James POLYZOIDIS

Over a 36-year career spanning international finance, law and disciplined practice, I have allocated capital for 18 years compounding at 24% pa without leverage

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Gold doesn't have to keep rising for NEM to keep creating value.

Newmont $NEM Q3:

• ~1.3Moz gold
• US$1.9bn FCF
• AISC US$1,454/oz
• net cash US$3.2bn
• share count ↓ ~10% since Feb 2024 (USD$112bn market cap)

At high gold prices, NEM is converting the margin into cash, strengthening the balance sheet & buying back shares.

The important question isn't whether gold rises again next quarter.

It's whether NEM still offers attractive economics at a conservative, normalised gold price. Q3 shows that costs are controlled and that NEM is generating serious cash flow.

And that leads to a bigger question:

If you're bullish on gold, should you own physical gold, GLD, NEM — or gold futures?

Same underlying theme. Very different investments. A topic we will be addressing soon in another post.

#NEM #Newmont #Gold #Investing #CapitalAllocation #WWC

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Is the market now too pessimistic on GDG?

Generation Development Group $GDG:ASX owns three attractive wealth-management franchises:

• Generation Life
• Evidentia
• Lonsec

Our current SOTP valuation is approximately A$2.63bn.

Market cap at the time of our analysis: ~A$1.3bn.

More strikingly, our assessed value of #GenerationLife alone, less the full negative value of Corporate, exceeds GDG’s entire market cap.

The discount is not irrational.

#Evidentia still needs to prove operating leverage. Gen Life has a heavy near-term capex program. Corporate costs and SBC are substantial.

But the underlying businesses continue to perform.

The question is whether the market has now priced in too much disappointment.

Our latest Polygon Aegis / WWC case study:

Generation Development Group: When the Market Stops Giving Management the Benefit of the Doubt https://t.co/vg0z67CPAG

Disclosure: Polygon Aegis owns GDG shares. General information only, not financial advice.

#GDG #ASX #ValueInvesting #CapitalAllocation #IntrinsicValue #Lonsec

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

@Radha_AI Misguided and self serving. If/When most human labor becomes valueless, all markets collapse. You return to a form of feudalism where just the very few own everything. As Henry Ford once said, your customers need to be able to afford your products.

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

The Penny Is Dropping: Who Really Pays for the AI Infrastructure Boom?

AI infrastructure risk wasn't eliminated. It was shifted to leveraged intermediaries (the so called "neoclouds").

Capital is repricing. Neocloud equity investors face dilution or distressed asset sales. Lenders to neoclouds face credit losses. Cost of capital is rising rapidly.

If hyperscalers want the compute, they'll increasingly have to underwrite the risk.

What does this mean for hyperscalers' free cash flow, cap ex, debt loads, ROIC and riskiness in general?

And what does this mean for Nvidia who has sponsored the neoclouds and the circular financing arrangements which have generated #NVDA GPU sales?

We are experiencing an AI revolution. How much of it is being enabled simply by financial engineering?

#AI #CRWV #DataCenters #Firmus #Neoclouds #PrivateCredit #WWC #NextDC #Airtrunk #WWC

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

@CLAUDIODD5 Poor bugger

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

@JamesLucasIT Wonderful. such creations should give us all hope inspiration and confidence that humanity will continue to remain relevant and thrive in a hi tech AI world. Thank you for posting

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

OXY Q3: the oil-price windfall continues.

At ~$65 oil we estimate normalised OXY after-tax FCF of ~US$5bn p.a., after sustaining capex.

Q3 realised oil: $85.91/bbl.

Our OXY estimated incremental after-tax windfall cash: ~US$1bn in Q3 alone.

Temporary oil prices. Potentially permanent value created as that cash strengthens the balance sheet and expands capital-allocation optionality.

OXY's debt is now around target levels & it is starting to build a war chest.

Will it redeem the BRK prefs before 2029? I suspect so if the windfall continues into 2027.

#OXY #Oil #Energy #Investing #CapitalAllocation #ValueInvesting #WWC

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Brazil’s macro equation is getting interesting for $NU.

Our latest WWC Brazil Credit Dashboard shows:

🇧🇷 Unemployment: 5.3%
👷 Formal jobs: +166k in August
💰 Real wages: +3.7% YoY
📈 Aggregate real labour income: record high
🏦 Selic: falling, now 13.75%
⚠️ Inflation: improving longer-term, but September pressures have re-emerged

For Nubank, employment remains the key variable.

Brazilian households are still working and earning more in real terms — supportive of debt-servicing capacity.

Now add politics.

The first-round election result has increased market expectations of a possible change of government and a more aggressive fiscal adjustment.

That creates an interesting trade-off.

A right-leaning government could mean less direct support and debt relief for lower-income borrowers — a modest negative for some NU customers.

But greater fiscal discipline could also mean:

lower sovereign risk → lower inflation expectations → lower long-term rates → more room for Selic cuts → lower funding and borrowing costs.

Markets have already begun pricing some of this:

Brazilian long-term rates fell sharply following the first-round result.

For $NU, the sweet spot would be:

strong employment + rising real incomes + falling inflation + lower Selic + improving fiscal credibility.

We’re not there yet.

But the pieces are becoming increasingly interesting.

#Nubank #NU #Brazil #Investing #Fintech #InterestRates #Inflation #Credit #CapitalAllocation #WWC

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

WWC - Q3 Allocator’s Letter

Last quarter Q3 we doubled $NU.
Sold ~90% of $REA.AX.
Started adding $GDG.AX again.
Watched the evidence compound at $4DX.AX
Kept $BRK.B as our reserve asset.
And watched $OXY turn an oil windfall into balance-sheet strength.

Very different businesses. Very different decisions. One question: What is the single best use of the next dollar?

That's one of the themes running through our first quarterly WWC True Wealth - Allocator's Letter.

But investing is only part of allocation.

The same question applies to our time, health, energy and attention.

Spring 2026: Renewal, Vision & Reference Points.

WWC TRUE WEALTH - The Allocator’s Letter - James Polyzoidis

https://t.co/PvmNNB7n0b

#CapitalAllocation #LongTermInvesting #TrueWealth #WealthAndWellnessCode #Berkshire #4DX

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Whatever Happened to Those Underwater Bank Bonds?

Remember those massive underwater bank bond Held To Maturity (#HTM) portfolios everyone stopped talking about?

They didn't disappear.

At 30 June:

#BAC's HTM loss: ~$82bn
#USB's HTM loss: ~$9.5bn

Now the US 10Y has hit ~5.15% and the 30Y ~5.46%—its highest since 2004.

My rough estimate: the latest bond rout could have added another ~$13–17bn to BAC's HTM shortfall and ~$2–3bn to USB's.

That potentially puts BAC near $95–100bn underwater and USB around $11–12bn.

These are estimates—not reported Q3 marks.

For BAC that would be almost half of its Net Tangible Assets.

BAC was already $82.1bn underwater on HTM at June 30—16.2% of amortised cost. And an extraordinary $379bn is agency MBS, precisely the sort of long-duration asset hurt by the latest move.

There is an additional sting here. Higher mortgage rates reduce refinancing/prepayments. That extends the effective duration of BAC's low-coupon MBS just when you don't want duration extending—classic negative convexity.

We cannot know the precise mark without repricing BAC's individual MBS pools, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. But we can estimate the order of magnitude.

If the remaining portfolio has an effective duration around 5–6 years, another 60–70 bp parallel-ish adverse move implies roughly another 3–4% price decline, before convexity effects. Applied to roughly $424bn of June fair value, that's something like $13–17bn of additional mark-to-market damage.

That would potentially put BAC's HTM economic shortfall somewhere around:
$95–100bn.

HTM accounting didn't make these economic losses disappear. Maybe it just allows time to disguise how the loss is realised. At worst, the bank's real capital base has taken an almighty hit.

#Banking #Bonds #BAC #USB #Investing #CapitalAllocation #WWCTrueWealth #MBS #USD

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

$REA.AX A great business is not necessarily a great investment at any price.

We sold ~90% of our REA position in August when prospective returns no longer justified the valuation.

Since then, growth has moderated and the regulator has arrived — both risks we were watching.

Our August valuation: ~A$130/share. Around those levels, assuming the thesis remains intact, we’d be interested again.

Quality earns a place on the watchlist. Valuation earns a place in the portfolio.

Full REA case study + new postscript:
https://t.co/I33rnJvBrX

#REA #Investing #CapitalAllocation #ValueInvesting #WWC #ASX #WWCTrueWealth

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Bond and equity markets are sending opposing signals.

Something has to give ...eventually

Long-term yields remain punishing. #Energy costs are elevated. Inflation persists.

Yet richly valued US risk assets continue trading near record highs.

We don’t need to short the market to respond.

Our playbook: own conservative, cash-generative assets; hold liquidity; accumulate #USD; and earn attractive yields in short-duration #Treasuries while we wait.

We’re also exploring another opportunity:

AUD → JPY → productive Japanese #value defence/industrial #equities.

Don’t predict the break. Position yourself to exploit it.

You don’t need to predict the next market crash. You need to structure your capital so that if it comes, you welcome it.

#WWCTrueWealth #Investing #Markets #CapitalAllocation #JPY

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

@JamesLucasIT What’s she listening to?

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Structure Your North Star

https://t.co/y3kuIs4lHo

Activity is not direction.

Compounding magnifies whatever structure is already in place—including small errors.
First define the outcome.
Then design the structure.
Only then optimise the strategy.

Your North Star defines the destination.
Your structure determines whether you arrive.
#WealthAndWellnessCode #LongTermThinking #CapitalAllocation #BusinessStrategy #Investing

[James POLYZOIDIS @JamesPolyzoidis]

Are You Fit Enough to Achieve Your Mighty Purpose? Or Must You Become Healthier?

What are you becoming healthy and fit for?

Fitness helps us meet a demand.

Health gives us capacity.

Askesis is the training.

Purpose gives it direction.

We don’t become healthy to become good at being healthy.

We become healthy to become good at life.

My latest piece:
https://t.co/ZGEmoYPgvM

#Health #Fitness #Purpose #Askesis #LiveBigger
#Wellbeing #SelfMastery #Yoga #Askesis #WWC #Weath&WellnessCode #AnasaWellness