"Back in the Band" - the market has peaked at the top of the trading range and is back in its sideways trading range. Weak indicators overnight. 27 sell signals in the ASX 200. Cases soaring in the northern hemisphere (zero in Victoria again). A week of election uncertainty, US results, Australian AGMs, a CPI number and the ANZ results. We are fully invested and staying that way although it I was a trader...maybe I'd take a profit. You might notice all the Australian COVID beneficiaries coming off the top...."Peak Virus Fear" moment in Australia?

Zero new cases in Victoria puts Dan Andrews in the firing line as the Federal Health Minister urges the Premier to announce further reopening steps today. Virus cases in Europe and the US are still spiralling out of control, but US bond yields are on the rise as the Presidential election approaches. There's plenty happening on the corporate calendar this week with AGM season heating up locally and earnings season is hitting its straps in the US. Plus we have our usual Technical Observations, with a few interesting sell signals popping up this morning. 

On the Couch this week sees us head over the ditch to talk to two Kiwi fund managers, Mark Devcich and Chris Bainbridge from Pie Funds. Mark and Chris run a $130m Emerging growth fund focusing on companies below a $150m market cap and concentrated mainly on the ASX. The Emerging Fund is now close ended with a 24.64% annualised performance since inception.

 In the podcast, we talk two stocks that the team are recommending, the ones that got away and how to value small caps and the all-important four Ps.

Mark is the CIO and Portfolio Manager with over 10 years at Pie having worked previously for PWC and is a shareholder of Pie Funds. Chris is responsible for Australian Equities and a Portfolio Manager. Chris is a CFA and a shareholder of Pie Funds. 

It was a big weekend for Victorians with the next stage of  ‘reopening’ announced yesterday, but the heat stays on Premier Dan as a joint statement from Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt declares that each day of lockdown comes at a heavy cost to mental health and the expense of 1000 jobs.  The week ahead is all about AGM’s, production reports and a couple of speeches from RBA members. 

In ‘On the Couch’ this week, Henry talks to serial technology entrepreneur and clean energy advocate, Eytan Lenko from Beyond Zero Emissions. Eytan talks us through his ‘million jobs’ plan for Australia, his thoughts on hydrogen and alternative clean energy sources and what sectors should do well as the global economy de-carbonises.

Eytan Lenko is a founder of Outware, one of Australia’s most awarded and fastest growing technology companies.  He has extensive technical, commercial and leadership expertise having grown Outware from 3 co-founders to a team of over 250 based in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Outware was successfully acquired by Melbourne IT in 2017.

Eytan has an engineering background and has deep knowledge around the current state of our energy transition. He is passionate about the exceptional opportunities that we have to transform our economy in response to climate change.  Eytan's Twitter feed here

CLICK HERE to sign up for a free trial of the Marcus Today newsletter including our daily STRATEGY PODCAST

Bit of a routine day today - There is a quick strategy summary in the podcast today, reasons to be cheerful from the RBA, one quality sector that is looking like its bottom of the range and bouncing and the usual technical observations. We have a look at the Energy sector...a trade in waiting, a few hot stocks from yesterday with the research reaction, one cold stock, and we have the usual Technical observations two of which are BNPL sell signals. 

CLICK HERE to sign up for a free trial of the Marcus Today newsletter including our daily STRATEGY PODCAST

Today we publish the re-built Income Portfolio. We have effectively gone fully invested (almost) and today you can see a collection of stocks that is managed by us daily, most of which have a gross yield above 5.5% and which should provide a low volatility portfolio have beats fixed interest and provides an equity market upside option.  We look today at a few research reactions to a  number of stocks after recent results and AGMs and discuss Z1P - do you buy into the faith, or the fundamentals? We also include the usual Technical observations with a couple of stocks in there we will look to top up on (Pyramid in). 

CLICK HERE to sign up for a free trial of the Marcus Today newsletter including our daily STRATEGY PODCAST

Good Morning everyone - An interesting day yesterday with the Banks flying on the open and cooling by the end of the day - one broker has called the bottom of the sector - find out why in the podcast today and why its not that exciting. We have sold a stock in the GROWTH portfolio and made added two more growth stocks. We will be publishing a lot of changes to the income portfolio this afternoon or tomorrow morning - adding a list of stocks with yields over 5.5% - (takes a while). Lots of other interesting stuff in the podcast today including me "Trolling the Trolls" - I do love a good Troll to get stuck in to. Enjoy! 

Our market is up 7% in seven days and at a 7 month high - highest since the March low - find out why we are rallying - all sorts of reasons today. The US rally was all FAANGs last night. We talk about the rather positive reaction to the Telstra and CBA AGMs today, the stocks exposed to the tide of money flowing from big fund managers into wealth management platforms, the drop in coal and one stock we bought recently that seems to be on the rise. 

While Trump is playing down the virus over in the US, fresh restrictions are looking likely across parts of Europe as virus case numbers continue to climb. Locally the second week of AGM season sees some big names set to update the market on their trading conditions and outlook, while Q3 US earnings season kicks off this week with a 21% average fall in numbers expected across the S&P 500.