QAV America (free feed)

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  1. 4d ago

    Republic Airways (RJET): QAV America #65

    This week we dig into Republic Airways Holdings (RJET), a regional airline contractor that flies for United, American, and Delta under their livery while keeping a remarkably low profile. Cameron runs through the full QAV numbers, which come out strong despite a company history packed with bankruptcies, pilot shortages, disk-wiping CFOs, and a former CEO who is now running the FAA. The portfolios took a knock this week too, so we recap what’s going on and run through some of the better performers from past Pulled Pork episodes.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV America 65 Cameron: [00:00:00] welcome to QAV America, Tony. Episode 65. It’s the 11th of August, 2026. Our portfolios in America dipping. Had a bad week, our American portfolios. Uh, the model portfolio was up 40% a week ago. It’s now only up 25%. It’s a big dip. I mean, the S&P, uh, is up 13– Uh, no. Yeah, 13% over Tony Kynaston: period’s that? time. period? Cameron: Uh, couple of years Tony Kynaston: okay. Since inception. All right. Cameron: since inception, yeah. So we’re still doing, um, double market or more or less, but we were doing way better than that. our light portfolio, which we started in December last year, fell from 12% to 10% versus the S&P 13%, uh, for that period of time as well. So, um, I don’t know. Don’t know why. I had a look into it. Nothing really. You know, couple of, couple of reports that weren’t great, but I think it’s just [00:01:00] markets being markets. know, um, good old, uh, WLFC, Willis Lease Finance, dropped like 25% over the last week, but it’s still up 289% since we bought it, so, you know, what’s 25% between friends? it’s, uh, just, I think, you know, oil prices and th- Tony Kynaston: But thank you Cameron: the US economy and profit taking. Yeah, Yeah. is. Anyway, so I d- I, I started to drill into it and try and figure out what was going on. Mostly financials, uh, that are down. Um, Carter Bank, CVGI, F&G, some of the biggest drops, but at the end of the day, um, there’s nothing really to be seen there. It’ll probably be up by 25% next week. You know, it’s, it’s crazy over there still at the moment. You got any American stories you wanna talk about before I get into my pulled pork for this week, Tony? Tony Kynaston: don’t, no. No, no, no big news [00:02:00] over in America that I can think of. Cameron: Nothing Tony Kynaston: Nothing going on. Cameron: going on, no. Tony Kynaston: Little bit of news in Israel, but not much going on Cameron: Try we were laughing off air. Trump now wants, uh, reparations from Iran for inva- uh, for having, having to invade having to fail at an invasion of Iran, he wants reparations for making him look bad, I think is what it is. He’s like, “Listen, you didn’t let me have a quick win. reparations. Made me look bad.” He thinks countersuing works in geopolitics like it’s always worked for him, domestically. If somebody sues him for not paying a bill, he just countersues. He thinks that’s gonna work with Iran. “Ah, no, I, I sue you. I, I, I, I sue you too.” “What are you suing us for?” “Well, for, for making me sue you. Uh, for suing me. I’m suing you for suing me. How do you like them apples?” [00:03:00] Uh, it’s ridiculous. Anyway, pulled pork this week is a company called Republic Airway Holdings. You ever heard of them before, Tony? Tony Kynaston: No, not before I looked, looked at your notes and had a look at them. A bit like Alliance Aviation in Australia that we did the pulled pork on two weeks ago. Cameron: like that. Yeah. Uh, their ticker code, they’re on the NASDAQ, their ticker code is RJET. Uh, that’s what excited me ’cause I thought it was, um, Roger Ramjet at first. Roger Ramjet, he’s our man, hero of the nation. For his adventures, just be sure and Tony Kynaston: Down you to the station. So gather around and all you kids. Cameron: all you kids, for lots of fun Tony Kynaston: laughter is Roger Ramjet and his gang. Cameron: get Tony Kynaston: All the crooks they’re after. Cameron: thereafter. Yeah. Was it him who took the proton Tony Kynaston: It was Cameron: of 20 men for a period of 20 seconds? Tony Kynaston: that’s the guy with the biggest square jaw I’ve seen since Chesty Bond. Cameron: He had a Jay Leno [00:04:00] jaw. Kids, uh, people listening to this have no idea what we’re talking about. American TV that we were it was Tony Kynaston: Ooh. Cameron: down our throats to turn us into good American patriots little Australian kids in the ’70s, ’60s Tony Kynaston: TV in the ’70s though, wasn’t it? Cameron: Well, yeah. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm Cameron: the hell? Why? Why? Some of the other characters, Lance Crossfire, uh, General G.I. Brassbottom, Lotta Love. Uh, 1965, Tony Kynaston: Wow Cameron: NBC, according to Wikipedia, ran from ’65 to ’69. for its simple animation, frenetic pace, frequent references to pop culture which appeal to adults as well as children. Roger Ramjet is a patriotic and highly moral hero who is typically out to save the world with help from his proton energy pills, gave him the [00:05:00] strength of 20 atom bombs for a period of 20 seconds. Tony Kynaston: So Cameron: bombs Tony Kynaston: was, basically an update of Popeye then, wasn’t it? Instead of spinach, he had a proton pill, yeah. Cameron: yeah. yeah. Tony Kynaston: Yeah Cameron: But it gave him the strength of 20 atom bombs. That’s, uh, Tony Kynaston: lot. Cameron: Yeah, I, I don’t think he needed to take a full, a full proton energy pill, to be honest. He could’ve Tony Kynaston: Nein. Cameron: away with, like, one-20th of Tony Kynaston: Mhm. Cameron: energy pill would’ve been. What did that do to his testicles, do you think, over a period of time? It’s not good. Tony Kynaston: Irradiation Cameron: you think he, uh, they shrunk up? Yeah. That’s, testicles shrank and his jaw. Anyway, RJET. Um, they’re based out of Carmel, Indiana, Tony Kynaston: Oh, Cameron: California. Tony Kynaston: Wow. Cameron: I’ve been to Carmel. I told you my Tony Kynaston: I’ve been to Carmel as well. Carmel No Cameron: I was in Carmel, um, uh, for God, I don’t know, 25 years ago maybe, um, [00:06:00] working from a cafe there during the day, waiting for a friend of mine to, who lived there, to come and pick me up. And, uh, standing in the car park at the shopping center, just wa- hanging around, and see Clint Eastwood drive past, Tony Kynaston: Right Cameron: parking his car. I was like, “Oh, look at that. There you go.” Anywho, different, different place. Carmel, Indiana. Um, here’s a thing from the company website. “We believe that every associate, regardless of personal beliefs or worldview, has been created in the image and likeness of God.” It’s a interesting statement for a public, public company on their website, I thought. Tony Kynaston: Yeah Cameron: You don’t see, see that Tony Kynaston: No. I’d rather know about their policy for on time, you know, flights or charging for overhead lockers or whatever, but Cameron: Yeah. Well, Yeah Image and likeness of God. Yeah, when they went bankrupt in [00:07:00] 2016, um, you know, that’s, uh, there’s a classic God move. Um, and all their shareholders lost everything, you know. So it’s, it was their way of like biblical, going biblical on the shareholders. Anyway, look, this company’s only been publicly traded for nine months. Why? Well, Airways have been around for a long time in one form or another, but they went bankrupt in 2016, emerged as a private company in 2017, stayed that way for eight years, then came back onto the market 2025 by merging, kind of a backdoor grandfather listing thing with a company called Mesa Air Group. They took over Mesa’s stock exchange listing. Republic shareholders got 88% of the combined company, Mesa shareholders got 6%, and the legal survivor is Mesa, but called Republic. So, and the ticker changed, converted from a Nevada to a Delaware [00:08:00] corporation, did a one-for-15 reverse split or a 15-for-one reverse split, um, on you believe Claude or ChatGPT, ’cause they couldn’t agree on which way it went. But, uh, there was a, there was a reverse split somewhere along the way there. Uh, Republic’s management runs it. Republic’s board dominates it. So for all intents and purposes, Republic bought Mesa, not the other way around. Which is why if you look at the financials in Stockopedia, it looks kind of crazy. In 2020, they did 545 million. In the following few years, 504, 531, 498, 476. Then all of a sudden in 2025, 1.677 billion, and the trailing 12 months at the moment is 2.587 billion. It’s because it was Mesa for the first few years there, and then, um, the Republic [00:09:00] kicked in when they did this, uh, merger. You gonna say something? You look like you were about to say something Tony Kynaston: Oh, I’ve got lots of things to say. I was just waiting for you to get through, get through yours. Um, do you know why they went bankrupt? Cameron: Yes. Tony Kynaston: Oh, okay. Cameron: it’s all, all to come. Tony Kynaston: Hold the camera. All right. Cameron: Don’t jump ahead. so what do they do? They’re, they’re not really an airline, um, I don’t think. They’re a company that runs airplanes for other airlines rea

  2. Aug 6

    Brazil’s Discount Bank – Banco Bradesco: QAV America #64

    This week we dig into the colourful history of Banco Bradesco, the second-biggest private bank in Brazil and the top pick on our US buy list. Tony and Cameron run through the QAV numbers on BBDO, cover portfolio updates including a painful 23% drop in RM and a GASS scare that turned out to be nothing, and check in on UBS’s $125 million anti-money laundering fine and CVGI’s latest earnings miss. The model portfolio is up 130% since inception versus 71% for the S&P, so the system is doing its job.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AMERICA 64 BBDO [00:00:00] Cameron: Welcome back to QAV America, Tony, episode 64. It’s the 4th of August, 2026. Nothing going on in the news in America, Tony. Uh, all smooth sailing. Um, Trump has negotiated his, uh, 15th straight peace deal with Iran in the last couple of months, Tony Kynaston: Probably get a Nobel Prize pretty soon Cameron: Oh, well, I saw some- I think it was John Mearsheimer said he should get a Nobel Prize ’cause he’s signed more peace deals with Iran in the last couple of months than anyone has in history. That’s, that’s a real achievement. Uh, portfolios. Our US portfolio is, uh, doing well, Tony. The model portfolio since inception is up 130% today versus 71% for the S&P 500. Not quite double market, but quite a good level of outperformance there. Our QAV America Light portfolio is [00:01:00] come back a bit vis-a-vis perfo- Well, no, that’s actually up. What am I talking about? It’s up 11%. This is since inception, which is December last year. It’s up 11% versus the S&P 500 up 10 and a half percent over the same period of time. So we’re slightly beating the S&P in that one over the last eight months. Nothing to write home about, but at least we’re matching the market. But I did have to sell, uh, one of our holdings of RM this week, not the one that’s actually in the portfolio, but one I added, uh, s- to the light portfolio last week. I had to sell it within a week. It fell 23% in a week. I do hold a po– uh, parcel in it that we bought in the model portfolio quite a while ago, um, which is still up 30, 40%. Not exactly sure why it fell. They did [00:02:00] report their Q2 earnings on the 29th of July. On paper it looked fine. EPS came in at 85 cents, which beat the 79 cent estimate, but they had a weaker quarter than last year, EPS was actually down 17 and a half percent year on year. So there are, you know, they’re a subprime consumer lender that’s doing it tough. So, um, that probably has something to do with it. Um, might be some fluctuations in, uh, Fed rate expectations in the US that are playing a role in that as well. Anyway, 23% down in a week. I’d no- If I buy a stock and it struggles a week later, I’d normally give it a bit of grace, but not that much grace. Tony Kynaston: No. Cameron: Grace. Tony Kynaston: That’s rule one, isn’t it? Cameron: Bad timing on that. Tony Kynaston: Mm. Cameron: Yeah, if it was 5% I’d be like, “Ah, we’ll see how it goes.” But yeah. Um, another stock that I thought about selling this week [00:03:00] was Gas, Stealth Gas, G-A-S-S, which we hold in our portfolio because LPG is a sell. Turns out they’re, um. No, LNG is a sell. They’re LPG, not LNG. S- so I looked at the LPG, uh, commodity chart, and there was no real correlation between the LPG chart and Gas’ chart over the last five years. Did some digging in. I think this is one of these situations where they have long-term charters. They’re locked in. They’re, they’re a shipping company, ships LPG, so Tony Kynaston: Okay. Cameron: and, um, they’re able to trade through ups and downs of the LPG market, so that was interesting. But we don’t normally track LPG in our commodity tracking each week. I might need to do that just in case it comes up again. Couple of quick news stories. Um, [00:04:00] couple of other stocks that we hold or have talked about. We hold, in this case, UBS. UBS, uh, AG, Switzerland based holding company for a big bank. They’ve just been fined $125 million for anti-money laundering violations in the United States. Three US regulators announced separate financial penalties Monday against UBS financial services for anti-money laundering violations involving foreign currency wire monitoring and customer due diligence failures that persisted from January 19 through June 2023. I think it’s, uh, one of the biggest penalties that have ever been thrown at somebody for this kind of, uh, anti-money laundering charge. And reading through the headline or reading through the story, apparently they’ve been doing business with Russia, I [00:05:00] think is what it is. Uh, Tony Kynaston: Okay. Cameron: and, uh, the US government doesn’t like that, so they, uh, they’ve been hit. If I look at their chart, see what’s happened to their chart, still, still looking good. They’ve come back a little bit, but it hasn’t had much of an impact on their share price at all. So, you know, there you go. Also, Commercial Vehicle Group, CVGI. Uh, we’ve done a pulled pork on them. I think we hold them in a portfolio maybe too. Do we hold them, CV? Yes, we do. They’re up 28, 29% in our light portfolio. Come back a little bit in the last couple of months. Released their Q2 earnings snapshot, said it had a loss of 29 cents per share. Losses adjusted for non-recurring costs into account for discontinued [00:06:00] operations came to 13 cents per share. The results did not meet Wall Street’s expectations, and, uh, three analysts sort of downgraded them a little bit. But, uh, these are guys that supply products for heavy duty trucks. I think they, I said they were the sausage in the sausage bun, Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Cameron: the ha- hot dog bun from memory. So we’ll see if that plays through to their, uh, performance, but so far doesn’t seem to have had a huge impact. One of our portfolio companies that I wanted to talk about is Danaos, DAC. We hold them in the light portfolio as well. They’re up about 20% since we added them. They reported their second quarter and half year results. Uh, let me see. Um, good. Results are, um, oh, gee, this is a really bad table. Um- [00:07:00] I can’t even make sense of this. Uh, finviz.com needs to do more work on their presentation. That’s a real mess of a table. All right, let’s forget that. I can’t even read that. It’s hurting my head. All right, moving right along. Pulled pork this week, Tony. Um, BBDO. So I’m gonna talk about this week, not the advertising agency, which was what I Tony Kynaston: BBD Needham Cameron: Yeah. Uh, this is Banco Bradesco. They’re a very, very large bank listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the second biggest private bank in Brazil. Tony Kynaston: We’re going to actually own the whole of Brazil fairly soon? Cameron: And half Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Cameron: the Tony Kynaston: Okay. Cameron: Hey, is what the– this was at the top of my American buy list this week. [00:08:00] Uh, market cap of about 36 billion US dollars. And for the same reason this is on as Petrobras was a couple of weeks ago, Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Yep Cameron: also a bit of a softening of inflation there. But an interesting story, a bit of a Brazilian soap opera, this story, Tony. Um, I had fun researching this. Founded by Amador Aguiar, born in 1904, the 12th child of a poor family. Left school at 13 to work in the fields. Left home at 16 basically nothing. Apparently, he got tired of his father’s alcoholism and abuse. Um, was homeless Tony Kynaston: Founded the bank. You founded the podcast that he got tired of his father’s alcohol and abuse and founded the bank. Cameron: Yeah, I founded a podcast [00:09:00] network. Yeah, yeah. He ended up homeless and hungry in a town called Bebedouro, got work as a typographer, setting type by hand, had an accident that chopped off his fingers, or part of his fingers, so that career was over pretty quickly. Um, then got a job as an office boy at a place called Banco Noroeste. Tony Kynaston: If you’re gonna say get a job as a, um, a thief, no fingerprints. Cameron: In 1943, maybe that’s the real story about how he got his fingers chopped off in the first place. Maybe he was, uh, you know, bad thief. Um, 1943 they sent him to a little country town in the interior of São Paulo to try and rescue a bank that was going under. Been in his late 30s. While he was there, the president of the bank died unexpectedly, and he ended up taking it over and running it. Tony Kynaston: Coincidence or not, you be the judge. [00:10:00] Cameron: Wow. Tony Kynaston: The man with no fingerprints. Cameron: Yeah. This is a darker version of the story than I’d anticipated. He takes it over and renames it Banco Brasileiro de Descontos, which is the Brazilian Discount Bank, and if you squash that down it becomes BBDO. So that’s where the name comes from, the Discount Brazilian Bank. Um, ends up with, uh, six branches, um, over 1,000 by 1978. At one point it was the third largest banking organization in Latin America, and the largest bank employer on Earth. And what he did differently, he did a number of things, but whilst the other banks in Brazil were chasing rich clients in the cities, he was doing the small town farm worker. I think we did a bank in Alaska not long [00:11:00] ago which, uh, with a similar story.

  3. Jul 28

    Wild Lions and Zoo Animals: The Case for Skin in the Game: QAV America #63

    This week we sit down with Haren Bhakta, founder of insideownership.com and creator of the Inside Ownership 100 index, to talk about why skin in the game matters more than almost any other factor in picking winning stocks. Haren walks us through the OWN ETF, his back-tested outperformance figures, and why companies like IBM, Intel, and Nike fell apart once their founders left. Tony and Cam push back on survivor bias, Greg Abel’s chances at Berkshire, and whether Zuckerberg’s metaverse bets prove the point or break it.   This week’s full episode is available to QAV non-members.  Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AU 930, U.S. 63 – Haren Bhakta [00:00:00] Cameron: Well, welcome back to QAV. This is, an interview that I’ve been looking forward to for a couple of weeks, welcome to the show, Haren Bhakta from insideownership.com, coming to us from Orange County in California. Welcome to QAV, Haren. Haren Bhakta: Thanks for having me on Cameron: Ah, it’s a, it’s a, a privilege and an honor, sir. So why don’t you tell everyone quickly what insideownership.com is about, and then we get into it Haren Bhakta: Sure. Well, I created a stock market index similar to the S&P 500 in that, uh, it tracks the performance of the 100 largest companies from the S&P 500 based on, uh, the philosophy of s- skin in the game. So the, the leaders of the organization own a large dollar value, and we take the 100 largest from that [00:01:00] sub-sector of, of the S&P 500 Cameron: And what prompted you to do this exercise, Haren? Haren Bhakta: Yeah. Well, it all started because I attend the Berkshire annual meetings every year since 2017. I’m a huge Warren Buffett fan. I bought a lot of Berkshire Hathaway because I believe in Warren Buffett and his skills and investment philosophy, and I’ve gotten so much from him. So I was sitting in the meeting in 2024 when I thought of the idea, and, um, I was sitting there in the back of my mind, uh, with a genuine fear. What am I gonna do with Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffett dies? I don’t believe in the company the same way without him. I mean, it, you know, he’s created this, this beautiful company with, you know, beautiful principles and culture, and, uh, I just don’t [00:02:00] believe in the company the same way without him. And 2024 was the first meeting without Charlie Munger. He had passed away, like, five, six months earlier. So I was sitting there afraid, and at some point during the meeting, it hit me that the S&P 500 will actually be buying more Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffett dies. And the reason for that is the S&P is what’s called free-float adjusted market cap, meaning they exclude his shares when they count the size of Berkshire. But when he dies, those shares will be labeled free-floating or, you know, they’ll be distributed to foundations and sold and become free-floating shares. Therefore, the S&P will be buying or expanding the market cap of Berkshire. And I just thought, who in their right mind would want more Berkshire Hathaway after Warren Buffett? We should want more with him. In the same respect, um, [00:03:00] we should want more Tesla with Elon Musk and, and not so much without him, right? Who would want more Tesla without Elon? Who would want more Meta without Mark Zuckerberg? Or more Amazon without Jeff Bezos, right? We want to ride these guys’ coattails, and when they’re not part of the organization anymore, we probably don’t want as much exposure to them. So I came home and decided to launch an index that reflects that, that we’re, we’re on the same side of the table as these, uh, super value-creating CEOs. Cameron: And you, you don’t have a lot of faith in Greg Abel’s, uh, administration of Berkshire Hathaway then? Did you sell when Warren retired at the end of last year? Haren Bhakta: No, Warren Buffett is still, he may not be the CEO, but he, he, he’s still in the office every day. He still made a huge, uh, capital allocation decision recently. He put, I believe, $30 billion into [00:04:00] Google or Alphabet, and that was his decision. So he’s still very much involved. So, you know, it’s not this fast-moving thing where I see where a CEO like Warren Buffett could retire and all of a sudden, uh, the company goes to shit, or, you know, um, I don’t know if I can say that word or not. But basically, it’s a slow-moving thing where cultures slowly fade and erode. And without Warren Buffett, right now, he’s still part of the, the company, but once he leaves, we will slowly see the culture erode of Berkshire. And not just that, so they’ve always made good acquisitions, and they have some nice, you know, good high-returning, uh, on capital type of companies. But these type of acquisitions are not gonna come in the way to Greg Abel. N- there’s a lot of founders that sold their businesses to Berkshire [00:05:00] because they wanted Warren Buffett to be the owner. Specifically, Berkshire was the only, uh, play in town for them. They didn’t wanna sell to private equity. They didn’t want to auction off their business. They wanted a permanent home in Berkshire, and that, Warren Buffett built that reputation. Now, I don’t believe Greg Abel’s gonna get those opportunities unless, you know, he has to build that himself, but that’s, that remains to be seen. So they’re not gonna get that future, uh, capital deployment that Warren Buffett was able to deliver by getting these acquisitions at very reasonable prices, where private equity would’ve had to pay much higher prices, but these owners didn’t wanna sell to private equity Cameron: Fair points you make there, Haren. Haren Bhakta: Yeah Tony Kynaston: Yeah, there’s a lot of good things to talk about here. Um, I guess my first question is, you, you mentioned a number of large companies there which are big [00:06:00] players in the S&P 500 anyway. What kind of overlap is there between your index and the S&P 500? Haren Bhakta: There’s a lot of overlap. So I w- I would, I would consider the S&P 500, or I should say the Inside Ownership 100, which is my index. I consider that basically the S&P 500 with the skin in the game factor. So for example, Nvidia, Google or Alphabet is the largest position, and second is, is Nvidia in my index, and then you got Amazon, Meta, and Tesla. So it does look a lot like the S&P, only that we significantly overweight some of these companies where the, the ownership is high and significantly underweight or exclude completely some of the companies where there is no ownership left. So for example, Microsoft. Microsoft is not in the index because, uh, there is no owners left at Microsoft. Bill Gates is, [00:07:00] is completely removed and, um, the, the board and CEO, um, yeah, they’ve, they’ve done well, but, um, they also don’t own any shares. So what we see is, um, as the world changes, uh, they may not participate in that change because it really takes ownership to create disruption and innovation. That’s what I find. And, uh, when the world changes, these low ownership companies get left behind. And I have a lot of examples which we can get into Tony Kynaston: Sure. So what, what kind of, um, performance difference then is there between your top 100 and a comparable S&P index? Haren Bhakta: Yeah. Well, the Inside Ownership 100, now it’s only been live two years, right? I only thought of the idea in, in, uh, 2024. So prior to 2024, this is, this is, uh, back-tested. Now, this is not, uh, some complicated algorithm, uh, that we, you know, reverse engineered. This is simply taking the ownership [00:08:00] of the, the leaders of the organization and allocating the portfolio according to that ownership. So, um, we went back to 2004 till today, and what we discovered is that, uh, $10,000 invested in the S&P would have been around $75,000 by the end of 2025. $10,000 in the Inside Ownership 100 would have been $110,000. So I had more than 300% in cumulative outperformance over that time period Tony Kynaston: Right. And so you’re rebalancing your index at the same time as the S&P rebalances, or is there some other method? Haren Bhakta: Exactly. We use the same rebalance schedule, so we’re, we’re balancing on the third, the third Friday of, uh, every quarter. So Tony Kynaston: Right Haren Bhakta: yeah, March, June, September, and December Tony Kynaston: And I understand you’re launching an ETF to allow people to invest in your index going forward Haren Bhakta: The ETF is launched. The ETF launched, Tony Kynaston: [00:09:00] Okay Haren Bhakta: yeah, the ETF launched about a month and a half ago. Tony Kynaston: Okay, good. Haren Bhakta: Yeah. The ETF is live. The ticker symbol is O-W-N, OWN. Yeah. Ownership, so it, it was a perfect. I was actually quite surprised the ticker symbol was available Cameron: Yeah, nice grab Tony Kynaston: What, what do you attribute to this outperformance by owner founders? Why do they perform better? Why, why was Microsoft better under Bill Gates than it is under whoever runs it now? Haren Bhakta: Well, I think this guy named Sam Hinkie said it best. He said people are power law, and the best ones change everything. So people are power law. So even the indexes, the, the individual stocks within the index in themselves are power law driven. So there’s this University of, uh, sorry, Arizona State University professor who did a study. He studied all US stocks over the course of 100 years, over a century. [00:10:00] What he discovered was that 4% of all stocks delivered all the wealth creation over that 100-year period, and the other 96% delivered or matched US Treasuries. So it’s amazing. So, you know, we

  4. Jul 23

    The Oil Is Ours: Petrobras (PBR): QAV America #62

    This week we do a full pulled pork on Petrobras (PBR), the Brazilian oil giant that scored a perfect 100% QAV score and promptly got added to the Lite portfolio. Cameron takes Tony on a tour through Brazilian dictatorships, the “O Petróleo é Nosso” mass movement, Operation Car Wash, and why a left-wing government drilling toward the Amazon somehow makes sense. We also check in on the state of the Strait of Hormuz, the Chinese AI models rattling US chip stocks, and how the portfolio is tracking after 12 months of running roughly double the S&P 500.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AMERICA 62 CLUB VIDEO [00:00:00] Cameron: Welcome back to QAV America TK, episode 62. This is the 21st of July, 2026. How you doing? Tony Kynaston: Very well. How are you? Cameron: I’m good. I’m good. Um, I’m gonna do a great, fascinating deep dive pulled pork today for you. A lot of fun stories about Brazilian dictatorships. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: but before we get into that, quick checkup on state of the world. Tony, US markets closed down yesterday as oil surges on the escalating conflict. Uh, how many ships are passing through the Strait of Hormuz at the moment, Tony? Tony Kynaston: Uh, I’m gonna say 10 Cameron: Yeah, I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. But interesting, to, uh, John Mearsheimer this morning, a recent interview with him, like a day old or something. And he’s saying, so we know that, you know, there used to be 20 million [00:01:00] barrels a day go through, uh, the strait, which has stopped. But he said there’s some interesting things happening. He reckons there’s 7 million barrels that the Saudis are getting out through the Red Sea or through the Oman, um, you know, side of the strait, which we talked about last week. So he said there’s 7 million of that 20 million that are still getting out, although I know, uh, the Yemenis are gonna. the Houthis are gonna start shutting down the Red Sea traffic again, the news is this week. Iran’s bombing stuff that tries to get through the Oman side of the strait. But he also talked about, and I’ve read about this in other places this week, uh, China has cut its requirement by 5 million barrels. So, um, no one really knows how, but, uh, one of the suggestions I read is that they were tapping into their own reserves that they had been building up. [00:02:00] Plus, the rest of the world has been tapping into their reserves, so he said probably accounts for another 3 million barrels. So of that 20 million, sounds like a good 15 million of it is being accounted for in other ways, either reduction in demand or reserves being provided. Uh, so that might explain why we haven’t seen the panic that we kind of expect to see. Oil price is back up, I think, around about 80 bucks now. What do my notes say? Somewhere around that, I think. Uh, t- t- 80? 90. 90. Sorry, not 80, 90. WTI I think is about 83, Brent’s about 90. But, uh, know, could be a lot higher. so there you go. Tony Kynaston: Well, I think the other thing that happened for, to, to rattle US markets was the release of Kimi, uh, the Chinese AI, which is, [00:03:00] uh, taking the value out of a lot of the, the US chip manufacturers at the moment. Cameron: Have you used Kimi, Tony? Tony Kynaston: No, but Cameron: I downloaded the Kimi app, uh, which is equivalent, uh, at least on paper, to the Claude Co-work and the, um, OpenAI Codex app. So it, it’ll plug into all your files on your desktop, and it can do stuff for you. I try, I’ve tried it twice in the last, uh, three or four days since it came out, and both times it said, “Sorry, Kimi’s really busy right now. Too many users. Come back later.” I’m like, “Oh, well, that’s not really working out for me.” And I did read last night that they’ve shut down registrations for new users. Tony Kynaston: Hmm. Cameron: struggling to handle the demand. But, uh, Tony Kynaston: You didn’t tell him, you didn’t tell him who you were? You couldn’t get to the front of the red velvet rope? Cameron: I did, but I told him in English, not in, uh, Mandarin or Cantonese apparently. no, but the fact that, uh, there are three [00:04:00] Chinese models now that are Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: much according to the benchmarks, neck and neck with the state-of-the-art US models. You’ve got Kimi from Moonshot, you’ve got DeepSeek, and you’ve got Qwen from Alibaba. all pretty close to Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a little bit ahead of G- Google Gemini. So, you know, it’s, uh, it’s interesting, uh, what this means for the, uh, forecast business models and revenue potential of these US models. Tony Kynaston: Correct. Cameron: Uh, speaking of models, our US model portfolio in the last month is down a little bit less than 1%, much neck and neck with the S&P 500, which is also down about 1% over the last month. Um, over the last one year, though, we’re up 35%, 36 nearly, versus 18 for the S&P 500. So 12 months, we’re doing roughly double market and all [00:05:00] time, which is, uh, for new listeners, September 23, our portfolio’s up about 113% versus the S&P up 67%. double market, but, uh, pretty damn close. Our light portfolio, on the other hand, last 30 days is also down about 0.3% versus 0.76, and it’s only been going since, uh, December last year. Since then, it’s up about 6% versus the S&P up about 8%. So we’re lagging a little bit. And, uh, some of the pulled porks I’ve done recently have done, um, particularly poorly. Uh, actually some of them not too bad. F&G, which we did on the 7th of July, is up 8%. Kohl’s, KSS Retail is up 1%. Carter Bankshares is up six. Aeromexico’s [00:06:00] down 10. that in the 18th of June. Northrim Bancorp, though, is up 13. Some nothings from a few others, bit u- bit up, bit down. Deutsche Bank’s up 11 since we talked about it. But one that’s relevant for today is PagSeguro Digital. Remember them? Brazilian fintech. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: since we talked about them back in April. Some of the big winners, Pitney Bowes is up sev- 70% since we talked about them at the end of March. insane. Bread Financial we talked about at the end of February. They’re up 40% since then. Uh, so a couple of big financials doing well. One that really fascinates me, you remember, uh, the Chinese watch company, uh, uh, what are they called again? Zepp Health Corporation. At one point, we talked about them in July last year, so a year ago. point they were up 380% or something. They’re now only up 77%. So I don’t know what that means. Tony Kynaston: Oh, probably means the bubble’s [00:07:00] burst. Cameron: Yeah, I don’t know who’s playing what games with that, but, uh, there you go. Still up. I’m not complaining about 80% in a year. It’s good. It’s not 380%, but you know. It is what it is. right. Let me, uh, let me talk about my pulled pork today, ’cause we’ve got a guy we gotta talk to in less, in a little bit over half an hour. Tony Kynaston: Well, I’m interested in hearing about this one because I’ve been invited to a wedding in Brazil in February next year. Yeah, so. Cameron: Your daughter’s, Alex? Tony Kynaston: No. My nephew, Dylan, who did some work for us many years ago, yeah. Cameron: Wow. Tony Kynaston: He’s marrying a, marrying a lovely Brazilian girl who wants to get married in Brasilia, well, no, São Paulo, where she, uh, near where she comes from. Cameron: Well, pay attention and you can, uh, amaze her family with your knowledge of 20th century Brazilian politics. So today, uh, I’m gonna be talking about [00:08:00] Petrobras, ticker PBR on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s a $116 billion company. I think it might be one of the biggest businesses we’ve done a pulled pork on. Um, bigger than Ford, I think. Um, probably. Don’t know how big Ford is, I can’t remember. this company was ranked number 71 on the 2023 Fortune Global 500 list. 58th largest public company in the world. Not often we get to invest in companies this size. Usually they’re priced out of our, um, sort of range. But this one is looking good. We’ll see what you think. A bit similar to the Argentinian Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: about last week though. It’s largely currency movements, I think, that has brought this onto the buy list. based in Rio. “When my baby looks at me, Tony, I go to [00:09:00] Rio De Janeiro, mama mio.” Uh, Australian hit song, 1975, I think. Peter Allen, for people who don’t know that song. but I, I hadn’t listened to Peter Allen since he was still alive and I, I. When I was preparing my notes for this last night, I went and listened to a bunch of Peter Allen tracks. lie, dude had some good songs. You know? He, he knew how to write a song. Tragically died of AIDS, I think 1992. Was the first husband of Liza Minnelli. I’d forgotten that, too. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: he, he used to open for Judy Garland and, uh, she him and Liza Minnelli. Anyhoo, uh, this company does report in the Brazilian reais, uh, which I found out it’s pronounced, the, the ri- what I would call the real is Tony Kynaston: Mm. Cameron: haio. [00:10:00] So you can use that when you go to Brazil. Haio. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. I still have some reais sitting around home from the last time I was in Brazil. Cameron: When were you

  5. Jul 16

    Conan the Barbarian (TEO): QAV America #61

    This week we do a full Pulled Pork on Telecom Argentina (TEO), a near-monopoly telco that owes much of its shine to one of the most unhinged political stories on the planet right now. Cameron walks through the Javier Milei backstory, dead dogs, clones, chainsaw economics and all, before getting into the actual numbers, which are genuinely solid. We also cover IBM’s ugly 25% overnight drop, Leslie’s pool company going haywire with trading halts every five minutes, and what the Strait of Hormuz chaos means for oil prices.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AMERICA 61 CLUB VIDEO Cameron: [00:00:00] Welcome back to QAV America, episode 61, the 16th of July, 2026. TK, duh, how many ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours? Tony, do you wanna take a guess? Tony Kynaston: could not guess. How many pass through safely, I think, is probably the answer. I’ll say none Cameron: Well, it’s hard to tell. As we talked about the other day, I mean, you know, the US have been claiming they’ve been sneaking ships through. But according to everything I’ve read, maybe about 10 passed through in the last 24 hours, which is more than I would imagine. I don’t know how they’re not getting bombed or attacked, and the US has put a blockade on them apparently, but they’re getting through, so I don’t know. I don’t know what the real– like with all of this stuff, no one knows what the real story is. You can’t trust any of them. They’re all crazy. It’s all lies and propaganda and fog of war and craziness going on Tony Kynaston: Gee, I’d, I’d want to be paid a lot to be a ship [00:01:00] captain going through the Straits of Hormuz Cameron: Right? Yes Tony Kynaston: the only guarantee that Donald Trump’s gonna get you through okay. Cameron: You’ve c- you’ve got a ship full of liquid, liquefied natural gas Tony Kynaston: on a bomb. Cameron: or oil. Yeah. Tony Kynaston: Oh, dear. Cameron: Uh, so yeah, it’s kinda crazy Tony Kynaston: 20% to the US. Yeah. Cameron: Yeah. Well, no, no, he’s, he’s, he’s reneged on that, Donald Trump. Yeah, he’s not, he’s not, charging him, ’cause it was gonna be like $30 million a ship or something. Tony Kynaston: And, Cameron: Apparently, uh, Gulf countries went, “Ah, hold on a second. What? You, you’re doing what now?” Yeah. Tony Kynaston: Well, the other thing is too, I, wouldn’t want to be an IBM stockholder this morning. Their share price went down 25% overnight. Cameron: Yeah, I, I didn’t really get a chance to drill down into that. What was that all about, do you know? Tony Kynaston: it was a quarter up- quarterly update where they missed their targets and called out the [00:02:00] fact that a lot of their clients were diverting what was CapEx going to IBM for mainframes into cloud service for AI. Cameron: Right Tony Kynaston: So that’s kind of starting to bite for IT industry now as well. Cameron: Interesting Well, uh, what else is in the, uh, US, uh, market news recently? Dow is up, S&P 500 is up, Nasdaq Composite was up. Um, oil is up. Tony Kynaston: A little bit Cameron: WTI and Brent all up. Tony Kynaston: It’s a bit surprising. I mean, Cameron: as much as Tony Kynaston: they went up, but given that only 10 ships pass through, you’d think it’d be higher, wouldn’t you? Cameron: You would. Um, Tony Kynaston: Lot Cameron: yeah. Tony Kynaston: in that oil price, I think, at the moment. Cameron: June CPI was released, uh, 14th of July in the US. Uh, headline CPI was down 0.4%. Annual rate down to three and a half from 4.2 in May, [00:03:00] which was below the consensus. So that all sounds good, but the Fed’s not buying it apparently. Markets still price a September hike at 63% odds, down from 75% the prior day. The new chair, Kevin Warsh, said, “That is not my view on readings that it’s mission accomplished.” So we’ll see how it all plays out. Apple hit a record high. Amazon and Alphabet hit record highs. Well, they’re up 3%, enough is a record high. Microsoft’s up 3%. Semiconductors sold off hard again, though, due to Samsung results. SpaceX now below the $135 offer price, down 34% from its post-listing record price. So what impact that has on other listings like Anthropic and OpenAI. I, I saw Anthropic’s numbers that they’re floating about for their [00:04:00] IPO. Insane. They’re m- they’re, like, uh, they’re making, like, $13 billion a month or something. A- and it’s all API pricing. It’s not actually, um, you know, uh, uh, monthly charges like people like me pay. It’s all API stuff. And the numbers, you look at the numbers, it’s just going exponential what they’re earning from API pricing. It’s crazy. But anyway, um, closer to home, my, my star stock of the last few weeks, Leslie’s, the pool company, uh, was up 10% in a week after I bought it, and I was like, “You beauty.” And then it crashed 27%, uh, below my buy price the other day, and it’s continued to fall. Um, it’s now trading at $2.97. I did get out of it a couple of days ago. I’m just bringing up my transaction list here. Can’t remember what price I sold it at. Um, I [00:05:00] bought it at $7.68 on the 18th of June. Went up 10% in a week. I thought that was great. I sold it at $5.60 on the 14th of July, and as I said, it’s now down to $2.97. Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm. Cameron: So nothing in the news except when you look in Stockopedia, the, the news section for it is, uh, hilarious. It’s, um. Hold on, let me try and bring this up again. Um, Leslie Over the last week it’s just NASDAQ trade halt, volatility trading pause. NASDAQ resumed. NASDAQ trade halt, volatility trading pause. This, like, for yesterday, this happened at, uh, 12:27 AM it was a halt, resumed at [00:06:00] 12:32 AM. Then another halt at 12:33 AM, this is our time, I guess. Um, resumed at 10:30. Uh, oh yeah, it’s in American time. So there was a halt at 10:27 AM New York time, then resumed at 10:32. Then at 10:33, another trading pause, resumed at 10:38. 10:43, another trading pause, resumed at 10:40. This goes on every few minutes all day. Trading halt due to volatility, and then it resumes trading. That’s all I can see in the, in the Tony Kynaston: Wow. Sounds like they’ve sprung Cameron: when Tony Kynaston: the pool Cameron: It was down 41% Tony Kynaston: Wow. Oh Cameron: Um, so gamma squeeze maybe, whatever that is. But anyway, there you go. That was my big excitement for this week. I sold it and I replaced it with the stock I’m gonna do a Pulled Pork on today, which is a good one with a absolutely bonkers story ’cause it’s all [00:07:00] about Argentina’s president Javier Milei. I’m gonna be talking about Telecom Argentina, Tony. Ticker code TEO. Not sure if I should pronounce that TEO or Tayo. I’ll probably go with Tayo ’cause it sounds slightly Latin American-ish. You know, makes me sound like I’m very, you know, I talk like this. I do my best Al Pacino. I say sanitarium, not san- I say sanitarium, not sanitation. You know? Tony Kynaston: And of course, Argentina won the World Cup semifinal this morning, couple of hours ago. Cameron: Did they? Tony Kynaston: this Cameron: Ah, good for them Tony Kynaston: was evening in the US, yeah. Yeah, Cameron: Messi play for them? Tony Kynaston: Messi did, and he had a, he had a blinder. He scored a late goal and then set up a Cameron: Good for him. Well, Argentina, buckle up ’cause man, Tony Kynaston: 2-1. Yeah Yeah, and you’re off to the, [00:08:00] you’re off to the World Cup final too on Ma- Sunday night, so good luck Cameron: I’ve had, uh, I’ve had a great time researching this story. I’m, I’m gonna try and not get too sidetracked, but, uh, uh, this is just, just gave me so much glee learning about this. We’ll start with, uh, Telecom Argentina. So, uh, they’re basically a monopoly, uh, ef- effective a monopoly for the moment, but it may not last in Argentina. They trade under the brand names of Personal and Flow. Sounds more like a women’s monthly, uh, tracking app, but there you go. Um, your Personal Flow from Telecom Argentina. They’re simply known mostly as just Telecom, like Telstra used to be called here in Australia. They’re just called Telecom by most people in Argentina apparently. They are listed as an ADR on the New York Stock Exchange. Each ADR is five of the underlying Argentine B shares. They’re listed back home in Buenos Aires as TECO2, [00:09:00] T-E-C-O-2. The, uh, Argentinian peso is known as the ARS or the arse, uh, because it’s in the arse end of the world, I guess. Um, it’s, uh, one ARS Tony Kynaston: that’s harsh Cameron: currently, one ARS is currently worth 0.0006723 US dollars. I think it’s about Tony Kynaston: for Aries, the ram Cameron: C- could. Just not as funny though, so leave the humor to me. Tony Kynaston: I’m not trying to be funny. I’m, I’m trying to stop s- whatever it is, 120 million Argentinian, Argentinians from sending us Cameron: Messi turning up at our doorstep and kicking the ball into our nuts. Um, market cap’s about 5.8 billion US dollars. Share price is around 13.5 cents. Well, it was when I did my analysis on it. Let’s see, what is it today? Uh, closed. Well, it’s, market’s still open there. Yeah, 13.78 [00:10:00] now. And it

  6. Jul 9

    Guaranteed Returns (FG): QAV America #60

    This week Cameron does a full Pulled Pork on F&G Annuities and Life (ticker: FG), a Des Moines-based annuities and retirement income company that’s been through four owners in 25 years, had its share price smashed 44% from peak, and is now sitting at a QAV score of 0.862. Tony brings the context on why annuities businesses are genuinely complex to run, the tailwinds from baby boomer retirements, and why the Blackstone connection is both impressive and worth watching. Plus: the Strait of Hormuz shipping update, jobs numbers, Tony’s horse wins at Flemington, Welsh heavy metal, and a walk through a freezing Queensland creek.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV America 60 Club Video [00:00:00] Cameron: Welcome back to QAV America, Tony, episode 60. It is the 7th of July, 2026. Well Tony Kynaston: and happy 250th America Cameron: Yeah. Let’s, Tony Kynaston: may not Cameron: let’s, Tony Kynaston: there wasn’t much going on in the mall Cameron: let’s see if it makes it to 251 as a republic. Um, well, the, the big U.S. market related news in the last week, I guess, Tony, is the market’s booming still despite the June jobs report that was released on July 2nd coming in softer than expected. 57,000 payrolls added. The expectation was around 115,000, so it’s, uh, slowed down for some reason. Unemployment ticked down though from 4.3 to 4.2% because labor force participation fell to [00:01:00] 61.5%, the lowest since 2021. So apparently it’s, um, not a good thing. It’s sort of an indication of people not working. Um, I guess like here, what do we, we’ve done shows about this before. We’ve talked about unemployment versus underemployment, full-time employment versus gig economy type stuff. I’m not sure if that’s how they track it in the US, but I suspect it’s something to do with that as well. Tony Kynaston: Yeah. I’m not sure. I’m not sure how it works over there. Underemployment in Australia is defined at, uh, for people, people get surveyed and they get asked are you trying to get more hours. And if you say yes you’re underemployed. Cameron: Hmm. The chip index, the, uh, Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell but then recovered. It’s choppy over there, uh, still, like the whole AI bubble, Mag Seven stocks, the Mag Seven, up and down. It’s a bit all over the place. Uh, which again is, I think, maybe an indication that the bubble is starting to weaken, or maybe it’s just profit taking at the end of the month. Um, they’ve gone up. They’ve had a good run. Maybe there’s some profit being grabbed out. Bitcoin’s down. We did, uh, we talked on the last show about how there’s this great story about, uh, how nearly a million investors lost a total of $3.8 billion on Trump Crypto coin, while Donald Trump’s made 2.2 billion from his business ventures since starting his second term as president, including 600 odd million from his crypto ventures, where his fans are losing billions. But as you pointed out on the last show, some of them were doing that as a way to buy favor, so they probably see it as a good investment. Some people got out of jail, I think, [00:03:00] after buying a lot of crypto. So, you know, cheap. Tony Kynaston: Crazy isn’t it though. Cameron: Hmm. Tony Kynaston: if Joe was doing that. Who knows. Cameron: Who knows? Hmm. Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Cameron: Hmm. Tony Kynaston: Guessing that at least it’s out in the open now. But Cameron: if that’s business as usual it’s, I don’t want a part of it. It’s not, it’s very unsavory. Cameron: If you went to, if you went to jail though, Tony, would you want part of it then? Tony Kynaston: Oh yeah definitely. I’d buy a meme coin to get out, get out of, get out of jail. Yeah. Uh and Cameron: we’d even buy a Trump phone. Uh, and Alphabet joined the Dow this week. Tony Kynaston: Yeah it’s surprising it took that long. Cameron: And, uh, I checked my Strait of Hormuz tracker this morning. About 25 ships have transited the Strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours. This time a week ago it was five, so it’s increased a lot since then. Not up to the 60 to [00:04:00] 100 that it is normally, so we’re still a long way from that. But it’s making progress, which hopefully it continues to go in that direction. But as you said in our last show, um, you know, anyone’s bet. The, obviously they had the funeral for the Ayatollah Khamenei this week, and, uh, lots of people on the streets in Iran, and there was lots of gnashing of teeth about the, uh, number of missiles that Israel and the United States fired on his house. His son and successor, Mojtaba, was nowhere to be seen still, which suggests that he’s not fit to be seen still. You’d think if he was gonna be seen at all, it would be at his father’s funeral. So no one knows what’s going on with him. Uh, but it sounds like he’s Tony Kynaston: dressed in black. Even dark sunglasses kind of Weekend at Bernie’s style. They could Cameron: Yeah, yeah, two guys propping him up. Yeah, like when a Mormon prophet gets up to give a speech and he has to be propped up, or Mitch McConnell. [00:05:00] Uh, but, um, you know, how long that fragile deal is able to be maintained is anyone’s guess. As my Persian friend keeps telling me, there’s just so much factionalism in Tehran at the moment with people that want a deal, people that don’t want a deal, people that wanna sabotage the deal, wanna keep fighting, people that wanna keep fighting until they get more of the upside of the deal. Um, so no one knows really what’s gonna happen. It’s very fragile. Tony Kynaston: Hmm. And there must be some people who are celebrating getting three hundred billion dollars on the release of sanctions. Cameron: Sure. Tony Kynaston: well Cameron: Some people will be profiting from that. Tony Kynaston: Hmm. Cameron: Uh, before I get into my deep dive of the week, Tony, do you want to guess how many stocks were on the US buy list this week? Tony Kynaston: Ooh. 10. Cameron: Multiply it by 10 and then add four. 104 stocks I had to choose from. [00:06:00] Tony Kynaston: Wow. A smorgasbord. Cameron: Indeed. And I chose the, the number two. The number one I had a look at, can’t remember what it was, but for some reason, uh, something about it I didn’t like. Something looked dodgy. Um, I think they were losing money, um, and their revenues had been going backwards for some time. Can’t remember what the deal was. But this one I picked is another boring, very boring stock, Tony. Um Tony Kynaston: I thought it was great. Cameron: Really? I look forward to seeing why you think it’s great. Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Interesting business, interesting, interesting of the market it operates in too. Cameron: But the CEO hasn’t been fired for sleeping with a supplier. They haven’t electrocuted anyone. You know, I like, I like my spicy American stock market stories. This one, eh, is an insurance company that’s making money. Like it’s, uh, [00:07:00] Buffett would find it exciting. For me, it’s boring. No one died in the making of this Pulled Pork. The company’s called F&G Annuities and Life. Ticker code is FG. It’s listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Yeah, F&G. That’s, they walk around all day in their office going, “Ah, F&G. Accidenti,” as we say in Italian. Um, uh, they’re headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Been around in one form or another since 1959, but have been through four different owners in the last 25 years. Market cap’s about $3.7 billion. Stock’s had a wild ride, down 44% from its peak over the last year. Dropped from $36.70 down to $20.50. Now sitting around about 28 bucks. [00:08:00] I haven’t checked it this morning. Should check, see what happened overnight, actually. FG, not FG Holdings. That’s a different company. Uh, let’s see. Oh, they went up. That’s nice. $28.38 yesterday. Um, they’ve also got a brand new CEO as of this month. The guy who had been the CEO for the last seven and a half years has moved to run a subsidiary where his strategic brilliance is required and his former CFO has moved into his, uh, chair. So continuity, no big deal. Didn’t get fired for sleeping with a supplier. It’s all legit and above board. So this company started life as Fidelity & Guaranty Life back in the olden days. Uh, [00:09:00] sold to a company called Old Mutual in 2001 and became OM Financial Life. Then it was sold again in 2011 to the Harbinger Group and became Fidelity & Guaranty Life. Then in 2017 it was sold again to a Cayman Islands SPAC run by a Vietnamese American financier, Chinh Chu, who was a former Blackstone guy who set up his own investment vehicle. Bought it for around $1.8 billion and renamed it to FGL Holdings and did a deal with his former colleagues at Blackstone which is still in play today. I’ll get to that a little bit later. Then in 2020, Fidelity National Financial, a separately listed company, ticker is FNF, they’re a big title insurance company, bought the whole thing outright [00:10:00] and then at the end of 2022 they spun it back out again. Well, they spun off 15% of it to their own shareholders as a stock dividend and it started trading as an independent public company. Then in December last year they handed out another 12% to their shareholders so they’re down to about 70% ownership a

  7. Jul 2

    KSS Me, Darling – QAV America #59

    This week we dig into Kohl’s (KSS), the mid-range American department store chain that fired its CEO after just 15 weeks on the job for running a secret sweetheart deal with a former romantic partner. Tony and Cam work through the QAV scorecard, weigh up the enormous real estate portfolio sitting beneath the struggling retail business, and debate whether a Gordon Gekko moment is coming. Plus: Fed chair Kevin Warsh goes dark, the Strait of Hormuz tracker, and Willis Lease Finance announces a 3-for-1 stock split after a 383% run.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AMERICA 59 v2 Cameron: [00:00:00] Well welcome back to QAV America Tony episode 59 It’s the first day of the new financial year in Australia but Americans don’t care about that Tony Kynaston: No. Happy new financial year, Cam. Cameron: It’s it’s nearly the Fourth of July I said to my wife who’s an American uh Do you wanna celebrate the Fourth of July She’s like Yeah not really I was like Okay Tony Kynaston: She doesn’t wanna go to the MAGA concert on the reflecting pool. Cameron: I will I I was just looking for an excuse to make a pumpkin pie She goes Yeah the one pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving is enough You don’t need to get you know you know We’re going down the pumpkin pie slippery slope she says I do love making a pumpkin pie now Um well I haven’t checked It’s early morning here on uh Wednesday in Australia I haven’t checked what happened in the market in the US last night Oh it went up Tony Kynaston: Well up, yeah Cameron: It went up Well I did my market recap yesterday A few things going on in the [00:01:00] US over the last week that have affected the market There is um some uh concern I think now that probably aggressive rate cuts aren’t gonna happen Um with Kevin Warsh in at the Fed there was some optimism I think initially that uh he was gonna cut some rates But I think people are thinking yeah maybe that’s not gonna happen He seems to be signaling that gonna do the right thing despite the political expectations And uh they’ve got hotter inflation data three consecutive months of strong payrolls people seem to think that there might be a second rate hike by the end of the year Tony what are you reading in The Wall Street Journal and all that Tony Kynaston: Oh, s- the same. Um, I guess it’ll be very interesting because, [00:02:00] you know, he was appointed by Trump to specifically cut rates. The, the difficulty for him, for Warsh, is that he doesn’t. He’s not the only vote on the Fed, and the Fed still has other people who are, um, at least acting a little bit independently and making up their own mind on rates, and the data doesn’t support a rate cut at the moment. Um, but I think the other interesting thing with the Fed, uh, that I’m reading is that Ke- Kevin Warsh is really pushing the, the line that the Fed has been too transparent, too much in the market talking, jawboning, as it’s called, um, to try and influence what the market’s doing, what interest rates are doing without having to change rates, and he doesn’t like that, so he’s going dark. And I think that’ll be interesting because then the market’s gonna r- you know, probably react to every piece of data as it comes out without being told how the Fed interprets it. They’ll be jumping at their own conclusion. So may lead to some more volatility. Um, and we’re going back to the days prior [00:03:00] to probably Greenspan and Bernanke, where, um, it was just the Fed doesn’t release a dot plot, just comes out when it makes a move and tells you about it after the fact. So it’ll be very interesting Cameron: Indeed Tony Kynaston: Whether it’s good or bad, I can’t really say. I mean, the, the things evolved to being more transparent under the last couple of chairmen, so we’ll see, um, whether it’s better or, or worse by, uh, by not being as, uh, transparent going forward Cameron: Well the other thing of course that’s going on is the Strait of Hormuz I’ve got my Strait of Hormuz live tracker website open in front of me I love this website You ever looked at this Tony Kynaston: No. Mm-hmm. Does it show you where the s- where the mines are? Where the sea mines are? Cameron: sh Tony Kynaston: Oh Cameron: shows you where the ships are but not where the mines are I don’t think anyone knows where Tony Kynaston: I guess, I guess you can extrapolate that if the ships are there, the mines aren’t. Cameron: Well Tony Kynaston: It’s Cameron: ships aren’t going anywhere Tony Kynaston: It’s, like Battleship, it’s like a game of Battleship, isn’t it? Cameron: [00:04:00] battleship Tony Kynaston: D3. Cameron: Yeah Uh so according to the tracker the strait is still closed for the uh 122 days 23 hours and 29 minutes it’s been closed according to this Uh ships transiting now in the last 24 hours five it says Tony Kynaston: From where Cameron: It uh Tony Kynaston: Iranian or are they Western? Cameron: I don’t It doesn’t say Tony Kynaston: Right. Cameron: yes it does down here actually Uh no this is vessel seizures Um okay that’s different I don’t know Okay I don’t know Tony Kynaston: Little bit Cameron: are getting through but the point is that five is not a lot Um Tony Kynaston: and and the interesting thing was the oil price dropped overnight as well Cameron: That’s yeah it’s 73.42 according to this website Tony Kynaston: Yeah Cameron: Uh why Who knows There are 485 [00:05:00] vessels waiting tankers 147 bulk carriers and 118 other This tracks the uh tanker spot rate uh tracks the uh daily throughput It tracks the war risk insurance which it still rates as extreme yeah normally It says normal daily average is 60 uh ships I thought it was more like 90 to 100 ships is the daily average in normal times But way five is not a lot So Tony Kynaston: Hmm. Cameron: the current reality of the Strait Oil price is dropping but the ships aren’t moving Tony Kynaston: Yeah. How do you explain that? Cameron: Well I think reserves uh being released into the market um is probably part it The Tony Kynaston: I don’t think they’ve done that release for a while, and they must be getting very low on their reserves to release. So y- I would have thought the oil price should be rising, [00:06:00] but there’s, I mean, I know there’s discussions going on again in Qatar, but whether that’s to open the straits or whether it’s to release s-sanction held money back to Iran, it’s all very convoluted and underreported at the moment, so it’s hard. I don’t kn- I, I don’t, I don’t know how you, you could trade oil futures at the moment. It’s just highly speculative and, and surprising it’s going down. But Cameron: Well Tony Kynaston: anyway Cameron: the market’s like highly speculative Tony I don’t know if you’ve uh picked this up Did you pay attention to the SpaceX flight Tony Tony Kynaston: Yeah, I also saw a graph of, uh, companies that make no money and their performance versus companies that make money, and the, the, the losers are winning, if that makes sense. The companies that make no money have done better. Cameron: Yes Uh uh so speaking of SpaceX it’s uh risen again a little bit yesterday it’s uh [00:07:00] still below where it was its peak but it’s coming back up What else have I got The yield cushion Despite rate anxiety and geopolitical noise the US 10-year treasury yield held relatively steady tracking at 4.37 down from the 4.56 highs seen earlier in June So you know go figure Um not really sure that makes any sense uh but there it is What else is going on in the US Uh big tech took a brutal beating last week It sort of There was a big tech drawdown uh across the market over the last week since we last recorded And as I mentioned to you on our Australian show yesterday it looks like OpenAI is talking about pushing its float back after the uh in some perspectives uh what happened with [00:08:00] SpaceX after its float The price sort of dipped again after the initial there was a big selloff and people sort of ran away from it So there is some talk that OpenAI might kick theirs down the road a little bit But they also announced their own in-house inference chip So there was a little bit of excitement around that They’re gonna build their own chips Everyone’s building their own chips No one wants to be tied to NVIDIA Tony Kynaston: Right. Yep. Cameron: is interesting Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm Cameron: Uh and you mentioned something yesterday about the Korean market being shut down again Tony Tony Kynaston: Yep, another 8% trading halt. So the market was shut for twenty minutes. That occurred last week, and that, that helped to drive down some of the AI stocks in, in the US. Um, but there’s also. You know, we’ve seen plenty of commentary we talked about yesterday on the Australian show. Uh, Jeremy Grantham’s come out calling it, uh, the AI boom a bubble. Um, the clearing bank, this, this [00:09:00] central bank’s clearing bank, um, which is based in Europe, came out saying the same thing that, um, there was a boom in data centers, there was a boom in AI chips and that the, in AI, in AI stocks, and there was a circular economy going on. They claimed it was as, you know, the, the situation looked as bad as before the GFC. So there’s lots of people who are fee

  8. Jun 26

    The Bunker, the Billionaire, and the Bank That Cared (CARE): QAV America #58

    This week we dig into Carter Bankshares (CARE), a tiny Virginia community bank that got itself tangled up with a billionaire US senator, a Cold War bunker resort, and nearly $800 million in dodgy loans, then somehow came out the other side with $80 million in cash and a story worthy of HBO. We also cover Alan Greenspan’s passing at 100, the SpaceX float wobble, the Iran sanctions waiver, and why Big Tech’s stock-based compensation accounting might be quietly fleecing investors.   This week’s full episode is for QAV Club members only. The free episode is available below. Also check out our podcast archives link and our pages on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch clips on TikTok. Or visit our homepage to learn more about QAV and how it works as a value investing system that you can learn and apply to beat the market. Free Podcast Archives Transcription QAV AMERICA 58 new [00:00:00] Tony Kynaston AU: Nothing to talk about on the US show, is there? Cameron AU: Nothing to talk about. Welcome to QAV America 58. Tony Kynaston AU: chill, people Cameron AU: Chill, 23rd of June, 2026. Tony? I had an ex-wife who had a birthday on the 23rd of June. Trying to remember which. Uh, probably my first wife. Happy birthday, my first wife, if she’s listening. Tony Kynaston AU: You have so many ex-wives you can’t remember their birthdays. Cameron AU: Yeah, it’s just dates. You know, you go, “Oh, I think there was a date I was supposed to Tony Kynaston AU: You and Elon Cameron AU: wife’s.” Yeah. Actually, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Elon, Tony Kynaston AU: How can afford his alimony? Cameron AU: how, how are your, uh, are your SpaceX shares going, Tony? Tony Kynaston AU: I don’t have any, but um, I hear they’ve been doing well until all the insiders sell out, but we’ll see Cameron AU: No, they’re down. They crashed. Tony Kynaston AU: Oh, have they? Well, they were doing well last time I looked. They’re up 50% over the weekend Cameron AU: Uh, they’re down. I don’t– I wouldn’t say crashed, but, um, yeah, they’re back down to where they started, I think. Um, as of today, they are [00:01:00] less. They’re below. Um, they f- they sort of floated at a dollar sixty– uh, $165, sorry. They’re currently $154. So congratulations to everyone who got into SpaceX. Tony Kynaston AU: And got out quickly. Cameron AU: you got out, yeah Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. That’s amazing. It– That’s, I mean, that’s a huge float to be moving that, with that much volatility, isn’t it? That’s incredible. Cameron AU: Yeah. Well, Tony Kynaston AU: All sorts of rumors in the market that he’s gonna use the float to buy Tesla, and then he can, uh, become the chief exec or executive chairman of Tesla as well, which could have bugged him he couldn’t be chairman Cameron AU: I’ve been reading these, this Colossus, uh, series of books from the ’60s and ’70s. I’m on the third one. It was a trilogy. I’m on the third one at the moment called Colossus and the Crab, and this is where, uh, Martians come down and basically help the humans to kill Colossus and then state that they want, uh, their payment is they want 50% of Earth’s [00:02:00] oxygen to take back to Mars to re-replenish the oxygen on Mars. Tony Kynaston AU: Right Cameron AU: It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s actually not as wacky as it sounds. It’s pretty good, but it got me reading a lot of it ’cause the, the, the author. This one was written in 1977. He’s making a lot of cl- ooh, a lot of claims about Mars’ atmosphere and the escape velocity of Mars and why it lost all of its heavier elements and all Tony Kynaston AU: Mm-hmm. Cameron AU: of stuff. And so I’ve been going backwards and forwards with Claude just sort of fact-checking a lot of this stuff. But as part of that process I was reading about the, uh, cosmic radiation levels to get to Mars. Do you know, do you know much about that? Tony Kynaston AU: I have heard that’s one of the problems with colonies on Mars is you just get irradiated, you get microwaved Cameron AU: Even getting there. So, um, apparently NASA has a career limit for astronauts of 600 millisieverts of radiation exposure. Over your entire career as an astronaut, you can get six– anything beyond 600, and I think your, uh, [00:03:00] rates of getting cancer from radiation poisoning go up to, like, 5% or 10% higher than they normally would be, so they cap it at Tony Kynaston AU: Right Yep Cameron AU: A one-way trip to Mars exposes you to 1,000 millisieverts. Um- Tony Kynaston AU: And I can’t line the ship Cameron AU: No. There, there’s, there’s various theories, but n- nothing that would be, uh, um, effective. Um, in fact, if you line it with metal, it, it makes it worse because the radiation hits the metal and then fragments all of the particles out of the metal, so y- it actually increases your exposure of radiation. Tony Kynaston AU: Right Cameron AU: way to do it apparently is water, um, y- you’d, it’d be so heavy, et cetera, et cetera. It ruins your ability to get the ship up. Maybe if you, if you got Tony Kynaston AU: Close out the position, yeah Cameron AU: and got in another ship, you might be able to. Apparently, I asked if Elon Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah, well, you gotta get the water up there, though. You can’t. Doesn’t matter. You gotta still get the water up there, right? Cameron AU: [00:04:00] Yeah. Tony Kynaston AU: It doesn’t flow uphill. Cameron AU: Elon’s answer to this apparently so far has been, “Yeah, yeah, a lot of people are gonna die. That’s just how it is.” Uh, Tony Kynaston AU: Is he stroking a cat when he says that? Cameron AU: you know, his, uh, thing about l- you know, the, the rocket launches with SpaceX over the years has always been, you know, blow stuff up quickly. Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. Cameron AU: apparently that translates into kill people quickly to get them Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. Cameron AU: He said it’s gonna be volunteer only. Apparently, his answer is to get you, get you there faster. So if you get there faster, you’re exposed to less radiation. But of Tony Kynaston AU: But you’re still exposed when you get there, yeah Cameron AU: you get there, let– and then if you ever wanna Tony Kynaston AU: Unless you, Cameron AU: so Tony Kynaston AU: unless you build underground, I guess. That was the, Cameron AU: Well, Tony Kynaston AU: was the theory Cameron AU: Yeah, you have to build underground, Yeah. Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. Well, I thought Elon’s play was to get robots to do all that when it was safe to send humans, yeah Cameron AU: Yeah. Eventually you, you, it’s safe for humans to get in there. But, um, Tony Kynaston AU: Mm-hmm. Cameron AU: Well, before we get onto Elon, um, Iran, let’s Tony Kynaston AU: We just did. Before [00:05:00] we get onto Wieland, we just spent the last five minutes on it. Cameron AU: okay. Let’s move off of Elon. Tony Kynaston AU: Okay Cameron AU: Elon. That’s what all of his ex-wives said. Um, the Iran sanctions. So, um- Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah, it’s clown show number two. Clown show number one, Cameron AU: So the Tony Kynaston AU: in space. Clown show number two. Cameron AU: the MOU was finally released late last week, and it was the most fun I’ve had in, I don’t know, a long time reading through that. The 300 billion in reparations had been rumored for a while, and whenever I spoke to my Persian friend, uh, from Kung Fu about it and, or read about it in the forums online, the, the, the, the standard response was, “Oh, that’s just IRGC propaganda. They’re just trying to make themselves sound good. That’s never gonna happen.” Well, it was in the document. Yeah, $300 Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. Cameron AU: in Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah. But who pays for it? Cameron AU: And [00:06:00] they’re, they’re not very specific on that. Tony Kynaston AU: No. Cameron AU: said, ” No, we’re not paying for it. Uh, the Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah Cameron AU: will pay for it.” And they might. Um, but it’s a big. And then the lifting of all sanctions on Iran is the other big thing. So then, uh, Iran pulled out because Israel kept bombing Lebanon. They walked out of the negotiations, or they said they were gonna, but apparently they didn’t, and I was reading in Al Jazeera this morning. It’s still the place where I go to for my news on this is Al Jazeera. It seems to be, you know, a little bit less, um, problematic than a lot of the Western news sources. But, um, they were saying that, uh, the US has partially lifted Iran’s oil sanctions for 60 days or 61 days maybe. Tony Kynaston AU: Yeah, so it’s basically a 60-day ceasefire, which we’ve had before as well, which didn’t last very long Cameron AU: But it says, uh, “The US Treasury issued a 60-day sanctions waiver on Monday, paving the way for the production, delivery, and sale [00:07:00] of Iranian oil to the US.” So, A, I don’t know how much oil they have sitting around now to sell to the US within 60 days. I don’t know what the situation is there, but. And it’s just like what it does to the oil price, who knows? But it’s just, uh, you know, fascinating that after decades sanctions on Iran Tony Kynaston AU: Mm-hmm. Cameron AU: how bad the JCPOA deal was according to Trump, they’re lifting sanctions on Iran and Tony Kynaston AU: I saw a, Cameron AU: billion. Tony Kynaston AU: I saw a cartoon of Trump copying Obama’s S on, on Iran. It’s like he’s just done the same thing Obama did Cameron AU: No, this is way more, uh, better. Way more better? I Tony Kynaston AU: It’s worse for the US, yeah Cameron AU: Way better for Iran

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The feed for the free version of the QAV American podcast.

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  • Creator
    QAV America (free feed)
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    63
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Spacecraft Publishing Ltd 2025
  • Show Website
    QAV America (free feed)

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