Big Tech earnings, investing in Formula One & should Bryce go fixed or variable?

Bryce: [00:00:14] Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates or should I say, ladies and gentlemen, aviators and investors alike. Fasten your seat belts and prepare for another exhilarating episode of Equity Mates. As always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren, and I am your host, The Daring dame of Disguise. Who am I? 

Alec: [00:00:34] The daring dame of the sky. Are you Amelia Earhart? 

Bryce: [00:00:38] Correct. 

Alec: [00:00:39] Oh, can't be stopped. That one almost instantly, though. 

Bryce: [00:00:44] You did have a moment of. 

Alec: [00:00:46] To be honest, I was only half listening. And I was like, Oh, there's something airline related. So I'm glad that the last part of it gave it away. But look for people who are new to the show, and welcome what we've done there. Bryce gets ChatGPT to translate his introductions. And that was Amelia Earhart. Can you tell me anything about her? 

Bryce: [00:01:06] She is an American aviator who pioneered aviation. Now, didn't she fly alone or solo across the Atlantic? Is I think what she did. 

Alec: [00:01:17] Yeah. That sounds right. And then she went missing and then. [00:01:19][2.3]

Bryce: [00:01:20] Yes. Yeah. Very famous. An aviation pioneer.

Alec: [00:01:25] Anyway, people aren't listening to hear our take on aviation history. So we'll save this conversation for another day and another podcast. But there's plenty going on in markets and there's plenty we want to talk about in this episode. We're going to be joined by producer Sascha later to talk about the owner of Formula One, Liberty Media, and some news stocks that surprisingly showed up in her brokerage account. 

Bryce: [00:01:49] Surprise Stock Day. 

Alec: [00:01:50] But really, we've got to start with the biggest news of the moment. It feels like it's news that never stops when it comes to financial markets. And that is, once again, we're in the middle of earning season. 

Bryce: [00:02:03] We are, Ren. It never stops. Well, it feels like it never stops happens every quarter. And the story this quarter is almost no different to every other quarter, which is big tech keeps on growing. 

Alec: [00:02:14] Yeah, it's. 

Bryce: [00:02:15] Chewing up the market.

Alec: [00:02:16] It's wild how we had a year where there was panic across big tech. Well, not even panic. Yeah, it's a relative term. Yes. But to be fair, like Meta, Facebook fell 70%.

Bryce: [00:02:30] Yeah, Yeah, that's fair. 

Alec: [00:02:31] Like there was panic. 

Bryce: [00:02:33] Yeah, but that was also because they were going through a few. There were bigger things at play for them. Like what? What group, what alphabet for during that period. Why not 70%. 

Alec: [00:02:43] Yeah. Spotify fell 80%. Shopify felt like 90% like they don't. I know they're not big tech, big tech, but. 

Bryce: [00:02:51] The techie.

Alec: [00:02:52] There was blood on the streets.

Bryce: [00:02:55] Will, they're back, that's for sure.

Alec: [00:02:58] Let's go through some of the big numbers from the biggest players. And then I want to ask you if how it's affecting your investing. Microsoft profit up 27% from the same time last year. Alphabet, Google Profit up 41% from the same time last year. The story really emerging is around their cost cutting that they did in 2022. So alphabet revenue grew 11%, profit up 41%.

Bryce: [00:03:24] I love to say it.

Alec: [00:03:25] Yeah, that's a story of improving margins. Meta. 

Bryce: [00:03:28] The story of firing 11,000 people, isn't it? Or however many it was. 

Alec: [00:03:34] Meta, they reported a really impressive set of results. Revenue up 23%. Profit doubled from the same time last year and that was their operating margin improved from 20% to 40%. Again, that's a story of firing tens of thousands of people. But here's the most notable stat, the one that all the analysts were waiting for, Threads just under 100 million monthly active users. 

Bryce: [00:04:05] Yes. What's that? 10% of how many are on Instagram these days. 

Alec: [00:04:10] Over a bill? 

Bryce: [00:04:10] Yeah. Okay. You're one of them. 

Alec: [00:04:14] Equity mates is one of them. Come join us On thread. Join the conversation. 

Bryce: [00:04:19] I feel like Threads had an incredible few days when. 

Alec: [00:04:23] It had an incredible feed.

Bryce: [00:04:24] And now it's fallen. Fallen into the abyss. Might be coming back. I don't know. I've never I'm not on it. I mean, I'm on it by nature of being on Instagram, but I'm never actively looking at it or engaging in it in any way.

Alec: [00:04:40] Do you get anything on Instagram now where it's like, Here's a conversation happening on threads you can like scroll across? And I always hit the see more because I want to just expand the box in Instagram. It always takes me threads down. I don't know how many of the 100 million active monthly active users are just people who hit, see more and then quickly get out of it. 

Bryce: [00:05:05] So yeah, it's pretty impressive. I'm saying here that because the revenue media have just reported time of recording, it's their fastest rate. Revenue growth since 2021, an increase of 23%. 

Alec: [00:05:17] Since 2021. Two years ago. 

Bryce: [00:05:18] I know. So, I mean, they keep on chewing away. There's no there's obviously this tight well, not obviously, but you can see why there's so many of these companies. And we spoke about it last week or in antitrust. And and I think Meta has been since sued by 41 states or something for what was it, four. It's like the harm that the social media sites it's like getting to children. Yeah.

Alec: [00:05:38] Addictive. 

Bryce: [00:05:39] Yeah that's what they had. Copying it from old sites. 

Alec: [00:05:42] Like that's. I'm not a legal expert, I'm not in the states. But the idea that like unless they've know something, unless there's something but it's like every tech product is designed to be addictive in some ways, like. 

Bryce: [00:05:55] The, like buttons the. 

Alec: [00:05:57] Yeah. Even, you know, like the colours that they used, like it feels like it's a Pandora's box that can't be opened. I mean, like half the food on our supermarket shelves are optimised to be addictive. 

Bryce: [00:06:09] That's true. Kellogg's. I think something of interest is the battle between Alphabet and Microsoft when it comes to cloud. So Alphabet better than expected overall results, as you pointed to. However, they missed a little bit when it came to the cloud revenue part of the business. They also are up against Azure, which is Microsoft's cloud business. And Azure's cloud revenue growth has accelerated after two years of deceleration. 

Alec: [00:06:39] What about Amazon? 

Bryce: [00:06:40] Well, they're the market leaders. So, yeah, I think Amazon actually reported in August. 

Alec: [00:06:46] No. Yeah, they might have, but that was the last quarter that would have been Q2 where into Q3 now.

Bryce: [00:06:52] Blow-out profit beats. This was on the 3rd of August. Yeah. Okay. So we're probably expecting so that maybe end of November. 

Alec: [00:06:59] Maybe they'll report.

Bryce: [00:07:00] Couple months in a couple of weeks. It just stopped anyway. It's still it's non-stop. It's non-stop. 

Alec: [00:07:05] All right. So big tech keeps getting bigger. Not really a surprise there. They're also one other company we have in the notes that we didn't talk about Spotify. It turned a profit after a brutal 2020 to the €23 million in profit last quarter, they lost about €250 million, so it could turn around for Spotify. Thought it was worth acknowledging. Has anything that's happened this earnings season change your investing philosophy? 

Bryce: [00:07:32] Well, I'm glad about the Spotify results because I'm a holder on the holder of Spotify. I'm pretty sure I'm still under on them. 

Alec: [00:07:40] I also am still under on them. 

Bryce: [00:07:42] I'm happy about Microsoft and Alphabet because I'm both of those. I will probably take this opportunity to top up on Alphabet a bit though. If looking at their stock price, they're down sort of ten 10% since that peak in October, only a few weeks ago. Might take that. But no, it doesn't change my it doesn't change anything for me. I'm exposed to all of them. They're keeping you know, I think if you look at there's an interesting chart that we released on Instagram, if you want to go and have a look, we put charts out every week and it showed the impact that these big tech companies have on many of the indexes. And just by nature of being in the indexes, you're getting the benefit of those those results. So it doesn't change anything for me. What about you?

Alec: [00:08:25] Know, I mean, keep on keeping on. I think Alphabet is my biggest single stock position and nothing that we're saying would change. 

Bryce: [00:08:34] Yeah. And you got in on meta when it was the rock bottom. 

Alec: [00:08:37] Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:08:37] So have you added to that position? 

Alec: [00:08:41] No, no. I'm like, there's a chance that I sell it at some point, but not now. So let. Right, so it happens. 

Bryce: [00:08:50] All right, well, let's keep moving, Ren. Americans are falling behind on their car loans.

Alec: [00:08:56] Yeah. Now, this is a stat that you're all over. This is a story that you've been watching for years.

Bryce: [00:08:59] Yeah, I've got it up in the office.

Alec: [00:09:03] Americans, It's. It's the highest rate in three decades. 6.1% of car loans are now more than 60 days outstanding, according to Bloomberg. Yeah, which is the highest since I started recording it in 1994 or the highest since 1994. And it's just another indication of Economic stress. 

Bryce: [00:09:25] Higher rates, higher borrowing costs, squeezing that squeezing consumers, essentially. 

Alec: [00:09:32] Yeah. For years this has been a story that's been bubbling in the US and it's never come to anything that, you know, the global financial crisis was there were a lot of subprime mortgages that were then packaged up and then sold on to investors. And then as those mortgages started to fall, then the bottom fell out of the financial system. The same thing happens with auto loans that they you know, the loans get originated by car companies and third party financiers. They then on sell those loans, they get packaged up by investment banks and the like, and they get sold to investors. And, you know, for years, people have been like all this systemic risk in America's auto loan sector and it's just never come to anything. And it may never come to anything, but it's worth being aware that there's more loans in arrears than. 

Bryce: [00:10:21] Yeah, well, these this is like the not the first, but this, this is a strong indicator of the impact of interest rates and maybe of more of what's to come, more broadly across society when borrowers this has impacts then that goes into them spending in the economy. And this is essentially what the RBA once did, not the RBA, the Fed and the RBA wants to happen. Stop people spending, stop people borrowing, stop people heating up the economy. So it is unfortunate for people in this situation in getting their cars repossessed that signal more things to come, I think.

Alec: [00:10:52] Well, you'll keep your finger on that pulse because it's a story that you're very interested in. But speaking of the RBA wanting to stop people borrowing and to slow down the economy as a recent borrower of an undisclosed amount. You know, as someone who's bought a house a couple of weeks ago, how are you feeling? Any updates that you want to share with us? 

Bryce: [00:11:15] We're in the midst of now moving. 

Alec: [00:11:16] Have you like you signed sign on the dotted line? 

Bryce: [00:11:19] No, this is the annoying thing. So you get the contract and then as part of the contract, you need to set up the offset account and you need to put all the sort of information in where you want the money to be debited from and all that sort of stuff. To set up the offset account, you need to ring ANZ or because I'm with ANZ or go to a branch. 

Alec: [00:11:40] Not Sponsored, would take a sponsorship.

Bryce: [00:11:41] Go to a branch to set that up and how it needs to be with us to get to go to, well, you can call or go to a branch to then do it online, to do it over the phone. You need to be digitally verified, which it's like surely by now, after the months of pre-approval and the application and everything, we've been verified. Yeah. No. So I'm an ANZ customer, so I have been here. It's not so does the digital verification. We're now four days into that and they still haven't digitally verified Harriet.

Alec: [00:12:10] What is it? Just like send us a photo of your driver's licence?Okay, Yeah. I mean, Sportsbet can do that. 

Bryce: [00:12:15] And why you would think I should bring that off and just be like, Yes, this is Harriet.

Alec: [00:12:19] Surely, Surely these days you could just connect with my government at your life like ATO. Anyway, it's. 

Bryce: [00:12:26] Unbelievable. So you can't, we can't set the offset account up until she's verified. We can't sign the docs until she's verified. Then once you sign the docs, you have to post it to ANZ.

Alec: [00:12:36] Then that's one I'm not surprised by like signing, signing and wedding for buying a house. 

Bryce: [00:12:41] Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a few things still to go. So long story short, no, we haven't signed on the dotted line, but that's the final hurdle, hoping that we do because I'm getting rid of furniture at a rate of knots from our apartment at the moment. So if it falls through, we're going to be living bare bones. We do have been given my interest rate, so I know what that is. 5.84, which was lower than we thought, which is nice. 

Alec: [00:13:04] So side note, someone in the office was telling us that they are about to roll off the interest rate cliff, mortgage cliff. The interest rate was had a one in front of it. I can't remember exactly what it was like 1.4, 1.7 or something. It's going up to 5.80. It doubles their mortgage repayments. 

Bryce: [00:13:25] Wow. That hurts. 

Alec: [00:13:27] Yeah. Yeah. So how do you guys think about fixed variable? 

Bryce: [00:13:31] Now all of the advise, professional advise we've been given has been to stay variable because the consensus, consensus in the finance is just like whatever. But the consensus is that while the short term may result in some interest rate increases from the RBA, we know that inflation is not where it needs to be, that the longer term over the next three years, the period that you would fix there is a high likelihood that it will simmer or there'll be some rate cuts. That's what we've been told from a professional point of view. Where does that leave us?

Alec: [00:14:05] You just have to hope that Christopher Joye isn't right. And for people who missed his interview on our podcast, definitely worth listening to. But he thought there's a whole nother hiking cycle to come. 

Bryce: [00:14:16] I know that that would be freaky.

Alec: [00:14:19] It's like fixing caps you. Downside like you might miss out on some of the upside if there's a cut. I don't think it's likely that there's a cut, especially with inflation numbers where they are. The Fed had said they'll probably be one more rise by the end of the year.

Bryce: [00:14:35] It's a good point. Like I haven't. I honestly haven't. 

Alec: [00:14:37] You're just like Mr. Conservative most of the time I would have thought you would be like, I'm going to I'm going to err on the side of certainty. 

Bryce: [00:14:44] Well, I think because what we've factored in is like if rates to increase joy and go to double from here, what are they now, five 4%, 4.1. If it goes to 8% you're in trouble. 

Alec: [00:14:58] Everyone's trouble. Like we laugh, but we laugh because you've bought a house. I'm trying to buy a house. 

Bryce: [00:15:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that. Well, that would be. That would be if, if, if it, if they do what the RBA says is sort of likely which may be a half a percent over the next year or whatever, it's like we can handle that, that's been factored in. And so for me, I kind of look at it on the other side. It's like to your point, the downsides caps. The upside is that we get a bit more cash flow. But you know what? It's made me think about it a little bit more. 

Alec: [00:15:28] All right. Well, let's open it up because everyone has opinions on housing. And as two rookies who've never waded into this world before, there's a lot of people with a lot more experience than us. Join us in our Facebook discussion group Equity Mates Investing podcast on Facebook and join the conversation there and give us your thoughts because we actually genuinely need advise.

Bryce: [00:15:52] Hey, equity mates. So just jumping back in here, we finished recording and I had received a message from my mortgage broker around the fixed very variable interest rate. Now, Ren, here's the interesting thing. So I'm with ANZ and they've said that ANZ one year fixed rate is actually currently 6.34%. 

Alec: [00:16:13] and for context your variable is 5.84. Okay. So it's like 50 basis points higher. 

Bryce: [00:16:19] Yeah. And then on top of that for the variable component of the loan, because you can't fix the full loan, you only fix a portion. 

Alec: [00:16:27] Okay. 

Bryce: [00:16:28] It's 0.45% higher than my current variable rate. So, you know, I'm not. I'm not ever going to get the variable rate the way that that's I'm, that's how I'm rating it anyway. So I said so for there to be a benefit of fixing that need to be two rate rises with no rate cuts over the next 12 months. 

Alec: [00:16:46] Right. Okay. And did you I think before we turned the mic on, you said you can also fix at any time. 

Bryce: [00:16:53] Yes. So that was my question to him. I just said out of interest, can I fix my loan at any point in time?

Alec: [00:16:57] So if you. Get a sniff that, oh, Chris Joy might be right. And there's another rate hike cycle coming, not just one or two. But it's like, oh, we're going to get it on. We're getting another 12 rises in 13 months again. 

Bryce: [00:17:11] Yeah, yeah. 

Alec: [00:17:11] Then you can be like, flick the switch, Fix me. 

Bryce: [00:17:14] Yes. He says you learn once your line is up and running, you can you can fix it any point in time. 

Alec: [00:17:19] Can you fix multiple points like could you? I don't know why you would, but, like.

Bryce: [00:17:23] What do you mean? Like.

Alec: [00:17:25] Like fixed for a year. Variable for two fix again. 

Bryce: [00:17:28] Probably. I don't know. I can ask him. But he also says while no one can predict accurately what will happen with rates, his gut feel is that there'd be a it would be better just to keep on variable and ride out any interest rate rides and hope that some rate cuts occur. 

Alec: [00:17:43] Yeah, well, I mean.

Bryce: [00:17:44] So let's leave it there. 

Alec: [00:17:46] The strategy is hope. All right. No. All right, let's move on, because there's a lot to talk about. Let's take a quick break here. And then on the other side, we're going to talk about the owner of Formula One that is listed on the stock market. Producer Sascha is a shareholder and has a question about the. All right. Welcome back to Equity mates. We have a special guest in the studio. Sascha, is your mic working it is. 

Sascha: [00:18:19] I don't know whether I'm a special guest. I think I'm a long time look up. First time talker.

Alec: [00:18:24] I don't think First time talk it, people listen. 

Sascha: [00:18:27] Oh, yeah. 

Alec: [00:18:27] I listen to the dive. That would be very familiar with Sascha. And if you don't listen to the dive, you're missing out on some of the most interesting stories from the world of business and finance. 

Sascha: [00:18:38] So, yeah. What are you doing with your Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays if you're not listening to the dive? 

Alec: [00:18:43] Yes. So head across there and listen. But Sascha, you normally speak to the Equity Mates community and get listeners to jump on the podcast and ask their questions. But you said no listeners, this week I'm putting myself at the front of the queue because I have a question that I want to talk about. So the mic is yours?

Sascha: [00:19:01] Yeah, absolutely. I just shoved a whole bunch of people out of the way. No, I asked this question in a meeting and then we went, Why don't we talk about it on mic? So I'd say when we went to America, I was lightly bullied for admitting the fact that I check my portfolio every day and you guys are like, Don't do that. That's bad. 

Bryce: [00:19:21] Lightly, Bully. 

Sascha: [00:19:24] So I went cold turkey and I was like, okay, I'm not going to check it for a couple of months. And then I logged in recently and I was like, Hang on, weren't these two random stocks come from? And I have no idea what's going on. And so I bought I bought a position in Formula One last year, not a huge amount, but like obviously, I mean, not obviously for anyone who doesn't know me personally, but I'm a massive drive to survive Fan I've read that Warren Buffett had bought into it and I just thought it was a good idea to back my interests. So I've got F.W.O.N.A that's the ticker for Formula One. 

Alec: [00:19:59] Yeah. And the company isn't called Formula One, it's called Liberty Media Corp Series A, but yet they are in Formula One. 

Sascha: [00:20:06] I knew it had a confusing structure because I listened to some series episode on it, so I knew that I was buying the one that's responsible for the Formula One and that kind of stuff. But then when I logged in, I had 4.11 of a company called BATRK, and 5.18 of another one LLYVA , and I guess this is kind of my responsibility for not having paid attention to any of the company announcements, but I just was like, What on earth has happened and now what do I do with these two random stocks? So yeah, that's basically what I want to workshop today.

Alec: [00:20:46] Nice. Well, first of all, we need to be clear to you, Sascha, and to everyone listening that everything we talk about is general advise only and not personal advise. And whilst we are licensed, we're not aware of your personal financial circumstances. And Sascha, to the extent that we are aware of yours, we're not going to talk about them, we're just going to talk about the companies. So I think let's start with what all these codes mean, because we're talking about perhaps the most confusing corporate structure, at least in America. Europe has some doozies over there as well. 

Bryce: [00:21:17] Firstly, if you want a deep dive on this, go back to our summer series. Last year we did a deep dive with Andrew Brown on all things Liberty Media and the fascinating story behind it and the founder. But let's clarify a few things here. So let's start with the stock ticker that you have in your portfolio. Well, you have all three, but the main one there, Sascha, which is F-1 A or FWONA, it is the Liberty Media Corp series, a stock. To confuse things, there is also F1B and F1 K, so three different classes of shares. You've got Series A, we all love series A and it is the company that owns Formula One. 

Alec: [00:22:00] Do we all love series A? 

Bryce: [00:22:01] I love Series A series A Berkshire series A microsoft Alphabet. You want the series A? So there is no logic behind. Yeah. So then, Sascha, you said you had a look and you saw two others you had BATRK. So I don't know. It's the Atlanta Braves holding company. Now, the Atlanta Braves are a major League Baseball team, and so this company owns the Atlanta Braves baseball team. So congratulations. You're an owner, Atlanta Braves. 

Sascha: [00:22:36] Because I'm famous for my sporting progress. Now I own a baseball. 

Bryce: [00:22:40] Yes. Next minute, Sascha is wearing an Atlanta Braves hoodie to the office. And so similarly, they also have a Series A and B stock. So there's the BATRK, BATRK A and BATRK B, And then finally, there's the LLYVA, and that's the Liberty Media Liberty Live company. Now, they are a company for Liberty Media's 30% ownership stake in Live Nation and Live Nation own Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which is a touring company, might say that they would have partnered with Taylor Swift and the like to two of these big acts. So you're a part owner of that. And similarly, they also have sub classes of stock of LLYVA A, LLYVA B and LLYVA K. Wow. 

Alec: [00:23:30] Okay, So let's let's take a deep breath because this story gets even more confusing. But let's talk about Liberty Media, so owned by well, controlled by John C Mmalone, who's like a big, big billionaire, came up in cable TV, was the CEO of TCI for about 23 years. And then through a number of corporate actions, he ended up controlling this company called Liberty Media, rather than just having one stock ticker and just one company and being a conglomerate. They control all these different companies, but split them out and then split each company they have control of into three different share classes as well. So that's why it's so confusing. But essentially, Liberty Media own the Formula One. They own the Atlanta Braves. They have a 30% stake in Live Nation. And then they also owned SiriusXM, which is like a well, they have a major stake in SiriusXM, which is a digital radio platform. And so you can buy all of them separately. You can't buy Liberty Media, the parent company like that's not listed. It's which makes it even more confusing. But this is just the current structure. And over time, Liberty Media buys and sells companies and then they also, like, join together and split out different companies. And so, Sascha, to get back to your original question, which is why the hell do I own part of the Atlanta Braves and Liberty Media? It's because you already did have an ownership stake in these through your Formula One. And now Liberty are splitting those out into separate companies. 

Sascha: [00:25:14] So it's not like I've been paid dividends in the form of another company. They've actually decided to split these out. Give me my timeshare owning as a separate title. 

Alec: [00:25:25] So just like Woolworth's, they merged Endeavour Group and if you owned Woolworths, you then got shares in Endeavour. This is John Malone and his team splitting out the Atlanta Braves into a separate holding company and splitting out Liberty Media. Well, their ownership stake in Live Nation into Liberty Live. So I guess like the obvious question before we get into like what you do is like, why do they do this?

Bryce: [00:25:52] It usually nets. This is just my assumption. Well, probably historically it shows it as well, but it usually nets in a better valuation and company performance from a shareholder point of view for each of the individual companies way even spoke about this last week when it comes to splitting up some of the big tech companies. You might find that now the Atlanta Braves as a separate holding company from a shareholder returns point of view is is better off being separate than if it was still tied up in Liberty Media. 

Alec: [00:26:15] Yeah yeah it's like if you've got a if you've got a great asset you don't want it diluted in a big conglomerate. And then similarly, if you've got a dog of an asset, you don't want it dragging down the. 

Bryce: [00:26:27] Which is why Wesfarmers got rid of Coles dog dog and they wanted to keep.

Alec: [00:26:33] It honestly could be why they split out Live Nation because Live Nation is seen as a monopoly on ticketing and touring. Everyone hates Ticketmaster and there's probably going to be some regulatory moves to split them up or to control them in different ways. And it might be like, let's just, let's get them away from Formula One. So I guess the question is Sascha, what are you going to do with them? 

Sascha: [00:26:58] Well I guess now you've clarified that because the whole thesis of me buying it was for Formula One. Obviously I know nothing about baseball and, and definitely I have like I was a Taylor Swift fan. I have pretty strong feelings about Ticketmaster and Live Nation and we did the Dive episode on it and stuff and like, I'm not 100% sold on the direction that's going in. So just make it clear to me that, yeah, the core of my thesis is kind of, I don't want to say the word pure, but it's kind of like the reason I bought into FWONA was for Formula One, and now it's like more Formula One. So it's kind of okay for me. But now I just have these random I guess the point was, is this going to happen again or do I need to leave them there and will it top up again? But if they're split off as completely different companies, then I might as well just sell it and like think about where I'm going to put my $10 somewhere else. 

Alec: [00:27:54] Yeah, well, I think if you do sell it, just be mindful of the cost base that you claim because you know you bought Formula One and now it's been split into three companies. So make sure you talk to your accountant about the way that you claim the capital gains or capital loss but anyway, we're not here to give tax advise. The one thing to know about the Atlanta Braves is they're pretty good. So they actually they actually topped the National League, which is their conference, and they lost in the playoffs. 

Bryce: [00:28:27] But baseball overall is a sinking ship. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:28:32] What's up most? 

Bryce: [00:28:34] I'll try and dig up a chart. It's fascinating. It just shows like TV audience in game. At game audience is just like almost at rock bottom. And it's been a slide for the last decade. 

Alec: [00:28:46] Doesn't doesn't surprise me.

Sascha: [00:28:47] They need one of their stars to date America's favourite pop star and then maybe it would change.

Bryce: [00:28:54] That's true. So the macro tailwinds, I think, behind baseball are not favourable. 

Alec: [00:29:02] I want to close out this conversation around anti conglomerates because that's kind of what Liberty Media is. Rather than being a a company that builds a big empire and gets bigger and bigger, they split these companies out, give investors choice if they want to hold or sell different parts of the empire. My Stock of the Year last year, AIC, do you remember that? 

Bryce: [00:29:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alec: [00:29:29] It's another example of an antique conglomerate, and I think it's the best example of what these can become. You have to believe in management and you have to believe in the assets. And there's certainly some dogs of assets that come out of these companies. But AIC when Barry Diller took over in 1995, it was known as Silver King. It was trading at $39 a share. If we had bought ten shares of IAC in 1995 and held until the end of 2021, those ten shares of IAC would have turned into, well, you would still have the ten original shares of IAC, you'd have ten shares of Expedia, four shares of QVC, five and a half shares of Live Nation, 0.6 shares of LendingTree, 21 and a half shares of Match Group, ten shares of TripAdvisor, 6.6 shares of Marriott Vacations and $59 in cash from an acquisition of Interval Leisure. And so all of that rolled up at the end of 2021 would have been worth $7,170, which was a 12% compound annual return from what you invested in 1995, which outperformed the S&P 500, which did 7%. It also outperformed Berkshire Hathaway, which did 10%. So like. It's an interesting if you find the right company, it can be an interesting investing strategy. These anti conglomerates, which just like spit out shares of different companies in different industries with different prospects, and then they keep keep doing it over and over again. 

Bryce: [00:31:08] Bershire, I should do it now that I think about it. 

Alec: [00:31:10] Well, Berkshire is the complete opposite. It's the rollout that build the Empire. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:31:14] Yeah, They're the conglomerate. Anyway, thank you, Sascha. 

Alec: [00:31:19] So, did we actually ask your question, Sascha? 

Sascha: [00:31:22] Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like a little underwhelmed with the fact that it's ten dollars, and then you say that thing of, like, Oh, well, you know, if you hold it, this will roll out and this will roll out. So I'm just going to kind of give it some thought as to. 

Bryce: [00:31:34] But I think you've got to be careful, like they'll only roll out what they have like. It's not like Liberty Media's just going to keep spitting out companies. It's it only.

Sascha: [00:31:45] Roll out the F1 and 

Alec: [00:31:49] And that interactive cool story was like 26 years in the making. 

Bryce: [00:31:53] Yeah.

Alec: [00:31:53] 1995 to 2021. But I mean formula story Formula one like that's the story. 

Bryce: [00:32:00] Yes. 

Alec: [00:32:00] Like that's the Liberty Media. 

Bryce: [00:32:01] I think what you said, Sascha is probably the right a good vibe which is you bought it for the F1.

Sascha: [00:32:07] Yeah. I just think that like, you know, they've just opened like, like three new races in the U.S., you know, drive to survive, Let maybe the show start waning because it's already starting to get a bit ridiculous. But, you know, the number of fans that it's brought to the sport and I went to the F1 this year in Melbourne and the money you spend just there for the day, if that's happening all over the world, yeah, it feels like a good story to me, I think. 

Alec: [00:32:32] I think there's more. So I don't know in Formula One, I've certainly thought about owning it, but I think there's more sustainable tailwinds than just the drive to survive sugar hit. Um, sugar hit might be a bit pejorative, but the guy that used to own Formula One on Ecclestone, what's his name? Bernie Ecclestone. I mean, yeah, he just he hated social media and he refused to let any of the teams or any of the drivers share any clips on social media because it was like the F1 is intellectual property. And even just the fact that liberty is like, we want you to be front and centre, we want these clips in the zeitgeist, like even stuff like that. Just engaging with audiences as they should like will bring so many fans beyond drive to survive and stuff like that. Just an openness to media, to recognise that sport is entertainment and to lean into that rather than to like keep it as some, I don't know, old school motor racing club. 

Sascha: [00:33:26] Yeah, but I should say before I go, I have hogged the listening spot today. So if you want to come on the show and talk to the guys, then send us an email at ask@equitymates.com because yeah, I'd love to have someone talk to you next week. 

Bryce: [00:33:38] Well, thank you so much, Sascha. And yes, please, if you want to ask a question, reach out. We'd love to have you on the show. But Ren, that brings us to the end of today's episode. Plenty going on in markets. As always, it's great to chat and we will pick it up tomorrow. Very exciting news. We're trialling a new show format Buy Hold Sell with Adam Keely from Comedian v Economist. He's sitting down with Adam Doers to go through some of the stocks on Adam's list that are a by hold. So it's an awesome episode, so make sure you tune in. Don't miss it.

Alec: [00:34:08] Yeah. So we're doing six weeks of Buy, Hold and Sell. It will be coming out every Tuesday on the Equity Mates feed and we want to get your opinions, so we want to know if this is a content type that you like, how you would do it differently and if we should keep doing it. If you guys love it, we will probably. 

Bryce: [00:34:29] We'll do it. Liberty Media and spin it off. 

Alec: [00:34:31] Yeah. I was going to say we'll create its own podcast feed, but maybe you and I take a day off or something. Or, we just keep releasing it on Tuesday. On Equity Mates. Everything's up for discussion. We want you guys to help us make those decisions. So give the first episode of Listen tomorrow. It'll be then out on the next five Tuesdays after that. But the content train doesn't start and will be then back in your feed On Thursday, Bryce and I are sitting down with Ellie Fordham for our latest Ask an Advisor episode. Another big week of content here at Equity Mates.

Bryce: [00:35:04] Love it.