Chief Executive Officer of Montgomery Investment Management, David Buckland has over 30 years of industry experience. David is a deeply knowledgeable and highly experienced financial services executive. Prior to joining Montgomery in 2012, David was CEO and Executive Director of Hunter Hall for 11 years, as well as a Director at JP Morgan in Sydney and London for eight years.
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The Montgomery Funds recorded pleasing performance in the six months to 31 December 2014.
The Montgomery Fund was up by 7.44 per cent, outperforming its benchmark by 5.07 per cent. Over the period under review, the S&P/ASX 300 Index was up 0.17 per cent, while the S&P/ ASX 300 Accumulation Index, which assumes reinvestment of dividends, was up 2.37 per cent. Continue…
In these highlights from Your Money Your Call, David Buckland discusses the beginning of 2015, the recent oil price decrease and the share market slide. Watch here.
With 2014 behind us, let’s take a look at the year that was, and consider what could be in store for 2015. Continue…
When we discuss the returns of our Funds one of the questions that invariably arises is; how do we arrive at the total return figure? The frequency of the question suggests that it’s a mystery to many of our investors, so this short paper is designed to help you understand the figures we report. Continue…
Australia is now facing a commodity bust and the outlook is for lower growth and pressure on public finances with the budget deficit for Fiscal 2015 blowing out to $40 billion. Meanwhile, the Australian Dollar has declined from US$1.05 to $0.82 in the past twenty months and a low of US$0.75 is on the cards. Continue…
We have witnessed a lot of volatility in the Australian share market over the the first five months of the 2014/2015 financial year.
Over that period the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Accumulation Index, which assumes reinvestment of dividends, has recorded a positive return of 0.3 per cent. Pleasingly, investors in both Montgomery Funds have recorded a return of 6.6 per cent, after expenses. Continue…
Russell and I attended the Vocus Communications Limited (ASX: VOC) Annual General Meeting last week. While the company could not give anything away on their proposed merger with Amcom Telecommunications Limited (ASX: AMM), we continue to be incredibly impressed with the calibre of the Vocus Board of Directors, especially in the context of its $600m market capitalisation.
In the four years to June 2014, the company’s revenue line has increased from $31m to $92m, while its EBITDA has climbed from $10m to $33m. And in the four years to November 2014, the Vocus Communications’ share price has responded in kind by quadrupling from $1.50 to the current $6.00. Continue…
At last week’s Annual General Meeting, Seven Group Holdings Limited (ASX: SVW), the Kerry Stokes-controlled diversified operating and investment company, revealed there was more pain to come from their WesTrac Australia business.
WesTrac operates as the sole Caterpillar dealership in WA, NSW and the ACT. It supplies and services new and used Caterpillar machinery for the mining, construction and forestry markets. Continue…
Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions account for the majority of Prada’s revenue, so it was no great surprise when Prada’s same store sales for the July 2014 half-year actually declined by 3 per cent on the previous year.
It is important to note that Chinese consumption accounts for nearly 30 per cent of global luxury goods, and around one-quarter of those purchases are made domestically and three-quarters are made when wealthy Chinese are abroad. The Chinese government’s anti-corruption and austerity measures will see pressure on the luxury goods market for the foreseeable future.
There will likely be a drag on Prada’s earnings from the planned store expansion (around 10 per cent or 60 stores) in the current financial year (to January 2015), the declining store productivity as well as the inventory build.
Another sector vulnerable to the aforementioned Chinese anti-corruption and austerity measures is gaming in Macau, and the October 2014 decline of 23 percent was the biggest year-on-year drop since the Macau government started issuing gaming revenue data in its current form in 2005.
Citigroup Inc. analyst, Ivan Szpakowski has slashed his iron-ore forecast to average US$65/tonne in 2015.
Ivan is looking at the iron-ore price bottoming in the September 2015 quarter at an average US$60/tonne on the back of renewed supply growth and further demand weakness. About 140 million tonnes of export supply growth is expected in 2015, with the bulk of this coming from Rio, Vale and BHP.
When the Australian Federal Budget deficit of A$30 billion for the 2014/2015 financial year was announced in May, the iron-ore price was above US$100/tonne and few analysts could see it would decline to the current levels.
So far this calendar year, the iron-ore price has declined 44 per cent from US$131/tonne to US$74/tonne. If Ivan is right, there are further declines expected.
As we have previously noted, it is worth remembering that for decades prior to 2004, the price of iron ore traded between just US$10/tonne and US$20/tonne. The price then rallied to $187 in 2011. It has been falling ever since. Today’s experts guessing iron ore’s near term levels are the same people who failed to see the current levels materialising.
