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| On Wednesday, September 3, 2025, the ASX fell 162 points to finish at 8739, its lowest point since 4/8/25. This was the fourth down day in a row and continues September’s record of being a weak month (seasonal weakness), even though the second quarter GDP(announced today) was better than expected at 0.6%. Likely to see the RBA on hold in September. According to Bell Potter’s Coppo report, a large seller was in the market all day (I’m not sure whether offshore or domestic). The selling was concentrated in the top 10 stocks, which represented 62% of the fall. CBA dropped to $164.55, its lowest price since 29/4/25. The market always has issues of concern to consider, hence the saying that it climbs a wall of worry, as it has been doing since the fall in April (Liberation Day). Apart from the September weakness, there is a risk that the issues of concern may provide the volatility we have been concerned about. Things the markets are watching: 1. President Trump is pressuring the US Federal Reserve to drop interest rates (they meet on Sept 17) and looking to change board members. 2. Long Bond rates are pushing higher (30-year rates are all higher in the UK, Japan, Germany, and the US). This means more interest is paid on Government debt. 3. US Courts have said most of the President’s Tariffs are illegal. If the Supreme Court agrees, approximately $96 billion could be paid back. This will put further pressure on interest rates. 4. Signs are that global inflation is starting to push back up. This may stop interest rates from falling. 5. A global slowing economy due to uncertainty from trade relationships. The US big stick approach may be witnessing another big stick with the summit held in China (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – SCO) over the weekend. This is the 25th meeting of this group, which included China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and the other stans. Additionally, the meeting was attended by a raft of other countries, including Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. 6. The price of gold is hitting a new all-time high of $3,616.90. Gold is known to be an investor’s safe haven. 7. Technology valuations have pushed US markets to near ALL-TIME HIGHS. However, valuations remain reasonable for growth companies. NVIDIA, detailed below, has a PE of 29, as does Apple. Google has a PE of 21. These are certainly not like the dot com boom valuations that saw PE in 100’s or even 1000’s. The only Magnificent 7 with a PE in that ballpark is Tesla, which has a PE of 175 and has fallen 18% this year. None of these issues is new, and the market might decide that the benefits from lower interest rates, deregulation and the adoption of AI will provide more benefits than the list above. That’s why we take a long-term view and don’t try to trade the market. We will likely see more volatility in the coming weeks. We are happy for you to share our Not So Daily Bulletin with family and friends, and if we can help them, we are also excited to chat. |
| Value from the Reporting Season We have collated information from Morgan’s best ideas and Bell Potter regarding stocks in the CORE Watchlist. 1. CSL Ltd (CSL) Morgans – Healthcare. Although a softer 2H Behring result and awkward restructuring timing may unsettle investors, we see the growth engine intact, with cost savings reinforcing the path to sustained double-digit earnings growth. We have a BUY rating on CSL with a blended DCF, PE and EV/EBITDA based target price of A$293.83. Price Target $293.83 Div.Yield 2.3% PE FY26 19x 2y EPSg 11.0%. Bell Potter – Trading on a PE of 17.5 times FY27 (gave guidance of 7-10% NPAT growth for FY26, so I think they should do double-digit per annum EPS growth over the medium term). CSL’s Long Term PE average is closer to 25 times, so looks very compelling, as it trades below the market multiple at current, yet it’s a premium business. 2. Amcor (AMC) Morgans – Industrial AMC is a highly defensive business with leading global market positions and experienced management. We expect the addition of Berry, along with potential divestments, to enhance AMC’s growth outlook and balance sheet over the medium term. While execution of synergy targets will be the key, AMC has a strong track record in integrating large-scale transactions. Price Target $15.20 Div.Yield 6.3% PE FY26 11x 2y EPSg 12.0%. Bell Potter – Trading on a PE of 9.5 times FY27 (assuming all the synergies are realised with Berry) this is a standout buy! Yield over 6% FY27. 3. Woodside Energy (WDS) Morgans – We remain bullish on WDS as a business. The jump in net debt rightly increases delivery risk, but on the positive side the hurdles for WDS to unlock material value upside from here align with where its well-established core strengths sit. If oil prices hold steady we expect a discount in WDS’ share price to persist in the short term until it reassures on its capex profile and/or secures LALNG selldown(s). We remain cautious on the short-term outlook for oil prices, if any volatility were to unfold it would likely offer an attractive opportunity to increase positions. Price Target $29.60 Div.Yield 5.4% PE FY26 21x 2y EPSg -5% Bell Potter – Woodside are likely to have an earnings trough in FY26 with Scarborough production coming on at the end of 2026. BarrenJoey have earnings forecasts 50% higher than consensus for FY27 (see attached), and I think their numbers will be closer to correct over the medium term, as Trion production comes online in FY28 and Louisiana LNG in FY29, so there is going to be a big production uplift coming for the patient investor, and this should see the stock back in to the mid $30’s using a PE of 15, which is close to its long term average. 4. ResMed Inc (RMD) Morgans – Healthcare While weight loss drugs have grabbed headlines and investor attention, we see these products having little impact on the large, underserved sleep disorder breathing market, and do not view them as category killers. We view RMD’s overall fundamentals as sound, with profitability improving as margins expand. Price Target $47.86 Div.Yield 0.9% PE FY26 25x 2y EPSg 9.3% 5. Goodman Group (GMG) Morgans – Property GMG is a global industrial property group with a focus on infill sites across gateway markets. GMG actively manages its portfolio, growing Assets Under Management (AUM) and adding value through a buy, build, manage strategy. We view GMG as a high-quality, founder-led business with a robust balance sheet and a portfolio of Agrade data centre and industrial assets. Whilst uncertain, we see the opportunity in GMG’s 5GW powerbank and its capacity to see sustained earnings growth as development yields improve. Price Target $38.40 Div.Yield 0.9% PE FY26 26x 2y EPSg 13.0%. 6. Orica (ORI) Morgans – Industrials ORI is now not only the world’s largest explosives company, but it is also the global leader in geotechnical and structural monitoring in mining and civil infrastructure and the world’s largest producer of sodium cyanide. ORI is leading the industry with its technology offering. Importantly, this area is high growth and high margin work. ORI is set to deliver solid earnings growth over coming years reflecting strong demand, recontracting benefits, further mix/margin benefits and strong growth from Digital Solutions and Specialty Mining Chemicals. Management continues to execute well and has a solid track record. ORI is trading on attractive multiples which are at a discount to its 5-year average. Price Target $21.70 Div.Yield 4.6% PE FY26 12x 2y EPSg 11.2%. 7. Orora (ORA) – Bell Potter – Looks interesting with the company winning market share in their SaverGlass business (earnings seem to have bottomed here) with $50M of EBIT to flow through to their cans business from FY26, as they finish Rocklea expansion. Good buying in the low $2.00’s, as I think when their buyback finishes this year they are likely to launch another buy back due to the health of their balance sheet and this should see their earnings lift significantly. I think it will trade on a market multiple medium term, so EPS 16 cents FY27 multiplied by 18 equates to $2.88. Market is worried there is a structural decline in alcohol consumption, but the company is confident that SaverGlass is in a growth segment of premium spirits and wines. |
| NVIDIA – the largest company in the world NVIDIA (semi-conductors) is now clearly the largest company in the world, valued at $4.15 trillion. It had been battling Microsoft with a value of $3.75 trillion and Apple with a value of $3.41 trillion for that honour. NVIDIA is one of the most influential and innovative companies in the global technology landscape, especially in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), accelerated computing, and high-performance graphics. However, most people haven’t heard of it, let alone what it does. I have asked Co-pilot for a brief explanation. NVIDIA began as a graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturer in 1993, and its invention of the GPU in 1999 revolutionised computer graphics and gaming. Today, it is a full-stack computing infrastructure company that provides: GPUs for gaming, professional visualisation, and data centres.AI hardware and software, including supercomputers and microservices for AI model deployment. Software platforms like CUDA (a parallel computing model), Omniverse (for digital twins), and Clara (for healthcare AI). Specialised systems for autonomous vehicles (NVIDIA Drive), robotics (Jetson), and edge computing. NVIDIA is central to the AI revolution: It powers AI factories—data centres optimised for training and deploying AI models. Its chips are used in large language models, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and medical imaging. Over 40,000 companies use NVIDIA AI technology, and its CUDA platform has over 53 million downloads. In July 2025, NVIDIA became the first publicly traded company to surpass a $4 trillion market valuation, underscoring its dominance and investor confidence in its role in shaping the future of tech. Broader Impacts Gaming: Over 200 million gamers use NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. Healthcare: AI frameworks like MONAI are transforming medical imaging. Robotics & Autonomous Vehicles: NVIDIA powers all top autonomous vehicle data centres and supports over 1.7 million robotics developers. Sustainability: Accelerated computing with NVIDIA chips could save nearly 30 trillion watt-hours of energy per year compared to traditional CPU-based systems. Would you like a visual summary or a timeline of NVIDIA’s evolution and milestones? Below is a graph of NVIDIA’s revenue breakdown per quarter since Q4FY21. The light green is the revenue from computer gaming, which has increased from $2.4bn to $4.3bn over the five years. However, the growth has been in the dark green data centres, which have seen revenue increase from $1.9bn in Q4FY21 to a whopping $41.1bn in Q2FY2026. The second graph shows where the revenue comes and goes. A total of $46bn for the quarter saw cost and operating expenses equate to $18.3bn and tax of $4.8bn, which means the Net Profit After Tax is $26.4bn for the quarter or 57c in every $1 of revenue. NVIDIA is part of a raft of ETFs we use: IVV, NDQ, QUAL, QHAL, RBTZ, IOO & SEMI |
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| Ongoing Fee Agreement – some need Reissuing Notification for Provincial Wealth clients As of 10 January 2025, new legislation has streamlined how financial advisers manage ongoing fee arrangements (OFAs). The annual Fee Disclosure Statement (FDS) has been removed, and a single consent form now covers both the renewal of your advice arrangement and authorisation for fees to be deducted from your account. This form must include specific details such as the services provided, fee amounts, account information, and your reference date. We started using these changes in May 2025. We have just been notified that the OFAs used since May don’t meet the requirements set by ASIC. The Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) and ASIC have acknowledged that this is a widespread problem across the advice industry. As a result, we’ll be reaching out to affected clients to update and reissue their OFAs to ensure full compliance. ASIC has provided temporary relief for some of these issues, but we’re taking proactive steps to ensure everything is correct and transparent. If you receive a request from us to review or re-sign your arrangement, please know it’s part of our commitment to keeping your financial advice aligned with the latest regulations. Please note the fees haven’t changed. |
| Financial Planning Snippets PLEASE BE VIGILANT regarding financial scamming. If anyone is requesting financial information from you (via phone, email, text, or social media), please contact us first or ask them for their ABN. Super Guarantee (SGC) for employees increases to 12% from 1/7/25. Concessional super contributions maximum of $30k Commonwealth Seniors Health Care card has seen the income limit increase to $158,440 (couple) $99,025 (single). If you are of Age Pension age and don’t have the card, please let us know. |
| Age Pension Deeming rates change. The deeming rate for Aged pension calculations will change from 20 September. Financial assets are deemed to earn a specific rate of income when being assessed for Aged Pension. For a single, the first $64,200 and for a couple, the first $106,2000 is deemed to earn 0.25%. This is being increased to 0.75%. The assets above these are amounts are deemed to earn 2.25%. This will be increased from 2.75%. For the vast majority of people on Aged Pension it will have litle or no impact. If you have any questions, please let us know. |
| Other Stories Macquarie reduced interest rates after the RBA cut. CMA 2%, Accelerator 3.9%. – The US Court ruled on Google’s antitrust case, saying Google doesn’t have to be broken up. This saw Google up 7% and Apple 3% after the US market closed. |
| Broker Target Price Changes Target Prices should be viewed as a compass (the general direction) rather than a GPS destination. Ord Minnett Computershare (CPU) increased from $42 (highest broker) to $43.60 (still highest broker) Lend Lease (LLC) increased from $5.85 (lowest broker) to $5.90 (equal lowest broker) Orora (ORA) decreased from $2.30 to $2.20 Sonic Health (SHL) decreased from $26.50 to $24.50 (lowest broker) Morgans Telstra (TLS) increased from $4.70 (lowest broker) to $4.80 Morgan Stanley BHP increased from $43.50 to $46.50 (highest broker) Goodman Group (GMG) increased from $40.57 (highest broker) to $41.50 (still highest broker) Rio Tinto (RIO) increased from $118 to $121 (equal highest broker) Seek.com (SEK) increased from $30 to $32.50 Macquarie Westpac (WBC) increased from $27.50 to $30 Bell Potter/Citigroup UBS WBC increased from $36 (highest broker) to $38 (still highest broker) Tracking changes for 2025 Upgrades 271 Downgrades 230 |
| Core Watchlist Index (changes since last Not So) The CORE Watchlist is a collection of 30 Australian shares, predominantly “Blue Chip”. We obtain research from up to 6 brokers on each share. Each broker provides a Target Price (value in 12 months) which then provides us with an average for each stock. We then compare that average to the current price as a percentage. IE Macquarie price $176.95 Av. Target Price $205.96= 85.9% (meaning 14.1% upside over next 12 months) + income 4.35% (including franking). To get the CORE Index we take the average across the 30 stocks. This provides us with a market average as there are up to 80 teams of analysts providing the research and target prices. The CORE Watchlist stocks represent more than 55% of the ASX 200 and so provide us with a good indicator of the market value. When it’s at 100% then the market is fully priced. We have seen that when the index is below 90%, then it’s good buying, but that doesn’t happen very often. Should you have any questions, please let me know. The Core index decreased from 98.20% to 96.27%. If we removed the 4 banks, the index falls to 92% Overall Earnings Per Share (EPS) FY25 increased from 1.20% to 2.21% FY26 decreased from 7.93% to 6.17% (new low) Most expensive – CBA 143.2% (176.5% highest ever). Least expensive – CSL 71.3%. The CORE Watchlist has 6 (9) stocks trading above 100%; they are; ANZ CBA JBH NAB WBC WES lowest number ever is 0, highest is 15. While 7 (4) is trading below 85% (the highest is 18, and the lowest is one). AMC CSL LLC NXT S32 SEK SHL (Figures in brackets are last Not So). STOCKS TRADING BELOW ALL BROKER FORECASTS ARE AS FOLLOWS; (it has been a handy indicator in the past). 12 out of the 30 CORE stocks are trading below the lowest broker target price. Highest 24. Lowest is 2. ALL current price $69.04 Broker range $70 to $76 AMC current price $12.78 Broker range $14.20 to $18.25 CSL current price $206.62 Broker range $258 to $300 GMG current price $32.26 Broker range $32.50 to 41.50 LLC current price $5.43 Broker range $5.90 to $7.12 NXT current price $16.48 Broker range $18.00 to $22.10 RMD current price $41.60 Broker range $47.86 to $49 S32 current price $2.63 Broker range $2.70 to $3.95 SEK current price $26.61 Broker range $30 to $32.50 SHL current price $22.74 Broker range $24.50 to $29.40 STO current price $7.83 Broker range $8.50 to $8.88 WOW current price $27.15 Broker range $28.25 to $33 Added ALL SHL STO WOW Removed |
| Banking Index (changes since last Not So) Like the CORE Watchlist index, the Banking index is the four major banks’ average target price based on research from up to 6 brokers. The percentage below 100% is the potential upside over the next 12 months (not including income). If at or over 100%, then this indicates the Banks are fully priced. The banking index decreased from 127.1% to 123.2%. Based on today’s bank prices, the table below shows the estimated dividends (c) and yield. PLUS FRANKING. FY 25 % FY 26 % FY 27 % ANZ 164.00 5.01% 162.00 4.95% 162.2 4.95% CBA 485.40 2.95% 501.40 2.95% 518.2 3.15% NAB 170.00 4.05% 171.20 4.08% 167.8 4.00% WBC 152.00 4.09% 155.20 4.18% 151.6 4.08% MQG 650.00 2.92% 739.50 3.32% 801.25 3.60% CBA yield is below all the others. Dividend expectations for BHP and RIO. The forecasts below are for the full year. Plus franking. Please note RIO is Calendar Year (CY). Cents per share (CPS). FY 25 % FY 26 % FY 27 % BHP 171.00 4.07% 170.20 4.06% 176.60 4.21% RIO 541.40 4.77% 541.40 4.77% 566.20 4.99% |
| Other Indicators (changes since last Not So) US VIX (Fear) Index increased from 15.36 to 17.17. Inside the normal range. Normal is 10-17. Iron Ore decreased from $103.40 to $102.45. The average expectation for 2025 is $98.3. Copper increased from $4.54 to $4.56. It reached an all-time high of $5.8955 on July 8 . Gold increased from $3553 to $3595. New ATH $3616.90 occurred today. AUD/USD decreased from 65.42c to 65.10c. Asian markets – MIXED US 10-year Bonds increased from 4.23% to 4.29%. 2-year rate 3.66%. 30 year rate below 5% at 4.99%. German 10 year Bonds increased from 2.73% to 2.78%. Japanese 10 year Bonds increased from 1.62% to 1.63% . Highest for 16 years was 1.632%. 30-year Bond hit an ATH of 3.25% Aussie Bonds 10 year Bonds increased from 4.33% to 4.42%. Recent high 4.95%. Oil prices increased from $63.73 to $65.36. Increased on increased Iranian sanctions The price of tungsten in China increased from $503mtu to $513mtu. The European price range remained at $495mtu-$545mtu. Prices are nearing an all-time high. |
| This week & next week Last, “Not So” opened in 7 Aust states (excl NT), 5 US states (California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Virginia & South Carolina), Bulgaria, Sweden and a new country visited by a Not So reader. Country 51 Portugal (Lisbon). This week – In Office Next week – In Office except Sept 11. PO BOX 149 Deniliquin NSW 2710 125 End St, Deniliquin, NSW 2710 Ph. 03 58950100 Fax 03 58950101 Mobile 0412113524 scottm@provincialwealth.com.au kevinh@provincialwealth.com.au chrisp@provincialwealth.com.au maddyl@provincialwealth.com.au karaw@provincialwealth.com.au |
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