Mining for ideas – and April 2025 End of Month Update

Mining for coal must have been a tough gig back in 1909. Slack Investor has had it far sweeter in his mining for good companies that have been beaten up by the recent Trump escapades. Sadly, in these lower price times, he is fully invested. But, even after a beating, it doesn’t stop him thinking about possible future investments. Sometimes the best ideas come from other people.

Quality at a Discount

Livewire is a financial newsletter that offers free subscriptions and Slack Investor is a keen reader. Livewire depends on contributors from the financial industry and is always worth a look. An article by Tom Stelzer of Bell Potter caught his eye on April 8, 2025.

Tom seems like an astute fellow and his methods for sifting through stocks rang a bell with Slack Investor. Similar to Slack Investor he combines growth, profitability and P/E Ratio to come up with a stock list – in an organized way. Slack Investor might argue that the method is not quite as elegant as his Slack Factor analysis, However, Bell Potter do have a standard screen for ‘quality at a discount’ – and this seems far less effort.

(Tom) assesses their potential for growth, earnings momentum and looks for stocks with notable P/E compression over the last few weeks to produce a list of 20 quality mid- and large-cap companies that are well-positioned and likely undervalued _{– Tom Stelzer, Bell Potter}

Slack Investor notes that 9 of the 20 stocks presented are currently in the Slack Portfolio. The above tables were just the first sort. Tom then looked hard for those quality companies that were not overpriced. The Post 12MF PE column (12-month future P/E ratio) was used here.

Bell Potter came up with four companies that they consider good buys after the recent slump – they are listed in the table below. Slack Investor has also provided a further screen by calculating the Slack Factor for each of the companies.

The ingredients in the Slack Factor were obtained from Market Screener. Where ROE is the forecast ROE (ROE 2027), EPSG is the forecast EPSG for the next three years (EPSG AV) and, PE Ratio is the forecast PE Ratio (PE 2027). The Slack Factor is then calculated – a high Slack Factor is usually good news.

Company	Symbol	Slack Factor
Telix Pharmaceuticals	ASX: TLX	52
REA Group	ASX: REA	34
Aristocrat Leisure	ASX: ALL	14
Resmed	ASX: RMD	12

Of the 4 recommended Bell Potter stocks. The Slack Factor indicates that TLX and REA are the standout buys for Slack Investor – at the moment.

April 2025 – End of month update

Slack Investor is OUT of the US Index (S&P 500)! He sold his small US Index holding on Monday 07 April, 2025 at 5048. After the rebound, the latest monthly chart indicates this might have been a mistake – and reinforces his belief that Slack Investor has no great skill in timing the market. The 25-yr market timing experiment will continue till 2029. Slack Investor remains IN for Australian index shares, and the FTSE 100 as, at the end of the month, they were above their stop losses.

Slack Investor has never been a huge fan of the ‘American Way’ but did hold an admiration for their ingenuity and general work ethic. I have never seen such wilful destruction of American international standing in such a short time. As well, Trump’s capricious economic policies have the S&P 500 all over the place. The US Index recovered its losses and rose 10.3% since its 10.0% slump early April. Trump is 100 days in … 1461 to go.

For the ASX 200 (+3.6%) and the FTSE 100 (-1.0%) – it has also been a wild month.

All Index pages and charts have been updated to reflect the monthly changes – (ASX Index, UK Index, US Index).