the best, most expensive. They're not trying to be everything to everyone. They're not trying to compete with the$24 Kmart vacuums. No. This is$700. It is the best thing you'll ever use. Yep. And only some people are going to pay for it. The rest aren't. And that was your first experience, right? Buy the knockoff stick vac because it might be fine. You go, actually, I'll buy the Dyson fine. But that's kind of, you know, so when you're an investor, know the source of your company's advantage. And to your point, understand whether or not it's, you know, after the 9-11 attacks, he famously wrote a letter to his managers and said, don't worry about everything else, just widen your moat.

1:02:06That's all I want you to do. Don't try and manage stuff you can't manage. Just focus on building your competitive advantage. Maintain it and grow it. How could God have done that? I mean, business schools will be doing studies on them at some point, I suspect. But whatever company you own, business to business, business to consumer, whatever it does, what is its competitive advantage? What does it do differently or better? And is that being eroded, maintained or built and widened and you desperately want at least to have one that can be maintained. I mentioned Coke. They spend, I don't know, would it be billions of dollars a year globally?

1:02:39Maybe not. Huge numbers. Maybe hundreds of millions. Either way. Yeah. Massive. Why? Because they know that's what they've got to do. Coke is irrelevant. If you don't see a Coke out for the next 20 years, no one's buying Coke in 2045. Yeah. But they won't because they know that's what they have to do. And as long as they keep doing that, they reinforce that perception. Because here's the last thing just really quickly, mate, on brand for me. there is zero white fox why is it better because i think it is yeah and that's that and that perception is reality right i'm not knocking that actually from from your daughter's perspective if she thinks it's worth it then it's worth it yeah the consumer is always right i get subjective preference you can't argue against it i like that one i like blue better than i like green i'm not i can't it's impossible for me to be wrong justify that i can't i just do i just do yeah and that's not bad that's that's that's being human right yeah but when people stop liking blue and start like in green again, you better have some green to offer them.

1:03:29Or you better be able to convince them that blue is still worth having. Because White Fox is going to die. I'll also put money on that, mate. I don't have a brown donkey that replaces it. I'll give you long odds on that one. But, yeah, anything's possible. Someone listening is going to start brown donkey and make a fortune. But whatever replaces it, you know, will also have its time in the sun. And every now and again, a Gucci will be born and succeed. And every now and again, a Godfrey will be born and succeed and then die. and being really aware of that. I'm a long-term investor. I want to hold for years and years if I can, but I've got to remain really, really aware of the fact that if and when this thing stops being relevant, starts being less relevant, doesn't mean it can't dig itself back out of the hole, but just be really careful about where it makes us money.

1:04:11And again, back to the economics of it, how much room it's got, how long can you take to fix that problem? Because if you're a low-margin retailer in a competitive category, you better be running fast just to stay still, otherwise you're in real trouble. I've got to pitch for you. Not brand donkey again. No. You and I are going to start a venture capital firm. Okay. And what we're going to do - Will you use your money? Sure. Well, I don't know. I'm shooting from the hip here. Strawman Ventures. I'm saying Strawman Ventures. It's got a ring to it. VCs obviously tend to go for growth, right? Like we buy the new thing, the next Uber, right?

1:04:50And hopefully you get lucky and you make a squillion dollars. We're going to do the exact opposite. it. We're going to buy businesses that are in terminal decline. However, what we're going to do is we're going to acknowledge the reality of the situation and manage it into the grave. Yeah. Yeah. And I am only half joking here. Too often. So I'm really just going off the back of the point you're making there was just sort of, or both making it, it's like you've got to nurture a brand, you've got to nurture, you know, your moats, you've got to widen these moats. Sometimes, in fact, more often than probably not, a lot of companies just find themselves in a very difficult situation, which is largely unsalvageable.

1:05:30And it may, but particularly if you're a producer of pages and fax machines in a digital world where no one uses them anymore. And what accelerates the demise of those companies and what ensures that shareholders, whether it's private or public, do far worse than they otherwise would is the hubris of we can save it and we can turn it around. Yeah. And spend a fortune trying. And spend a fortune. That's the key point. So if you say that, actually, no, we're not doing that. So we're going to buy a business. We're going to get rid of zero growth capex. We're not spending any growth capital at all on any.

1:06:08We, in fact, plan for this business not to exist in five years. However, there is momentum in certain sales. You know, things don't just die overnight. They will be – pick on poor old white fox again. You know, as that becomes not trendy anymore, there will be the diehards that do it. There will be a long tail of customers there. And you just – what was that company on the ASX a little while ago? 1300 Reverse? Yes. It was a company. Yes, that's right. I think it's actually called 1300 Reverse. It was called that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for anyone below a certain age, You can get onto a pay phone.

1:06:45Go on, try and explain reverse charge call. You can get onto a pay phone. If you didn't have any like coins, they're like these metal discs that you would have in your pocket. You get change from like from paper currency. Anyway, you put your token. Paper not plastic, by the way, to be really specific. Actual paper. Actual paper. You put your token into this machine and then you'd press buttons and you could speak to someone. It was called a telephone. And there was no internet access or apps or anything. like that. But if you didn't have any of the metal tokens, you could, you could, you could put it, there was, you'd dial this number and you could, the person that you were calling could, could accept the charge.

1:07:24So I will pay for the charge. Very, very good for people like us who were born in the seventies when you're a teenager and you want mom and dad to come pick you up because you don't have a mobile phone and you don't even have any of these metal tokens or you just don't want to spend your metal tokens. And anyway, surprise, surprise, this business was going out of business And it was actually listed on the stock exchange. I'm probably going back 10 years or something like that. Anyway, what they did is they ended up buying, was it a contact lens business? I don't know. I don't know the story. I've got to say, sorry.

1:08:01An online frame. Someone will hopefully ring a bell for someone. Anyway, my point being is that they tried to salvage the company and turn it around and it didn't work. But a lot of people still use that. Less people every year, right? Like the Yellow Pages. It's still around. I know, I still find that bizarre. Right? And it just, it's a slow death. But you can make, if all of a sudden you get rid of all of your costs or you run a pure skeleton crew managing it into the ground, the cash, as long, so the maths is, as long as the future discounted cash flows, they might only go out three years. Yeah.

1:08:38But if that is more than the price that you pay, you will make a profit. And I reckon because a lot of these companies are being sold at fire sale prices, you bought a portfolio of companies that were dying and then, and then managed the death. You put them into hospice basically. And, and just say, you know, we're just going to, it's palliative care for, for, for business. Yeah. I reckon you could make some good money out of that. Yeah. What do you reckon? I dare say you probably could. It's by the way, you know, 1-800 reverse. It was 1-800 reverse. That's how old we are. We've got there was 1-800.

1:09:10numbers. I'm Googling, I'm like, where is it? It's like, 1-800 reverse. Oh, that's right. That's what it was. Yeah, they were listed at some point. Yeah, they were. 1-800 reverse was a reverse course service in Australia that closed in 2019. 2019, there you go. But they tried a bunch of stuff first. Oh, another one on the ASX, it's still around. Hills Industries. Yes, yes, yes. So again, Hills made the Hills Hoist, like the iconic Australian washing line. And they still do. But they also do IT and what else do they do? Do you know the code off the top? This is live podcasting here. Hills, I don't actually.

1:09:50It's one of the few I couldn't have. Maybe they've gone private. H-I-L. H-I-L is still around? Seems to be. Can't wait. I searched it. Oh, so it's two cents. I dare say it's no longer around, but it could be. Okay. So classic example of what I'm talking about here, whereas they, you know, I don't know the dynamics in the washing line industry that led to their demise or what happened because anyway. But it was trying to turn the company around and reinvent it that actually accelerated the ultimate demise. Now, either way, shareholders are going to zero. Either way, you're going to zero. However, as we've used the example before, the gold standard here is the tobacco industry.

1:10:32Yes. Altria. Altria? Yes, correct. Altria. Which was Philip Morris, for those who know the name, the corporate name, Cigarette Manifestment. Yes. So what they did that was, I mean, look, let's put the morals aside, the ethics aside. But the genius of what they did is they recognised that they were in a sunset industry. You know, smoking rates are plummeting around the world. It's still around, obviously, but it's dying a slow death. And they basically just acknowledged that and have ran and have allowed that runoff to occur. No, they're just, the only maintenance, it's just maintaining some of these machines that dry and chop and roll the tobacco, et cetera.

1:11:15Very, very old machinery, you know, from like the 80s or something. But they paid a massive dividend because they, rather than taking that money and go, oh, we can invest in this and we can do this. And shareholders, so again, the share price, I don't think has done much. The PE is super low, but it means that the yield is high. Anyway, the maths works out that it's actually, it was one of the best performing stocks you could have bought in the 90s through to 2020. I think it was the best, literally the best over 50 years up until whatever point that data was done. So imagine going back in time and saying, so smoke breaks are going to fall, but you should put all your money in this industry.

1:11:53It would be the best performing stock. And it was the best because they recognised the reality of the situation and they left hubris at the door. And it's like, okay, it's dying. Let's just manage it. By the way, the other reason it did well was because the share price stayed so low because everyone thought that. Yes. That you could reinvest those dividends and compound that at an astonishing rate. So there is a low expectations thing here. I'm going to throw one at you, mate. We're towards the end of the podcast. But I just got an email literally as we were chatting. Oh. Now, you and I love our RM Williams boots, yes?

1:12:24Yes. I love the brand. I'm wearing an RM Williams belt as we speak. I happen to be wearing. Yeah. And with my Christmas present T-shirt. You haven't remarked on it yet, but it says - I'm doing - I was waiting till he got off air. I was going to say it. I want your initial thoughts on this. The email comes through and it's from Aaron Williams. The title is Give Your Boots a Holiday. Okay. The first line is kick your boots off. Our new range of leather moccasins and versatile sneakers is here to ground your summer look. Go on, give your boots a well-earned day off. Hmm. So, okay. I have to think about that.

1:13:03So they're moving away from their core competency into other areas? It's brave or crazy brave, right? It might work. I mean, you don't know, right? So look, you mentioned diversifying away. I'm old and stuck in my ways and boring and I like brands and I like things not to change because I'm just old and crotchety. There's a reason we're still out there on Waldorf. I don't know, mate. if I'm advising Aaron Williams like hang on you're literally you're iconic when you say Aaron Williams you don't think oh Aaron Williams shirts or Aaron Williams belts or Aaron Williams t-shirts you think Aaron Williams boots yeah and so the idea is hey don't wear your boots I I I don't mind them having other footwear I don't mind them doing other stuff when your when your starting point is take off your boots it's brave or crazy brave and I'm going to say crazy I just think when you walk, when you literally walk, imagine Coke saying, ah, put the Coke down, grab a Fanta.

1:14:07Yeah. Can you, again, I'm no fashion plate. I'm certainly no retail or clothing expert. I don't, you know, there are things I do and don't know. They either will manage to make this brand a more mainstream brand with heritage or they're going to kill the bloody thing off because R.M. Williams' boots just is. I find that really, really polarizing. Brave or crazy, but I'm not saying it'll kill it. I'm just saying I wouldn't do it. You couldn't make me put this out. More money has been lost in the pursuit of growth than anything else, right? I get the ambition. There are very few companies. It tends to be family-run companies that are the best.

1:14:52And RM Williams was not anymore. Correct. So what you get, right? Twiggy owns it now, by the way. That's right. Yeah. So what you get is you get a business that is built by a family or an entrepreneur who's there for the long term, right? They've got a legacy. They really value it. And they also value this old-fashioned concept of cash flow, right? Like it kind of matters because if the only game in town is making yourself look good and flipping it to some other idiot who's going to like pay you a nice premium for it, it doesn't usually – I mean, it can work out incredibly well for you, not for every other stakeholder though.

1:15:30And so you get these brands that build up because you have a reputation for extremely high quality, you know, and this is what we do. We do Boots and we're really good at it. And then it gets bought by a private equity company or a bigger company. And there's someone who's never run a business, but they've got 12 different MBA, you know, acronyms behind their name. And they do one of two things every time. Occasionally it works more often than it doesn't. They first, they cut costs. They go, well, do we need to use that grade leather? You know, if we just dropped down one grade of leather, we could make, actually that'll boost our net profit by 15 % this year.

1:16:08And it will, it will. It was like, Oh, look at me and all. And so that's, that's the first thing. And the other thing they do is they go, we could really move into this adjacency over here and we can grow into why aren't we're a shoe company. Why aren't we selling sneakers? We really need to sell sneakers. So let's cut costs. Let's move away from our core competency. And it actually can have some short-term benefit. But again, and there are exceptions to the rules, but more often than not, it doesn't. On the other hand, you've got this sleepy, supposedly company, which is like, no, we just do that.

1:16:41We're not growing at high double digit rates, but we're consistently growing in real terms above inflation. And we gush cash. Because what doesn't show up on your profit and loss statement is all the capital investment. And that goes through the balance sheet, right? So it's sort of like, it's not obvious at first, but what you see here is a business that ostensibly doesn't have a lot of growth, but is super strong and robust because they're piles of cash. So they can survive the tough times when they come. And they pay, the owners get money, not by trying to find a greater fool that you can flip a story to, but by relentlessly attractive, growing tax-effective dividends, right?

1:17:28And look, I don't want to prejudge what you've just told me about R.M. Williams. I wish them every success. As you say, I'm a big fan of their brand. But I remember thinking at the time when it did go private, it's just like, it's a shame. It is a shame. Yes. Because probably, not to cast shade at anyone who was involved, but just statistically and based on history, It doesn't – the odds don't look good of you continuing to succeed in the area you've built your success on. I should say this is not the first time. He didn't take it private. It's been private for a while. Sure. He bought it from the previous owners.

1:18:07You know, like if it works, then great. If it gives the brand a lease of life and some continuity and all that kind of great stuff, then fantastic. Good on them. Yeah. I just think you're starting to reach a bit far away. They're the leather goods company. It's what you do. Yeah. I don't know. There aren't many companies who can go and take – I mean, Coke could never do a new recipe. The odds that the brand – if Iron Williams, the company, had a different brand of non – okay, fair enough. Do it that way. Fanta is not Coke Orange. It's Fanta, right? There's a reason for that. Maybe Iron Williams can do it.

1:18:40They didn't ask me and I don't deserve to be asked, but if they'd asked me, I would have said, guys, no. And I don't mind doing these different shoes. It's just when the ad says, stop wearing your Iron Williams boots, Yeah. That's the bit that I kind of go, oh, you've probably ever reached a little bit far here, Tos. Oh, dude. You know, thank goodness you just lack the sophistication to understand the genius marketing minds behind that. Indeed, indeed. The failure is obviously an always mind. Well, to be fair, that can – in fashion, mate, I probably should just put my head in there, shouldn't I?

1:19:08Look, I mean, I'm very much – I take this to heart. I've run my own business in exactly the same way. I'm sure it's not for everyone, right? It's, you have to be a pretty diehard, tragic investor. It's not that cheap, yada, yada, yada. It's cool. I'm really cool with that, right? Because I figured out early on, not after wasting a, you know, not insignificant amount of money that, you know, I said to you this off air not that long ago. It's like trying to be the everything to everyone is just such a recipe for disaster. It's like, what's the one thing that you want to sort of stand out for? I'm going to stand out for that.

1:19:43It's not going to be appropriate for 98 % of investors. And that's cool. I'm very cool with that. Would I like having a business that appealed to everyone and was 50 times larger? Yeah, of course I would. That's a much bigger ask. Knowing your niche that you can be the best at that. In fact, I think this is useful for anyone who is investing, but also anyone who's starting up a business. It's very hard to compete against. I mean, a lot of the big things have been done, but you still find there's stories I love in the business community is where I was telling you the other day about the guys who made the really strong razor.

1:20:17You know, or what's the other example with that? You know, the squatty potty, right? I don't know if you know the squatty potty. I did not. It lifts your legs up when you're on the loo. It just sort of helps the whole process or whatever. But what was genius? They made a lot of money, man. They made a lot of money. And they're still going strong as far as I understand it. Yeah, a fine idea. Yeah, yeah. But my point is that if you were to take that idea to a Procter & Gamble or something, it's like, A, it's never going to move the dial for us. But if you can say, no, we do this one thing, we do it extraordinarily well, we're not going to grow outside of, we're going to stay in our lane, we're not going to do this.

1:20:55I think that is the real opportunity for any would-be entrepreneurs that are out there, particularly in an era where you can log in and set up a Salesforce account and you can open up Xero online and you can use ChatGPT to do some of your stuff. You know, it's just sort of like the opportunities to start a business have never been greater. it's almost impossible because of our current system to do anything at scale. Like good luck taking on Commonwealth Bank, right? Like, you know, I wish you well, good luck. But if you want to be the person that, you know, we sell aquatic snails for ponds. That's it.

1:21:32That is all I say that because I bought some the other day, but that's all we do and we're going to do it brilliantly. And no one is ever going to be able to compete with us. We're not going to grow into other areas. And I think that therein lies a lot of opportunity and very surprising spaces as well. Just don't then on any success that comes from that, start to think, you know, master of the universe kind of thinking and that you can take on everything and just, yeah. Because it is too often a story of those that have had success and then start thinking, well, here's another example. Speaking of Twiggy, Fortescue, insanely successful and then decided to get into green hydrogen.

1:22:12Yes, exactly. Now, I don't want to get into a green hydrogen debate, but it's like, whoa, that's left field, man. Like that is what? And shareholders didn't sign up for that necessarily. Like you, and look, I don't think it's gone that well so far. Maybe it's too early to call on that. But there is, I reckon if we spent five or 10 minutes between us thinking about it, we'll come up with a dozen examples easily on the ASX where companies did exactly that. So I'll tie a bow on this rant and just sort of say, when you're looking at a company, or if you're looking at starting your own company, back to where we started.

1:22:43What's the source of advantage? Do they understand their source of advantage? Are all their efforts focused on exploiting that area of advantage? And if that's what they're doing, it doesn't guarantee anything, but it certainly puts the odds in your favour as to the one that's going to conquer the world and, you know, try and do all this fancy financial engineering. I have one last question for you. Leather moccasins. Should I buy them or should I leave them? Leather moccasins. How do you define a moccasin? What's the boat shoe thing? It's one of the Iron Williams. I'm looking at the ad here. I'm scrolling down going, oh, they've got leather moccasins.

1:23:17I'm trying to figure out if you buy some of them to go with my shorts or not. That's a bold fact. Look, each to their own. Each to their own. I'll take those. I know. All right, we will leave it there, and I will try and keep myself away from the Iron Williams website between now and Sunday morning when we will come back to you and find out what Andrew did wear on his feet for his strengths, of strength and endurance that I'm sure he will have undertaken by them. Well, not about my feet, my face. I didn't mention your shirt. You didn't mention my face. Stay tuned. We'll talk about that on Sunday.

1:23:46Until then, Fool on. 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.