In this episode of QAV Australia, Cameron and Tony brave the Australian heat to discuss a mix of music history and high-stakes value investing. The duo pays tribute to the late Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst, reflecting on his iconic sound and the band's cultural impact. Turning to the markets, they analyze the record-breaking success of hedge fund manager Chris Hohn, whose old-school value approach netted $28 billion in a single year. The episode features a deep dive into the complex takeover saga surrounding Humm Group (HUM), weighing the company's strong commercial leasing profits against its controversial buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) pivot and ongoing governance battles involving founder Andrew Abercrombie and Credit Corp. Finally, they wrap up with portfolio updates showing significant outperformance in both Australian and US dummy portfolios.

In this episode, Cameron and Tony dive into the complex geopolitical and economic landscape of early 2026, examining China’s record trade surplus and the stalling impact of US tariffs on manufacturing. They explore how the AI boom has acted as a primary driver for US growth, potentially masking the drag created by trade restrictions. Closer to home, the duo discusses Australia’s manufacturing dependencies and the rising influx of Chinese EVs and renewable energy assets. The heart of the episode features deep dives into listener-driven data, comparing the QAV process against "buy and hold" strategies, and the Club edition contains a "Pulled Pork" analysis of **Stanmore Resources (SMR)**. From managing red flags in stocks like **Fleetwood (FWD)** to the nuances of superannuation-approved ASX 300 lists, this episode balances high-level macro theory with the practical, rules-based discipline of value investing.

In this wide-ranging QAV Australia episode, Cameron and Tony move from bushfires devastating Victorian horse studs into geopolitics, central bank independence, and the increasingly overt political pressure being applied to the US Federal Reserve. From Kevin Rudd’s exit as ambassador and Trump’s campaign against Jerome Powell, the conversation pivots into market consequences, portfolio performance, and a remarkable year for QAV Light portfolios, which have dramatically outperformed the index. The second half dives deep into practical investing questions from listeners, covering portfolio construction, gearing, drawdowns, and franking credits, before closing with a detailed “pulled pork” analysis of Kip McGrath Education. Along the way, they explore competition dynamics in retail, the limits of diversification, and why growth has quietly dominated returns over the past year.

The first QAV episode of 2026 opens with a wide-ranging discussion that blends value investing discipline with geopolitics, market psychology, and one very detailed stock teardown. Cameron and Tony debate the limits of guests who can’t tolerate pushback, why value investing is the “broccoli diet” of finance, and whether optimism in global equity markets has reached dangerous levels. From US military actions in Venezuela and their implications for oil markets, to Wall Street’s unanimous bullishness for 2026, the episode circles back to a core QAV principle: prediction is fragile, process is durable. The second half dives deep into Fenix Resources, unpacking how vertical integration can create a moat in iron ore, even at the smaller end of the production scale.

The final QAV episode of 2025 is a wide-ranging year-end wrap that blends portfolio performance, market structure, and deeper system thinking. Cameron and Tony review an exceptional six-month run for QAV portfolios, with multiple stocks delivering triple-digit returns, before drilling into what actually drove those results. Tony presents a data-heavy “Pulled Pork” analysis that isolates growth over PE as a potential explanatory factor behind this year’s outperformance, raising the possibility of a future refinement to the QAV scoring system. The conversation then moves through global market performance, leadership changes at Woodside, takeover drama at HUM, crowd psychology, housing constraints, and the economics of modern media, closing with books, TV, and reflections on how fast time now seems to move.

In this Christmas edition of QAV Australia, Cameron is joined by QAV member Scott Meehan for a wide-ranging, candid conversation about what it’s really like to start investing from scratch. Scott shares his journey from complete beginner to disciplined system-based investor, explains why QAV appealed to him amid the noise and hype of financial media, and reflects on the emotional shift from constant portfolio-watching to calm, rules-driven decision-making. The episode explores patience, timing versus luck, the psychology of drawdowns, the temptation of “10-bagger” narratives, and why boring, repeatable processes tend to win over time. It’s a grounded, human look at investing as lived experience rather than theory, with insights into portfolio management, profit-taking dilemmas, and why ignoring stories and focusing on numbers is harder — and more valuable — than it sounds. 

In this episode, Cameron and Tony survey a market that’s losing some momentum in iron ore while rapidly pivoting toward copper as the next structural commodity story. They unpack Fortescue’s move into Peruvian copper, the implications of slowing Chinese infrastructure investment, and why AI data centres are turbo-charging copper demand globally. The discussion ranges from takeover battles in West African gold, Buffett succession intrigue at Berkshire Hathaway, and a sharp critique of Australia’s compensation schemes for failed investment products. The episode closes with a deep “pulled pork” analysis of Aeris Resources, exploring why copper-gold producers are back on the QAV buy list despite capital-raising risks.

This week Tony and I wander through a very QAV-ish mix of market weirdness, portfolio updates, almond conspiracies, and Bond-level misogyny. COG and ERD get the chop, AMA consolidates, several new stocks rotate in, and the dummy and Light portfolios continue to absolutely embarrass the index. Tony reveals his own monster year, we unpack strange board moves at Aeris Resources, applaud EarlyPay’s buyback, and then TK delivers a beautifully nerdy pulled pork on Select Harvest (SHV)— complete with bee-logistics, frost-blowers, and almond geopolitics. We finish with digressions into Alien Earth, baccarat, TikTok nutrition fear-mongering, and Tony’s racehorse winning at 26-to-1. A normal episode, in other words.

Tony and Cam roll into the final month of 2025 with a wide-ranging episode that swings from the ASX’s latest technology breakdown to fund-manager outperformance, commodity whiplash, and a fresh pulled-pork on Metro Mining. Along the way they dig into Tower’s results, the ongoing Eroad saga, Fleetwood’s abrupt CEO exit, Finbar’s exposure to escalating WA construction costs, and the sudden return of copper, platinum, zinc, and steel to the buy list. Tony breaks down why boehmite and bauxite are shaping up as the next big strategic commodity story with a pulled pork on MMI (Metro Mining), while Cam wraps with a reflection on longevity, friendship, and a centenarian’s hard-won life lessons.

This episode is an introduction to Tony Kynaston, his QAV value investing system, and why we believe disciplined investing gives you a better chance of outperforming the market. Here’s how we approach it.