The takeover of Altium (ALU) has been done and Slack Investor had some cash at his disposal. At the end of April 2024, he went through the Slack Process of deciding which stocks to buy with the money that Altium was about to provide. In the spirit of this great company, he concentrated mostly on growth stocks and presented the list below.
Topping up existing stocks
Some of the stocks that Slack Investor owns are like old friends. He is always looking to add to ‘tried and true’ stocks with a good track record of growth and good management. All of the above were considered. However, as REA was already a large holding (7.9%), Slack Investor passed on REA. He did buy some TLX and also added to his holdings of TNE, SNL, NDQ, CAR and PME.
New Holdings
Profitability and Growth are two things that really impress. Slack Investor has been looking for smaller companies that have some potential. The newer stocks usually come from the financial press, newsletters and email subscriptions.
One thing he insists on however, is that they have a pleasing income chart that shows both historical growth (Black bars) and projected growth (Grey bars) – from Marketscreener.
As well as increasing income, Slack Investor likes his stocks to be profitable – a projected ROE (in 2026) to be more than 15%. He also wants them to be not too expensive – a projected P/E ratio (in 2026) of less than 40-50. Of course, he also screens for growth, using the 3-yr CAGR – and hope that it is also above 15%.
Slack Investor is not sure how any of these stocks will fare – but if you get the numbers right, good things will happen on most occasions. The 3-yr CAGR for Nick Scali is low at 8%, but past results were affected by COVID 19. Slack Investor has bought some NCK as they have just expanded into the UK and, if anyone can make this work, it will be the crack management team at Nick Scali.
| Company | Ticker | ROE 2026 | P/E 2026 | CAGR 3-yr | Buy Price | Price 9/10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Megaport | MP1 | 25 | 37 | 35 | $9.03 | $7.39 |
| Nick Scali | NCK | 36 | 13 | 8 | $13.73 | $16.13 |
| XRF Scientific | XRF | 18 | 20 | 24 | $1.55 | $1.70 |
| Betashares Diversified Growth | DHHF | – | – | – | $34.01 | $34.78 |
| Botanix Pharma | BOT | 27 | 18 | – | $0.37 | $0.37 |
| Betashares NextGen NASDAQ | JNDQ | – | – | – | $15.47 | $15.80 |
| Webjet | WEB/WJL | 16 | 22 | 16 | $9.03 | $7.89 |
| RPM Holdings | RUL | 15 (?) | 39 | 18 | $2.57 | $2.86 |
These newer stocks are in the Slack Investor ‘nursery’ for now. Sometimes a company looks good on paper – but fails to keep growing for a number of reasons (often these reasons are opaque to Slack Investor)! While in the nursery, Slack Investor keeps a weekly watch and if they fall below the buying price by around 15%, he will usually cut his losses and sell.
This happened to Megaport (MP1). He sold the holding a few weeks ago for around $7.90. Webjet (WEB) has just gone through a stock split into WEB and WJL – and is on a close watch.
Slack Investor is off on holiday to Thailand tomorrow … and, has pushed this post out early (before his usual mid-month burst of activity).
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Hi Slack Investor,
Love your posts and returns. I decided not to wait for the takeover to complete and I sold my Altium for $65.20 a few month ago with limited upside available. I bought into Newmont at $54 (now $75+) and a very interesting LIC called NGE for $0.99 (now $1.10). You might enjoy reading NGE’s past few years investment reports and results for some light holiday reading. They are high conviction, don’t stay on the normal track, and have done well over 7+ years.
Hi Pete. Impressive results with Newmont Corporation. Some people are good with mining stocks – I have had no real luck. But NEM seems the real deal. I will take your advice and look into NEG during my holiday. All the best, Slack Investor
Hi Slack Investor, I know you don’t give specific financial advice, but I think I recall in one of your posts that you commented on the slightly complicated procedure when having to complete paper work when you bought EFTs. I like you have a SMF with Esuper. I recently bought some VAS EFTs and I am required to fill out a tax residency self certification by Computershare. Of course I only found this out when they took out withholding tax. To complete the entry, I am required to select a category I come under. The options are an “Individual” or an “Australian Retirement Fund (Non reporting financial Institution). (Our superfund is registers in individual names but under a SMF name}. After reading numerous pages at the ATO website which to me seem contradictory and a written request to Computershare, I am no wiser as to what option to select. I was wondering whether you could shed some light on this. Thanks Stan
Hi Stan. I can remember filling out this gobbledegook self certification for some of my ETF’s that had US holdings. I also had to do a Beneficial Ownership form (W-8BEN-E) at some stage for something. They haven’t bothered me since – so I assume I must have filled it out to their satisfaction. I was also stumped at the time – and amazed that Computershare and Link don’t provide better specific examples for SMSF’s. I think I did it online with Computershare as an ENTITY with the Slack Investor Fund details. Then ticked Yes for the first question and was directed to skip the rest of the form and go to section 6. Australian SMSF’s seem have a FATCA status as ‘Non Reporting IGA FFI’. I found a couple of similar forms that were filled in for SMSF’s e.g.
https://investments-au.ubs.com/filedb/deliver/xuuid/l00112ecc0b34c9a41189f6f6e78ecab74ab/name/(5)%20Entity%20Self-Cert%20Form%20Aus%20Super%20Fund%20(AUS%20template)%20Website%20Sample%20-%20Jan%202023.pdf
https://www.commsec.com.au/content/dam/EN/PDFs/Product/International/W8-Instructions-SMSF.PDF
I also found the ATO site no help. Good luck and happy Investing. Slack Investor