AI, energy, infrastructure and defence might look like separate mega trends, but like a giant flywheel, they’re increasingly feeding into one another, creating a feedback loop that is reshaping industries, investment opportunities and the global economy.

On top of that, war and rising geopolitical tensions is driving a structural increase in defence spending, with technology, semiconductors and strategic infrastructure playing a bigger role in modern defence systems.

In markets, this means that the biggest opportunities can often sit not in a single theme, but in the spaces where these trends overlap each other.

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, we ask Vihari Ross of Antipodes and Casey McLean of Magellan where they see the best value across the biggest trends shaping markets today and which megatrend could drive the next wave of opportunity.

The Magnificent 7 are starting to look a bit like a boy band past its peak. (Think the Beatles, NSYNC, BTS...pick your era.) At their height, the hype is intoxicating. The name up in lights, the style, the choreography of the market moving to their beat. For a while, everyone agrees -  they’re untouchable.

But nothing stays loved in the limelight forever, and sentiment can turn quickly.

Doubts around AI leadership and an overcrowded trade have made investors pause on tech, while sectors like energy, materials and industrials have started outperforming. And when the gloss fades, as we saw in the pullback earlier this year, the next question that naturally gets asked is - what else is out there?

Well friends, here at Livewire, we’re here to tell you - quite a lot!

In this episode, we’re casting our eyes past the Magnificent 7 and instead focusing on the global megacaps that have been stuck in the Mag 7's shadow. 

And we’ve brought in two of the best in global equities - Vihari Ross of Antipodes, and Casey McLean of Magellan - to talk through the other members of the trillion-dollar club (and the ones knocking on the door.) 

This epsiode was filmed Wednesday 11th March, 2026.

There are two things you want out of a good income stock - a solid yield and the ability to grow that yield over time. 

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, Livewire's Chris Conway hosts Peter Gardner from Plato Asset Management and Sean Roger from Perpetual to run the ruler over five dividend stocks with better-than-market yields and expected dividend growth.

We ran a screen that filtered companies with a market cap above $1 billion, offering a one-year forward yield of more than 4% (better than the market) and projected dividend growth based on consensus earnings forecasts.

The screen threw up some interesting names across consumer discretionary, financial services and transport, but are these stocks worth adding to your watchlist, according to the pros? Find out here. 

The yield on the ASX has now been below 4% for quite some time, but that doesn't mean there's no income opportunities for Australian investors ready to do the work.

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, Livewire's Chris Conway hosts Peter Gardner from Plato Asset Management and Sean Roger from Perpetual to discuss whether we're in a structurally-lower income environment or whether it's just a lull.

They also reveal the sectors where they're still finding reliable income and what they're avoiding right now. Finally they each share one ASX income stock idea the rest of the market might be missing for 2026. 

Strong dividends have always been one of the ASX's big calling cards, so it might surprise you to learn that Australian dividends actually shrank 6.7% to $63.5 billion in 2025, according to the Capital Group Global Equity Study.

Now reporting season has thrown up some solid dividend results from Telstra, Woolworths, BHP and Evolution Mining to name a few, and our biggest income stocks - namely the banks and miners - are delivering strong returns.

So will 2026 be a return to form for Aussie income stocks, and which are the companies that should be top of your radar?

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, Peter Gardner from Plato Asset Management and Sean Roger from Perpetual join Livewire's Chris Conway to give their ratings on some of the most-tipped income stocks for 2026 from our readers and share a pick of their own.

That might be the best way to sum up the February reporting season at the headline level. Of course, there is more nuance to it than that. 

The top end of town - the banks and miners in particular - enjoyed solid results and, often, spectacular share price moves; Woolworths up 14%, anyone? Throw into the mix a record high for BHP and a resurgent Commonwealth Bank, as the strong got stronger - 'twas the best of times.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you disappointed the market - even by a smidge in the case of a company like ZIP - you got hammered. This is not a new theme, given recent season history, but certainly a more pronounced one. 'Twas the worst of times. 

If that wasn't enough to navigate, casting a pall over the entire season was the chaos agent that is change. More specifically, AI-disruption, which apparently is threatening most small and mid-cap business models, while the top 20 are somehow immune. 

To help unpack one of the most colourful and important reporting seasons in the last decade, guest host, CommSec's James Gruber, was joined by David Lloyd from Ausbil Investment Management, and Dushko Bajic from First Sentier Investors. 

They discuss the big themes, key takeouts and, of course, all the big stocks - from the winners to the losers, and everything in between. If you're an investor in ASX stocks, you cannot miss this episode of Buy Hold Sell. 

This episode was recorded on Thursday, 26 February 2026. 

As part of our 2026 Outlook Series, we asked you for your picks of the top ETFs for the year ahead, and in a recent episode of Buy Hold Sell, we ran the ruler over five of the most-picked ETFs.

But we like to keep our guests on their toes, which is why we're back with a bonus round of Buy Hold Sell to run through nine more of the ETFs that made the list. 

Back in the BHS hot seats are Daniel Kelly of Viola Private Wealth and Adam Dawes of Shaw and Partners to give the quick fire calls on ETFs covering everything from gold miners to Asian tech.

2 guests. 9 ETFs. 4 minutes. Hear how they got on. 

This episode was filmed on Wednesday, 11 February 2026.

AI. It's all anyone is talking about, and whether you love it or loathe it, you're probably going to have to hear about it for a while yet (i.e. forever).

But whether you choose to invest in it? That's another story. 

Let's be real. Investors of all stripes - from retail punters to institutional shops with trillion-dollar balance sheets - have lost their minds over AI. Yes, there will be winners. But there will also be body bags. That’s how every tech revolution works.

So what is the play?

Do you ram as much AI into your portfolio as you can and back the builders of the future? Or do you position in themes tied to timeless human needs like eating, building and moving?

This episode was filmed on Wednesday, 11 February 2026.

With so much choice on the ASX for building an ETF portfolio, the challenge is in construction. How do you combine ETFs in a way that makes sense for where you are in your investing journey? And how should that mix evolve as your knowledge, confidence and capital grows?

In this episode, Tom Stelzer is joined by Daniel Kelly of Viola Private Wealth and Adam Dawes of Shaw and Partners to build three ETF portfolios from the ground up: one for beginners, one for intermediate investors and one for those ready to step into more advanced territory.

Starting with low-cost, broad-market exposure ETF options, our panel explores how investors can begin layering in more targeted sector and thematic exposures as their portfolios mature, before heading into sophisticated territory, unpacking geared strategies and listed alternatives, where risk, correlation and portfolio construction become even more critical. 

This episode was filmed Wednesday 11th February 2026.

ETFs have become the building blocks of modern portfolios, offering instant diversification, liquidity and low-cost access to everything from global blue chips to niche thematics. But with a veritable supermarket of options now available on the ASX, choosing the right ETF is no easy task.

In this episode, Livewire’s Tom Stelzer is joined by Daniel Kelly of Viola Private Wealth and Adam Dawes of Shaw and Partners to give us their verdicts on some of the ETFs most tipped by Livewire readers for 2026.

We cover ETFs from global quality and cybersecurity, to Australian high yield, copper miners and the world’s largest listed companies.

As always, each guest also brings one ETF idea of their own for the year ahead offering two very different ways to position for 2026 - one taking advantage of the beaten-down ASX tech sector and another set to benefit from a geopolitically charged environment.   

This episode was filmed Wednesday 11th Febraury 2026