3 wires you should read this weekend

1) Magellan’s Hamish Douglass is one of the most widely followed and successful fund managers in the country, and Apple is the largest company in the world. Combine the two and you’ve got the recipe for an interesting article. In their latest update, Magellan explains their view on Apple in detail. I found their angle on Apple being a global digital platform as opposed to a traditional hardware company particularly engaging.  (VIEW LINK)

2) From the big end of the market to the very smallest. I enjoy reading about micro caps, as they’re often not well covered by brokers, fund managers or the media. At sub-$30m, it doesn’t get much smaller than this. Mark Tobin makes an excellent case for further research into this small property services company with some interesting investments.  (VIEW LINK)

3) The big banks are a subject that’s always on the mind of Australian investors, especially now given the well-covered increases to bad debts. Stuart Jackson, Senior Analyst at Montgomery Investment Management has written a highly informative article on the trends and importance of bad debt provisioning when estimating bank earnings. It may sound like a dry and complicated subject, but he’s managed to explain it in a clear manner. A must-read for anyone who owns bank shares either directly or indirectly.  (VIEW LINK)

If you’ve been reading my weekly post this year you’ll know by now that I always like to give you a bonus piece of exclusive Livewire content. This week we scoured our post history to find 5 of the top performing stock ideas that contributors have shared with Livewire this year. As one contributor pointed out, these short-term wins involve a fair dose of luck, but it is nonetheless informative to look back and see what has worked and what hasn’t so far this year.  (VIEW LINK)

I hope you’ve enjoyed Livewire this week, and as always, good luck in the markets next week.

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