Emma Fisher: Why it pays to be bullish (and the most outstanding idea on the ASX today)

In the media, there's a saying that "bad news sells". As consumers and creators of content, we pore over pages dedicated to negative predictions, devastating disasters, corporate calamities and phony politicians. If our screen time is anything to go by (6 hours and 58 minutes per day on average), "doomscrolling" has truly gripped the globe.   

According to a recent study, each additional negative word in a headline drives an increase in clicks by 2.3%. For context, the researchers reviewed around 105,000 stories which generated 5.7 million clicks and more than 370 million overall impressions - which is to say, it's not a small dataset. 

While it could potentially be that journalists just so happen to be a pessimistic bunch, it's much more likely that we humans are more attracted to negative news than stories painting a rosy picture. 

The same goes for financial markets. 

And yet, the times when a company is dominating headlines (for all the wrong reasons) are probably the best time to buy. 

Take Medibank Private (ASX: MPL), for example, which you may remember, was embroiled in a data breach in October 2022. 

On the news, the stock's share price plummeted more than 20%. And while it still hasn't retraced its steps to its prior glory, astute investors who picked up the private health insurance provider on the cheap would have since enjoyed a return of around 22%. 

Today, there are two businesses on the ASX that are similarly making headlines: ResMed (ASX: RMD) and Qantas (ASX: QAN). And while one of these businesses is likely to continue to face headwinds going forward, the other could just be the "most outstanding buy idea on the ASX" today. 

That's according to Airlie Funds Management's Emma Fisher, who believes if a company's balance sheet is intact, times of "maximum pain" are usually an investor's best indicator that a business is a buy. 

In this episode, Livewire's Ally Selby learns where Emma is seeing the most value on the ASX today, why the data proves it pays to be bullish on the stock market over the long term, what separates the good investors from the great ones, as well as a deep dive on why the team is still buying CSL (ASX: CSL) despite downgrading the stock. 

Plus, she also shares why she believes the market is focusing far too much on the macro, as well as the stock she would back if the market were to close for the next five years. 

Note: This episode was recorded on Wednesday 27 September 2023. 

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Timecodes

• 0:00 - Intro 
• 1:26 - How Emma Fisher thinks about investing 
• 4:06 - Why we need a reality check
• 6:45 - What keeps Emma Fisher inspired 
• 9:42 - The biggest changes in the Airlie Australian Share Fund portfolio and key lessons from the past two years in markets 
• 13:11 - Holdings that have been more resilient than expected: James Hardie (ASX: JHX) 
• 14:20 - Why being bearish may sound smart, but being bullish makes money 
• 17:01 - Times of maximum fear are the best times to make money: The Medibank (ASX: MPL) example 
• 19:57 - Emma's analysis of Qantas (ASX: QAN) and ResMed (ASX: RMD)
• 27:07 - What separates the good investors from the exceptional ones - and it's not IQ
• 29:37 - The biases Emma has learnt to manage - and how you can too 
• 32:03 - Where Emma is seeing the most value today
• 37:45 - Analysis of CSL (ASX: CSL) and the Vifor acquisition 
• 42:46 - One thing investors are getting wrong about markets 
• 43:48 - A story of a big loss from Emma's career and what she learnt from it 
• 46:12 - Why cashflow is paramount 
• 46:35 - One stock that Emma would hold if the markets were to close for five years: ResMed (ASX: RMD)

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