Hello and welcome to Livewire’s Buy Hold Sell. I’m Grady Wulff. Today, we’re looking at five stock ideas for investors who are feeling a little more bearish in the current conditions to bolster their portfolios.
Lucky to be joined today by Blake Henricks from Firetrail, and Marcus Bogdan from Blackmore Capital. Gents, thanks for your time. Let’s start with Amcor, the packaging company, it’s quite defensive. Marcus, is it a buy, hold or sell?It’s a hold. Great defensive industries, protein, healthcare, pet food and coffee. Three of those sectors are starting to slow down now. It was a darling in 2022, but those upgrades now are starting to slow and they’re starting to see some volume contraction there. So it’s a hold.Hold for you. Blake, do you agree or disagree? The shares are up 8.3 per cent year to date.It’s a hold as well.
There was some concern that they may not be able to pass through resin costs. They did that. So as a defensive, I think it really fits the bill. But I also share some of Marcus’ concerns that if there is de-stocking in some of their sectors or any kind of slowdown, you will see some operational downgrades. And so for me, it’s a hold.It’s a hold for both of the gentlemen here today.
When we actually look at the core business, what we’re seeing is increasing amounts of telehealth. In-person visits to GPs are down 25 per cent, and we’re quite concerned about the referrals. So many things have reverted post-COVID-19, but one thing that hasn’t seems to be telehealth. And on that basis, this industry has a defensive top line, but the industry’s just never generated the returns that it should in our view. So for us, it’s a sell.Conflicted opinions there.